[Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet"

jeffreii · Aug 2, 2012

jeffreii said:
UPDATE/CONFIRMED:

The plummet is back.

After 10 days of plummet-free use with LTE disabled, it has returned after less than 48 hours uptime following my re-enabling of LTE.

For me, I am quite convinced that some LTE bug - perhaps with switching back and forth to HSPA+ - is causing the plummet. Unless some very knowledgeable devs join this discussion and help to find the root cause, I only see two options to avoid this problem:

1) Disable LTE and live with HSPA+ speeds
2) Wait for an OTA update with a fix, assuming Samsung/AT&T know about it

Personally I am sick and tired of wasting my time diagnosing this. I have lost time and enjoyment of my device trying to keep a stable testing environment. I now know the general cause and solution and am satisfied with that.

Thanks to anyone and everyone who helped.

Again, here is the link to my method for disabling LTE:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1826409
It's unfortunate that using HSPA+ only also disables 2G, but that's not really a problem for me in Miami.

Anyone who can help diagnose the cause of this would be my hero. Please read carefully the evidence I already have.

Scenario:
Battery life is great for awhile and then suddenly it will start plummeting for no good reason. It will continue to do so, even if the screen is off and the phone is unused with all tasks closed. It will not stop dropping fast unless I reboot it. Then battery life returns to normal/excellent..a day or so later it starts dropping fast again.

Things I've tried:
-Factory reset - reinstall only most common apps
-Exchanged the device at AT&T - same result
-Monitored with GSAM (Badass) Battery Monitor and Better Battery Stats. No culprit found.

Important notes:
-As per attached screenshot*, I have tested ways to stop the drain without a reboot. Turning off wifi does nothing. Turning off mobile data does nothing. Turning off the radio (airplane mode) is the only way to stop it - but once I turn airplane mode off, it continues to drop quickly. Only a reboot is a working temporary fix.
-The phone itself is reporting the "cell standby" as the major culprit. I am not sure if this is inflated due to the known bug in reporting that data.
-There is something quirky with the "mobile network signal" bar - I am in Miami where signal is strong almost everywhere. The steep decline occurs even at my apartment where I always have 4 or 5 bars of LTE signal. I am almost never in any area where there is no signal, despite what the line indicates.

Attached screenshots:
1 & 2) good battery life followed by a sudden and steep decline
3) the subsequent "test" listed in note # 1 above with the resulting plateau achieved by turning on airplane mode with the drop continuing when airplane mode was disabled
4 & 5) I then charged the device to full overnight and unplugged it in the morning. I let it sit unused for about 2 hours and the battery dropped 25%.
6 & 7) these screenshots are from normal excellent battery life scenario where the "plummeting" battery did not occur

Thank you so much for any help

DudeWatsThat · Aug 2, 2012

Since turning on airplane mode stops it my guess is that its a bad radio. Only option would be to exchange it and tell them this is your second defective unit.

jeffreii · Aug 2, 2012

DudeWatsThat said:
Since turning on airplane mode stops it my guess is that its a bad radio. Only option would be to exchange it and tell them this is your second defective unit.

What are the odds of me having two units in a row with the exact same problem, which does not appear to be widespread?

The bad news is that I am past my 30 day exchange window.

DudeWatsThat · Aug 2, 2012

jeffreii said:
What are the odds of me having two units in a row with the exact same problem, which does not appear to be widespread?

The bad news is that I am past my 30 day exchange window.

If you got that unit during your 30 days you should have 30 days for that unit and if you don't then go through manufactures warranty. Unless your willing to play around with roms to see if that solves it.

In terms of odds maybe your ATT store just got a bad batch either that or you have incredibly bad luck but I do know of one other person who had the same problem if I remember correctly.

Sent from my GSIII

jeffreii · Aug 2, 2012

DudeWatsThat said:
If you got that unit during your 30 days you should have 30 days for that unit and if you don't then go through manufactures warranty. Unless your willing to play around with roms to see if that solves it.

In terms of odds maybe your ATT store just got a bad batch either that or you have incredibly bad luck but I do know of one other person who had the same problem if I remember correctly.

My understanding of the return policy, as confirmed by the rep, is that exchanging your device does not reset the 30 days. I would have to go through the manufacturer warranty now, facilitated by AT&T. Much more hassle than just going to the store and swapping it out.

I received my first S III in the mail from AT&T Online. 30 days later I went to one of several local corporate stores and exchanged it. They were definitely not the same batch. This is probably not bad luck and I have heard from several others that they have this same problem...

