Really?! A Factory Reset Seems to Have Negatively Impacted My V30's Battery Life

[wdblevin]

About two weeks or so ago, my battery life (which has been pretty good) seemed to have taken a dive.

It got to the point that even leaving my phone's calculator 'open' during a 2 hour period dropped my battery from 90 to 65%. I'm not talking doing anything beyond ~ 1 minute of some calculations and then putting my phone back in my pocket without closing the app.

I find that my battery life now has been regularly going down to ~ the 30% level in a 12 hour period... Previously, I would be down to about 50-55% in the same period.

I don't consider myself to be a heavy user. At work, I use my phone to check email or text about 3 times per day in a 5-6 hour window. Beyond that, maybe take 2-3 pix and surf for about 1 hour.

Two days ago, I decided to bite the bullet: Backup what I needed to and then do a factory reset.

Today, after about 15 hours (with 5 hours of that window being at a class where I did NOT use my phone), my battery life went down to 23%. I will say that I used two apps for about 15 minutes total that seem to drag down the battery life badly... CVS and Publix.

Beyond the use of those apps, I've gone into various settings to see what might be causing this poor overall battery life. Nothing is all that different than what I've had on my phone since I got it back in October 2017. That is aside from the OS update.

Today, I grabbed Greenify. If I turn on Automated (app) Hibernation, I get a message that it may collect all the text I type (except passwords) and may include credit card numbers. That freaks me out.

Am I being unrealistic as far as battery life goes? I'd appreciate any advice.

 

[B. Diddy]

How's your cell signal? That's a frequent culprit.

It'd help to see some battery stats. Charge up to 100%, then let it drain to 20-30% with normal usage, without charging in between. Then show us:


1. The main Settings>Battery screen.
2. The fullscreen battery graph screen (which shows Awake time and Cell Signal Strength).
3. The Screen category (to see total Screen On time).
4. The Cell Standby category, if present (to see Time Without Signal).


You might have to install a 3rd party battery monitor, like GSam Battery Monitor, to get the Cell Signal Strength graph.

 

[wdblevin]

B. Diddy, thanks for the reply. I've got GSam Battery Monitor and will get back to the group as close to the parameters as you noted (as possible).

FYI: Good or bad, yesterday I went and turned off as many notifications as possible without taking away too much functionality on my phone. Also, Greenify told me a had a lot more push-type notifications on than I expected to see.

'Talk' soon.

*****

I forgot to mention that we live in a heavily wooded area and that hasn't changed since I got the phone. My cell signal has never been all that great around home. I'd imaging that when I am work and around/about, things might be better but I don't really monitor that. I will take a gander today when I go into town for a few hours.

 

[Rukbat]

Do you regularly charge to 100%, and regularly discharge to lower than 30%? That can kill the battery in a few months. 80%-40% will give you about the best life. (Faster discharging is a sign of a failing battery, among other things. It's also a sign of a weak or non-existent phone signal.)

 

[wdblevin]

Do you regularly charge to 100%, and regularly discharge to lower than 30%? That can kill the battery in a few months. 80%-40% will give you about the best life. (Faster discharging is a sign of a failing battery, among other things. It's also a sign of a weak or non-existent phone signal.)

Hi Rukbat, no I don't normally let my V30 get to lower than 55-60% without charging. This crazy-fast (to me) discharge issue has only been going on for about 2 weeks or so. The other day, after I did my factory reset and I got down to 23% within 15 hours, was when I decided to post about what was happening and ask for help.

*****

Today, my phone has only discharged 10% in 8.5 hours. I have been home for 5 of those 8.5 hours. At B. Diddy's request, I am going to let my V30 get down to 30% (without putting the device on a charge - not my style at all) and send in the info they've requested.

With this current battery life (yeah!), I will probably get through most of tomorrow to get to that level.

As previously noted, I did turn off all the notifications that I could without compromising the functionality of my phone. I also used Greenify to hibernate as many apps as I could to see if that helps.

Obviously, I've changed some things to get the results I've seen so far. I just wish I wouldn't have had to, but so far I am not displeased (the opposite in fact!) with today's battery life.

Tomorrow, when I am back at work, I will be interested to see what transpires with the V30's battery life.

I will report back to y'all as soon as I can. I do appreciate everyone's support!

 

[wdblevin]

Better battery life!

*I have over 50% left after just over 24 hours after charging to 100%, using my phone pretty normally for a day away from work, and not putting it on a charger at some point during those 24 hours.
*Maybe I could eek out some more with more adjustments (I did hibernate some most of my VR apps that I haven't used since I got my Daydream unit), but this is MUCH better than I had for the two days after I did a factory reset.
*I think my battery life is about the same as I had before the last major OS update.

B. Diddy, below are the screen captures I believe you requested. Thanks for responding to my post. You, too, Rukbat.

I am going to be heading to work and will be putting my phone on the charger as there is no way for me to charge at work and I cannot be worried that my phone will be unavailable to me. Crazy, I know, but it is what it is.

If anyone has other suggestions or comments, I'd be interested to hear about them. I am always willing to learn.

If things get really bad again during my work day(s), I will go through this exercise again and post back.

*****

 

[B. Diddy]

Glad to see your battery life has improved. It's probably due to the factory reset that you did, although it's always difficult to say what exactly the reset fixed. It could be that leftover system data from before the previous system update was causing issues, which the reset would've cleared. On another phone, I would've suggested a system cache partition wipe from the Recovery Menu (which can achieve the same thing), but LG doesn't let the user do that.

