What is keeping my phone awake and eating my battery?!?

[dtm_stretch]

I'm not sure which thing was making things go crazy, but it appears I'm getting back into more normal territory, though it still seems low. Here are the screens from this morning after 9-1/2 hours off the charger. I unplugged at 9:30 pm and went to bed around 1:30 am, awaking (OK, hitting the snooze) at 6:45 am. Compared to being under 50% after <6 hours, this is much better, but shouldn't this be better when on wi-fi with full phone bars?

Compared to before (see screens), the wifi isn't running constantly, but there's still that hour of awake time in the middle that's unexplained. I'm also concerned with the power usage by GPS Status since I wasn't using it AND I killed the process early on when I saw after an hour unplugged that it was running. Weird.

This is actually looking pretty darn good to me. I imagine that random active period ~ 3am is going to be your apps running background tasks; ie checking email, looking for updates, etc. GPS status is definitely acting erroneously, the worst part is that apps uses a lot of resources and tools so it can really jug your battery. I would keep an eye on GPS Status but other than that I think with the large amount of apps you have you are looking pretty good on battery life. I imagine you are leaving wifi on over night because you want notifications/emails? If it isn't important turning off wifi will save you tons more battery than leaving it on, because all those background tasks will get cancelled out.

 

[DirkBelig]

Won't turning wifi off use MORE power because it would be using the 3G network to get data and that's where you're susceptible to weak signals, like here at my work? Did you mean to put it into Airplane Mode, cutting off all radios? Yeah, that would save juice, but I need to get my incoming mail and pages.

 

[dtm_stretch]

Won't turning wifi off use MORE power because it would be using the 3G network to get data and that's where you're susceptible to weak signals, like here at my work? Did you mean to put it into Airplane Mode, cutting off all radios? Yeah, that would save juice, but I need to get my incoming mail and pages.

Yes it will but I meant having wifi and 3g off. But that is negated because you need your incoming messages. Btw what is your over goal for battery life, like what amount will you be satisfied with?

 

[DirkBelig]

It's not been a matter of "I want X hours of use" as much as being, "I used to have 85% in the morning and now I'm only getting 60% and something is keeping the baby awake all night." If I can go more than 12 hours off the charger, I'd be happy. It's just that I was bleeding out in less than 5. I have chargers at my home, work, g/f's and the car, so I can top it off, but I shouldn't need to scramble from juice point to juice point.

 

[DirkBelig]

Why is the battery just dying now?

Resurrecting this thread because now my battery is dying rapidly, but I can't see any applications causing it. Yesterday, it died in about three hours of use (mostly gReader) in an area with a decent signal and as the attached screen shots show, it drained 80% in 5-1/4 hours with no visible awake time or use, though the Android OS screen clearly shows it being awake the whole time. Note how the screen shots show it going from 9% at 7:01 to 6% at 7:04; it was at 12% when I woke up around 6:55!

Last night, it ran down in about 6 hours and I charged it to about 92% before turning in. (My charger isn't near my bed and I use the phone as an alarm.) Previous drain issues have shown up as the phone being held awake, but now it simply seems to be dying. Since the last posts, I'm now on rooted stock ICS 4.0.4 and battery life has been normal. No apps have been added recently that can explain the sudden dive. One thought that occurred to me is whether the battery itself has worn out? It's only 11 months old, but are these things so cheaply made that they simply don't last? Is this covered under warranty?



Jeez, what happened to the little box with attachments instead of these giant screens?!?

 

[pcguys]

BTW, did you explicitly log out of latitude instead of just unchecking?
Did you turn off location reporting?
Latitude | don?t detect location | sign out of latitude

In gsam, there are lots of reports. % of cpu was not as helpful as minutes held awake, num times awake, etc.

Did you disable the s-voice wake up command? (it's not just for S3, it's relevant on an s2 too.
Talk: click name, then press bottom right to sign out.

heres two great tips. the first one i crafted specifically for the s2 menus (sent to my daughter)
second was clipped from blob.

first:
ok:

found it:

1.) settings button (on bottom left)
2.) settings
3.) language and input
4.) voice search
5.) voice talk settings
6.) wake up command
7.) uncheck wakeup command (warning says, using this "may drain ur battery"


second:

When I tried different settings for "Keep WiFi on during sleep" neither "Never" or "Always" seemed to make much difference, but "Only when plugged in" seemed to actually help. My phone gets to DeepSleep much more often (unless it's plugged in, which doesn't really matter) and seems to drain slower. The downside is that now WiFi sometimes (but not always) doesn't re-connect when the phone wakes up. Doesn't make any sense that "Only when plugged in" acts much different than "Never", but maybe there's a bug in that bit of code?

