Massive Battery Drain - GPS is on constantly.

[MatthewGavin]

I think I solved it… I believe the app DriveMode was causing an issue. Here is what I think happened. When I got my phone a year ago, I immediately disabled few apps, DriveMode was one of them. I believe the recent update was designed to more closely interact with DriveMode and even though the app was disabled, it appeared that as soon as the phone acquired data connection, it tried to determine whether or not the user was moving. When I re-enabled the app, I disabled it internally (within the app) and I guess that told the OS not to bother determining if the user was moving anymore. Here are the steps: I re-enabled DriveMode, I then went to google play and updated it to the latest version, I opened the app and immediately noticed GPS icon turned on, the screen appeared telling me to enable GPS, I checked ignore check box and left the location service running in battery save mode. I closed the Drive mode app and left it along without disabling it. I did this yesterday and haven’t noticed GPS turning on even once since then.
I hope this helps everyone solve this annoying problem; please let me know if this works for anyone…

If this was the issue, wouldn't the GPS not come on during safe mode?
I am going to try it to see if it works.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[madelman99]

But when I tried safe mode, I had an old version of Drive mode.

 

[anon(3846388)]

So I've been having this same issue, and I tried the drive mode fix... It didn't seem today like it was working, but I'll give it a full day to get an idea of if it looks any better or not.

 

[Bluemax1962]

I just tried this and it seems to have stopped the GPS from initiating. I tried all the things that started it before and nothing yet. Thanks for sharing. Please keep us updated if there are any changes.

 

[MatthewGavin]

But when I tried safe mode, I had an old version of Drive mode.

I did the fix yesterday and have been happy to see that my battery is not draining like it has over the past few weeks. I will see what the rest of the day brings. THANK YOU madelman99!!!!

 

[holz75]

I think I solved it… I believe the app DriveMode was causing an issue. Here is what I think happened. When I got my phone a year ago, I immediately disabled few apps, DriveMode was one of them. I believe the recent update was designed to more closely interact with DriveMode and even though the app was disabled, it appeared that as soon as the phone acquired data connection, it tried to determine whether or not the user was moving. When I re-enabled the app, I disabled it internally (within the app) and I guess that told the OS not to bother determining if the user was moving anymore. Here are the steps: I re-enabled DriveMode, I then went to google play and updated it to the latest version, I opened the app and immediately noticed GPS icon turned on, the screen appeared telling me to enable GPS, I checked ignore check box and left the location service running in battery save mode. I closed the Drive mode app and left it along without disabling it. I did this yesterday and haven’t noticed GPS turning on even once since then.
I hope this helps everyone solve this annoying problem; please let me know if this works for anyone…

If you're talking about the ATT drive mode, it certainly did not work for me. I still think it's related to having a weak cell signal at certain times.

 

[madelman99]

Well, I tried. It did work for at least two people and I tried it in two different states so not sure if it is the tower.

 

[david03w]

I think I solved it… I believe the app DriveMode was causing an issue. Here is what I think happened. When I got my phone a year ago, I immediately disabled few apps, DriveMode was one of them. I believe the recent update was designed to more closely interact with DriveMode and even though the app was disabled, it appeared that as soon as the phone acquired data connection, it tried to determine whether or not the user was moving. When I re-enabled the app, I disabled it internally (within the app) and I guess that told the OS not to bother determining if the user was moving anymore. Here are the steps: I re-enabled DriveMode, I then went to google play and updated it to the latest version, I opened the app and immediately noticed GPS icon turned on, the screen appeared telling me to enable GPS, I checked ignore check box and left the location service running in battery save mode. I closed the Drive mode app and left it along without disabling it. I did this yesterday and haven’t noticed GPS turning on even once since then.
I hope this helps everyone solve this annoying problem; please let me know if this works for anyone…

YES!!! That fixed it for me! And the answer makes complete sense.

I had been going crazy trying to find what was using the GPS. I could view the battery history and see long periods when the GPS was on, but even when I was seeing an active GPS icon, I could view running apps and see nothing unusual. And viewing "recent location requests" didn't show anything different either. I did notice, however, from the battery history graph that it didn't happen when I was at home connected to my wi-fi.

Anyway, madelman99 is correct. I had also disabled DriveMode when I first got my phone. I too believe that the update is somehow getting DriveMode to determine if the phone is moving or not even though the app is disabled and the GPS is set to off (battery-saving mode in location setting). I think that also explains why it doesn't do it when I'm connected to my wi-fi at home (i.e. because it assumes I'm not moving if I'm connected to a wi-fi network?)

At first it didn't work for me. I started by re-enabling the DriveMode app. (Please excuse the following lack of concrete details. I did this procedure the other day and was just so excited it finally worked that I forgot some of the details, and now I can't replicate whatever gave me the initial screen that popped up when I started the app after the first time I re-enabled it since the 4.4.4 update.) It gave me a screen that asked me something like did I want to allow this app to use location services to determine my location. I immediately said no, and I think the app closed. That didn't fix it.

Next time I went through the app setup procedure and said yes. It asked a couple more questions and then finally asked if I wanted to enable the automatic mode (which is what tries to determine if you're moving by constantly pinging the GPS). I said no to that, closed the app, did NOT disable it again, and I haven't seen the GPS pop up in days!

Thanks again, madelman99!!

 

[Binxiboobear]

YES!!! That fixed it for me! And the answer makes complete sense.

I had been going crazy trying to find what was using the GPS. I could view the battery history and see long periods when the GPS was on, but even when I was seeing an active GPS icon, I could view running apps and see nothing unusual. And viewing "recent location requests" didn't show anything different either. I did notice, however, from the battery history graph that it didn't happen when I was at home connected to my wi-fi.