My next step, after some more logs and troubleshooting, would be to factory wipe again and use the phone stock with no apps for up to a week to see if I can reproduce it. Sounds terrible but I'm willing to do it if it is necessary. Still hoping someone here on XDA can help me pinpoint the problem.

Thanks again for your response.

tjb433 · Aug 2, 2012

I get this battery drain maybe once a week, a friend of mine also gets it occasionally, It is very unlikely that our phones are from the same batch, because he got his 2 weeks before i got mine. It seems to be a more widespread problem than we think, and i hope samsung, or someone on XDA, can figure it out and fix it.

DudeWatsThat · Aug 3, 2012

jeffreii said:
My understanding of the return policy, as confirmed by the rep, is that exchanging your device does not reset the 30 days. I would have to go through the manufacturer warranty now, facilitated by AT&T. Much more hassle than just going to the store and swapping it out.

I received my first S III in the mail from AT&T Online. 30 days later I went to one of several local corporate stores and exchanged it. They were definitely not the same batch. This is probably not bad luck and I have heard from several others that they have this same problem...

My next step, after some more logs and troubleshooting, would be to factory wipe again and use the phone stock with no apps for up to a week to see if I can reproduce it. Sounds terrible but I'm willing to do it if it is necessary. Still hoping someone here on XDA can help me pinpoint the problem.

Thanks again for your response.

Do that and remember to do a test using airplane mode if it doesn't loose battery while in airplane mode then there are two theorys then: samsung software bug that affects radio or hardware issue.

It also depends how many "several others" are, remember even 100 people are a minority compared to the millions of units sold.

Keep us updated so we can get to the root of the problem.

Sent from my GSIII

jeffreii · Aug 3, 2012

Here's another sample with a Better Battery Stats log attached as well.

I'm going to do another test tonight with airplane mode enabled + another BBS log.

DudeWatsThat · Aug 3, 2012

jeffreii said:
Here's another sample with a Better Battery Stats log attached as well.

I'm going to do another test tonight with airplane mode enabled + another BBS log.

Whats your screen on time, battery stats indicated a deep idle of only 2hrs.

And damn your cell standby % is huge. When I had the cell standby bug it only rose to about 15%.

IMO that high cell standby is not normal even with the bug.

Firestar292 · Aug 3, 2012

DudeWatsThat said:
Whats your screen on time, battery stats indicated a deep idle of only 2hrs.

And damn your cell standby % is huge. When I had the cell standby bug it only rose to about 15%.

IMO that high cell standby is not normal even with the bug.

I agree with you, I don't think it's normal even with the bug. Maybe OP should download fix or a rom with the fix if he doesn't want to use the warranty and see if it still tops the charts with the bug fixed.

bradld · Aug 3, 2012

jeffreii said:
Here's another sample with a Better Battery Stats log attached as well.

I'm going to do another test tonight with airplane mode enabled + another BBS log.

post your bbs log to the thread here : > Android Development and Hacking > Android Apps and Games > [APP] [30 Jul - V1.9.1] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Android

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1179809

you will be helped there for sure.

21cdb · Aug 3, 2012

This has happened to me on several ROMs, but it doesn't happen very often. It does seem to be radio related. The last time it happened, I checked the battery graph and the signal strength was solid green from exactly the time the battery started plummeting. Not sure if that means anything but it's another data point.

DudeWatsThat · Aug 3, 2012

Firestar292 said:
I agree with you, I don't think it's normal even with the bug. Maybe OP should download fix or a rom with the fix if he doesn't want to use the warranty and see if it still tops the charts with the bug fixed.

Strange thing is the bug just reports the % wrong and applying the fix won't actually solve is drainage issues, although if he does apply it and still sees a high percentage its most probably the radio or he could apply it see normal cell % and we be back to square one.

bradld said:
post your bbs log to the thread here : > Android Development and Hacking > Android Apps and Games > [APP] [30 Jul - V1.9.1] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Android

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1179809

you will be helped there for sure.

+1

jcejohnson · Aug 3, 2012

Search for the gsiff_daemon thread. It sounds like that may be your problem. I don't have the link handy but if you don't find it I'll dig it up for you.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using xda app-developers app

blue265 · Aug 3, 2012

jcejohnson said:
Search for the gsiff_daemon thread. It sounds like that may be your problem. I don't have the link handy but if you don't find it I'll dig it up for you.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using xda app-developers app

I agree that its gsiff_daemon bug. I get it on occasion when streaming music through web. Even when I close it will drain the battery quickly. Do a search for that daemon and see if that shows up in battery stats. Usually shown as android system. When you hit refresh under battery stats it usually displays the gsiff name quickly.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

DudeWatsThat · Aug 3, 2012

blue265 said:
I agree that its gsiff_daemon bug. I get it on occasion when streaming music through web. Even when I close it will drain the battery quickly. Do a search for that daemon and see if that shows up in battery stats. Usually shown as android system. When you hit refresh under battery stats it usually displays the gsiff name quickly.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using xda app-developers app

What is gsiff_daemon? I looked in the thread but the info is scattered.

jeffreii · Aug 3, 2012

DudeWatsThat said:
Whats your screen on time, battery stats indicated a deep idle of only 2hrs.