 

[dextorboot]

I can't speak to all of your issues but it certainly could just be the battery. I've been having issues since ICS and was attributing it all to that and a couple of apps i added around the same time, but my battery has just been getting worse and worse. I finally examined my battery and noticed a slight bulge. I did the spin test and it's like a carousel. I broke down and ordered a couple of batteries. They should be here by the end of next week.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Android Central Forums

 

[DirkBelig]

BTW, did you explicitly log out of latitude instead of just unchecking?
Did you turn off location reporting?
Latitude | don?t detect location | sign out of latitude

Don't use Latitude and double-checked that none of the location sharing/auto-check-in things were on.

In gsam, there are lots of reports. % of cpu was not as helpful as minutes held awake, num times awake, etc.

Didn't think to look at that. I was freshly awake and not thinking.

Did you disable the s-voice wake up command? (it's not just for S3, it's relevant on an s2 too.
Talk: click name, then press bottom right to sign out.

There is no S-Voice on my phone that I'm aware of.

1.) settings button (on bottom left)
2.) settings
3.) language and input
4.) voice search
5.) voice talk settings
6.) wake up command
7.) uncheck wakeup command (warning says, using this "may drain ur battery"

I don't have the voice talk stuff.

When I tried different settings for "Keep WiFi on during sleep" neither "Never" or "Always" seemed to make much difference, but "Only when plugged in" seemed to actually help. My phone gets to DeepSleep much more often (unless it's plugged in, which doesn't really matter) and seems to drain slower. The downside is that now WiFi sometimes (but not always) doesn't re-connect when the phone wakes up. Doesn't make any sense that "Only when plugged in" acts much different than "Never", but maybe there's a bug in that bit of code?

I already had this set to "only when plugged in" and it's hit and miss about latching onto wi-fi, but as the shots show, the wi-fi is off. This was a problem before.

Thanks for the suggestions, though.

 

[robertgarner1]

I've found that it's a recently added app that drains the battery. Just check through what's been using your data (Data Manager is good for this) and you'll see a 'new' app cropping up quite a bit. (You can ignore all the apps you've had on your phone for ages.)
I've had this problem with Facebook / HootSuite / Amazon Appstore. I'm not sure which is the culprit but my battery life has gone back to normal after uninstalling these. And as it's been discussed above, your phone and battery are probably fine. The problem is an app, so you just need to find out which app is keeping your phone awake when it's not in use.

*UPDATE* Tuesday (pm)
Then restart your phone.
Now my S2 is sleeping soundly - the blue line has now stopped. Hurrah!
PS I also didn't have Amazon Appstore installed this time, so it's either Facebook or HootSuite that's the problem.

*UPDATE* Weds (following morning)
Made sure Social Hub was forced closed last night (Facebook or Hootsuite must open this up) and then charged up phone from about 15% (when the warnings come up on screen) uninterrupted overnight.
100% at 6.30am - AND STILL 100% AT 9 AM !!!!!!!

I originally had a camera problem with my S2 on Gingerbread and was sent a new phone with ICS installed. So I had to start from scratch with downloading all my apps again. (Fortunately Google Play remembers you and so you don't need to pay again for apps.) It was well worth it and gave me chance to spring clean too. I know feel like I have a brand new phone - if I'm not using it then the battery doesn't drop lots, which was my main gripe with Android.

 

[GCMS]

Had issues with battery after ICS update. I would go to sleep at a full charge and would wake up (7hrs later) and be down to 20% or so. After tons of tinkering around I had to bite the bullet and do a factory reset as some around here were swearing that was the cure. Some were opposed to doing that but i just got tired of it so i Wiped everything off my phone. Lo and behold my battery is back to normal again. Now lose about 5% when phone is asleep at night which was what i averaged when on GB. I did not reinstall all the apps i had on it before the wipe so never really knew what caused the battery drain. So i just take it as a completely new phone with ICS and start from scratch. It sucked but battery is back to normal.