If I was only looking at those battery stats, I'd comment on how the cell signal strength is generally poor (as you already know), and that poor signal is a common culprit for battery drain, but that obviously isn't the main factor if your battery life is actually back to normal despite those stats. I'd suspect, though, that your battery life would be even better if you were in an area with better coverage.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Something to keep in mind is when you do a reset, the OS and kernel are sending a lot of requests to each other as they relearn each other all over again. So the first day or two after a reset, a faster battery drain is normal.

 

[DFranch]

I think the phone takes a few days after a factory reset to learn how you tend to use your phone. It can lead to increased battery usage until the phone has learned what apps to hibernate and what apps to leave active.

 

[wdblevin]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the insight into my phone needing to re-learn things again.

From a cell signal perspective... We were with AT&T for 20+ years up North and switch to Verizon down here as the (AT&T) coverage was really bad. Most of the carriers have pretty lousy coverage in our area. Oh, well.

FYI: I was able to charge up to 80% before I left for work this morning. I used my phone to check texts a few times and was showing someone a few pix of our 4 legged family members. My phone charge dropped from 80 to 45% from the time I went to work to the time I got home and that was a 7 hour window. I work in area with very few trees, but we're still pretty rural.

 

[wdblevin]

She's bbbaaaccckkk...

So, my battery life @ home is rockin'. IMO, the V30 now barely sips from the charge.

Work is another story. Today and yesterday, whether I have WiFi enabled at work or not, I loose over 30% of my ~ 100% charge in a whopping 5 hours or so. Today, I checked/sent 2 texts in that whole period. I didn't even use my calculator or camera.

Maybe I am being unrealistic and my phone is still 'learning'.

I am off tomorrow. Both on Thursday and Friday (when I am at work), I will monitor and report back on the who/what/where/when/why/how. Stuff like how I used the phone and various battery-related screen captures.

 

[DFranch]

She's bbbaaaccckkk...

So, my battery life @ home is rockin'. IMO, the V30 now barely sips from the charge.

Work is another story. Today and yesterday, whether I have WiFi enabled at work or not, I loose over 30% of my ~ 100% charge in a whopping 5 hours or so. Today, I checked/sent 2 texts in that whole period. I didn't even use my calculator or camera.

Maybe I am being unrealistic and my phone is still 'learning'.

I am off tomorrow. Both on Thursday and Friday (when I am at work), I will monitor and report back on the who/what/where/when/why/how. Stuff like how I used the phone and various battery-related screen captures.

how is your cell signal when you are at work? if it is weak, the phone can be working overtime trying to maintain a good signal. do you use WiFi at work?

 

[wdblevin]

how is your cell signal when you are at work? if it is weak, the phone can be working overtime trying to maintain a good signal. do you use WiFi at work?

I work retail and the (free/customer/unsecured) WiFi is set to disconnect every 15 minutes. So, unless there is a reason to connect, I generally don't. I know that there is constant 'search' for WiFi going on. I had also tried turning off WiFi at work for the first few days after my reset, but probably didn't give my phone a chance to relearn things.

I had hoped to report back with screen captures with my signal at work from the last few days, but I wound up not going into work. Hopefully early next week, I can grab the info I had said I would and post it here.

Thanks for the questions.

 

[muckrakerX]

Have you checked your network settings, yet?

 

[mwake4goten]

Sorry I didn't read everything but sometimes after a factory reset you need to do a cache wipe in recovery especially after reinstalling a lot of apps...

 

[wdblevin]

muckrakerX, please advise as to what things you would recommend I look at in network settings.

*****

mwake4goten, I did do a cache wipe.

*****

This morning @ 7AM, I took my phone off the charger. It was at 100%.
I left for work around 9:15AM.
I got to work around 9:40AM and turned off WiFi.
I got home around 2:45PM and turned WiFi back on. My charge shows 78%.

During this approximately 8 hours, (at work) I checked text messages and email maybe twice. I did look at my photos for about 3-4 minutes.

Below are some screen captures. Aside from less-than-stellar phone signal, I am not sure what else I could adjust while at work to extend my battery life. As I said previously, it's rare for me to be unable to charge my phone. Maybe this is is what I have to live with. My battery life at home, IMO, is fine.

 

[muckrakerX]

I don't have the V30, but on my V20 the steps are as follows :
Open settings
Under wireless networks, scroll down to and press More.
Scroll down to, and press Mobile networks.
Select system select.
Network mode should show LTE/CDMA.
If it shows Global, or the other option, select LTE /CDMA.
All of my LG/Verizon phones have defaulted to global after factory resets, and even updates that involve restarting the phone.

 

[wdblevin]

I don't have the V30, but on my V20 the steps are as follows :
Open settings
Under wireless networks, scroll down to and press More.
Scroll down to, and press Mobile networks.
Select system select.
Network mode should show LTE/CDMA.
If it shows Global, or the other option, select LTE /CDMA.
All of my LG/Verizon phones have defaulted to global after factory resets, and even updates that involve restarting the phone.

Thanks for the info. My LG V30 was set to 'GLOBAL'. I did change it as I don't travel much and haven't seen my device go to roaming (I have that set off now... it had gone back to on after my reset).

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...support/knowledge-base-215238/&token=ELbrt25M