Anyway, madelman99 is correct. I had also disabled DriveMode when I first got my phone. I too believe that the update is somehow getting DriveMode to determine if the phone is moving or not even though the app is disabled and the GPS is set to off (battery-saving mode in location setting). I think that also explains why it doesn't do it when I'm connected to my wi-fi at home (i.e. because it assumes I'm not moving if I'm connected to a wi-fi network?)

At first it didn't work for me. I started by re-enabling the DriveMode app. (Please excuse the following lack of concrete details. I did this procedure the other day and was just so excited it finally worked that I forgot some of the details, and now I can't replicate whatever gave me the initial screen that popped up when I started the app after the first time I re-enabled it since the 4.4.4 update.) It gave me a screen that asked me something like did I want to allow this app to use location services to determine my location. I immediately said no, and I think the app closed. That didn't fix it.

Next time I went through the app setup procedure and said yes. It asked a couple more questions and then finally asked if I wanted to enable the automatic mode (which is what tries to determine if you're moving by constantly pinging the GPS). I said no to that, closed the app, did NOT disable it again, and I haven't seen the GPS pop up in days!

Thanks again, madelman99!!

I hope this works for me. I have never disabled drive mode though. I do go to running apps when the gps notification pops up, and I stop the iq agent under android system, and that works for a brief time until it's started back. I will definitely try this and see if it works. It's killing my battery and nobody at HTC or AT&T wants to help it seems.
Thanks.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[MatthewGavin]

The issue is back for me. As far as I noticed it did not happen the entire weekend, and then today the issue is back. In two and a half hours I have lost 20% battery and have not done a thing, except look at the battery stats.

 

[madelman99]

The issue is back for me. As far as I noticed it did not happen the entire weekend, and then today the issue is back. In two and a half hours I have lost 20% battery and have not done a thing, except look at the battery stats.

Unfortunately, my fix turned out to be only temporary, over the weekend I rebooted the phone and the issue came back. I looked at the battery usage and it looks like something is constantly keeping the phone awake. I went through the app ops and set keep awake to "Deny" for everything I could, but that didn't help. I'll keep trying. I was so looking forward to M9 but now I kind of lost my faith in HTC. It seems that every update kills their phone, I wonder if that's on purpose.

 

[MatthewGavin]

Unfortunately, my fix turned out to be only temporary, over the weekend I rebooted the phone and the issue came back. I looked at the battery usage and it looks like something is constantly keeping the phone awake. I went through the app ops and set keep awake to "Deny" for everything I could, but that didn't help. I'll keep trying. I was so looking forward to M9 but now I kind of lost my faith in HTC. It seems that every update kills their phone, I wonder if that's on purpose.

Sadly, I am feeling the same way about HTC. I love my m8, but this issue concerns me greatly. I do not know what to do with my next phone. I do not want to go back to Apple and I do not like Touchwiz. Neither company, att and HTC seem to care about this issue.

 

[madelman99]

I will wait to see what LG has to offer. I wanted to do factory restore, or go to HTC's website and download the update and install it from scratch but I wanted to see what will happen when Lollipop update will arrive. Unfortunately, With At&t's track record, it may take few more months. I think fresh install has to fix it, or everyone would have these issues.

 

[MatthewGavin]

I wish I knew why att is not concerned with updating phones to lollipop. Every other carrier has already updated a majority of their phones. I will not enjoy having to deal with this issue for another month or so. It is not like there is that much updating to do. Just make sure it runs smoothly on the network and send it to the phones!

 

[anon(3846388)]

Maybe I'm being naive, but I still put the blame on AT&T instead of HTC. Why? Because through all of my looking, I've only heard of AT&T M8 customers having this issue. I guess it's possible other carriers' customers just haven't noticed, but that seems unlikely.

 

[madelman99]

Maybe I'm being naive, but I still put the blame on AT&T instead of HTC. Why? Because through all of my looking, I've only heard of AT&T M8 customers having this issue. I guess it's possible other carriers' customers just haven't noticed, but that seems unlikely.

Quite possible, I wish I knew someone else who has AT&T's M8 to see if they have a problem. If the update worked fine for some but not others, than we should be able to fix it. I just hate to do the factory reset if it will not fix anything.

 

[snakey#AC]

A coworker of mine has the m8 on verizon, hadn't had this GPS problem and already has 5.01. I'm on AT&T with a m8, I don't have 5.01 and I have the GPS issue draining my battery. I did a complete restore of my phone. 2 days later the GPS is back on.

 

[madelman99]

A coworker of mine has the m8 on verizon, hadn't had this GPS problem and already has 5.01. I'm on AT&T with a m8, I don't have 5.01 and I have the GPS issue draining my battery. I did a complete restore of my phone. 2 days later the GPS is back on.

I have an idea, I'll stop by AT&T and check what version they have on the display M8. If it is on 4.4.4, it should have this issue. Than they won't be able to blame it on anyone.

 

[MatthewGavin]

I am on att running 4.4.4 and have this issue. I am the only person I know with this phone. Is this a HTC only issue, or does this happen to all phones running 4.4.4?

 

[mdfieds]

I also am in the NYC area and have this problem on M8 with AT&T. Spent an hour chatting with HTC support and tried everything they could think of. I even tried the full factory reset, unfortunately that did not provide a permanent fix.

I also tried the AT&T Drive mode suggestion, however GPS came back on as soon as I toggled Airplane Mode. After that I force stopped IQ Agent Service, which seemed to disable GPS temporarily, even when toggling Airplane Mode.

Really seems to be an intermittent problem at the moment. The first day after the factory reset, the GPS showed on my battery history as only a few hash marks. Then the next day, the history showed it was on 40-50% of the time. Still waiting for a better fix...