 

[turf]

Apple compatible chargers cause vbus_present wakelock

Figured I would chime in since I have been looking at the vbus_present wakelock for a while.

If you use a charger which is compatible with Apple products, it will cause the vbus_present wakelock since Apple does not adhere to USB standards and requires two of the pins to be bridged or open (can't remember which) to work for their products. However, when you charge a device that does adhere to USB standards with one of these chargers, it will cause the wakelock (on all the samsung phones I have seen, anyway).

Another downside to using an apple compatible charger is that you can never get more than 500ma out of it due to the non-standard USB connection, even if the charger is capable of 2000ma output. So you get slower charging.

When you are connected to any charger, this wakelock will be present. If you use an Apple compatible charger, it will persist after you unplug it and will drain your battery around 10% per hour since it prevents it from going into deep sleep. You can clear the wakelock by rebooting the phone or plugging it into a standard USB charger, such as a PC or Samsung charger, even for a few seconds.

You can use Better Battery Stats to see the effects of this wakelock. Note that it can take a few minutes to show up once you have unplugged from the apple charger.

Yes, this really p*sses me off. This is one of the reasons I no longer have any Apple products in my house and long since thrown away all the Apple compatible wall chargers I once had. It still comes back to bite me since I still have a couple of chargers that contain batteries to charge when you are away from a wall outlet and they both cause this. When I use them I just have to make sure I reboot afterward. The USB outlet I have installed behind the stereo in my car also causes this wakelock. I have one to replace it but have not gotten around to removing the stereo to do this yet.

The next best solution to never using an apple compatible charger at this point would be to have a kernel that addresses this and removes the wakelock after it is unplugged but I don't see this happening.

 

[Hikmat abdoollayev]

Did you try "Wakelock detector"? Google Play Link
it shows all wakelock statistics for each app , just what you need

 

[Gio Terzi]

Ok, now:
I use Wakelock Detector + CPU Spy
I have already switched off: Maps, Latitude, use of position in Facebook, etc etc etc.
In Wakelock Detector I typically see that most of the time, my HTC Desire Z is in CPU wakelock from Android:LocationManagerService, even if at the end I see "x0".

What does that x0 (zero) mean?
LocationManagerService woken but.... forever? Is it OK?

gio

 

[Hikmat abdoollayev]

x0 means "0 times"
it is the number of how many times "wakelock" was acquired.

Recently, "kernel" wakelock feature was added, you might check it out

 

[Julie2stead]

I expect you have worked it out by now but that would be K9 Email client killing your battery. I had the same problem on m Samsung Galaxy Note after installing K9 my battery was dead in 3 hours without hardly using my phone. After uninstalling K9 it was resolved. I am currently looking up ways of stopping K9 from doing this. I assume it is happening because it is constantly connected to the internet which would be the push e-mail function.

 

[DirkBelig]

Oh yeah, I moved to a Nexus 4 in November 2012 and the Nexus 5 the moment it came out. With the N5, I stopped using K9 in favor of the stock Email app for the one account I was using K9 for. It's easier to set up and since it looks/works almost the same as Gmail, I roll with it. Thanks, though.

 

[atari86]

Something has happened with my phone's battery life in the past couple of weeks. It seems to coincide with my fixing the location problems as detailed in this thread, but my investigation can't see a connection between that and what's happening.....

I found a solution, but it's a long process. It's a complete conglomerate of all the other answers I found.

Process:

1. For testing purposes, turn off Wifi, bluetooth, data (turn this back on after testing).
2. Delete cache for all your apps
3. Settings -> Backup and Reset -> Turn off backup (for photos)
4. Account sync -> Auto-sync off (turn this back on after testing).
5. Close all your apps running in background
6. Power -> battery usage -> battery optimization (optimize all apps that can be optimized).
7. Turn off google voice (google now) or whatever it's called.
8. Wifi settings -> advanced wifi - turn on wifi optimization. Also, "Auto-switch to mobile network", try toggling this, although it didn't help for me.
9. Settings -> (Try search) -> Apps with usage access -> Turn all off, especially google play services and google play store.
10. Last but not least, this is what saved me. What were the last apps you installed before you noticed your phone is always on awake, which drained your batteries? I installed Fetch, which is an app that traces your phone to a tracking device. Although it is not connected to anything, and the app is not loaded in the foreground, it was continually scanning for my device. This was what kept it awake, even in sleep mode.

Hope this helps!