And damn your cell standby % is huge. When I had the cell standby bug it only rose to about 15%.

IMO that high cell standby is not normal even with the bug.

The BBS log was only 2 hours, 38m, as you can see from the extracted data below:

Since 2 h 38 m 8 s
Deep Sleep (): 2 h 24 m 59 s (8699 s) Ratio: 91.7%
Awake (): 13 m 9 s (789 s) Ratio: 8.3%
Screen On (): 40 s (40 s) Ratio: 0.4%

Firestar292 said:
I agree with you, I don't think it's normal even with the bug. Maybe OP should download fix or a rom with the fix if he doesn't want to use the warranty and see if it still tops the charts with the bug fixed.

Yeah I can see about downloading the fix but that is only a display issue and wouldn't help at all with my battery.

bradld said:
post your bbs log to the thread here : > Android Development and Hacking > Android Apps and Games > [APP] [30 Jul - V1.9.1] BetterBatteryStats adds battery history back to Android

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1179809

you will be helped there for sure.

I have posted several times in that thread and they tried to help but couldn't find anything...the main suggestion was to try a custom kernel...I'm going to post my latest logs there now though (and in this thread).

EDIT: Here's my new post in that thread:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=29716265#post29716265

21cdb said:
This has happened to me on several ROMs, but it doesn't happen very often. It does seem to be radio related. The last time it happened, I checked the battery graph and the signal strength was solid green from exactly the time the battery started plummeting. Not sure if that means anything but it's another data point.

I noticed the same thing with the mobile network signal bar being solid. I still don't understand why that bar has so many gaps where it appears to show the radio off when it's not...anyways I thought there was a correlation there but have since seen plenty of "plummets" without the solid green mobile network signal bar.

jcejohnson said:
Search for the gsiff_daemon thread. It sounds like that may be your problem. I don't have the link handy but if you don't find it I'll dig it up for you.

gsiff_daemon is not in my BBS logs...see the new logs I'm about to post.

jeffreii · Aug 3, 2012

Ok so I've been continuing my tests from above.

I first charged a bit and then turned off wifi since wlan_rx_wake was a biggie in my BBS log. You can see the log for that period below. Battery continues to plummet as it did before.

I then turned on airplane mode and started a new BBS log. The battery stopped going down. In fact it was one of those situations where the charger mis-reported the actual charge and in nearly two hours time BBS sees the battery as having gone up 1%. That log is also attached.

Also below are screenshots of this whole process where you can see the battery plateau created by airplane mode.

Perhaps we can compare these 3 log files to determine something? I am going to post them in the BBS thread as well.

Thanks again everyone I hope we can get to the bottom of this!

DudeWatsThat · Aug 3, 2012

jeffreii said:
Ok so I've been continuing my tests from above.

I first charged a bit and then turned off wifi since wlan_rx_wake was a biggie in my BBS log. You can see the log for that period below. Battery continues to plummet as it did before.

I then turned on airplane mode and started a new BBS log. The battery stopped going down. In fact it was one of those situations where the charger mis-reported the actual charge and in nearly two hours time BBS sees the battery as having gone up 1%. That log is also attached.

Also below are screenshots of this whole process where you can see the battery plateau created by airplane mode.

Perhaps we can compare these 3 log files to determine something? I am going to post them in the BBS thread as well.

Thanks again everyone I hope we can get to the bottom of this!

I couldn't find anything between all 3 that is consistent and have enough % of use to screw up your battery.

I'm curious, what is your theory on what might be the cause?

jeffreii · Aug 3, 2012

DudeWatsThat said:
I couldn't find anything between all 3 that is consistent and have enough % of use to screw up your battery.

I'm curious, what is your theory on what might be the cause?

Thanks again for looking. Honestly I am assuming it's a bug deep in the software or something...either that or one of my apps.

First I thought it was an app. Then I thought it was hardware. Now I am just trying to re-evaluate and look at all of the evidence.

Part of me wants to just reboot every night and forget about it...

[Help][50% SOLVED] LTE = random heavy battery drain aka "plummet"

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