Official fix for battery problems

Remember to disable Fast Boot!

I tried this twice and forgot to disable Fast Boot. Android got corrupted and a hard reset was required.

bikercr said:

This is directly from HTC tech support. To recalibrate battery and HTC charger when battery rapidly or erratically discharges, this procedure clears all battery stats, coordinates and normalizes charging.

Turn off Fast Boot in settings. Power off phone.
Plug phone into HTC charger and charge for two minutes or more
While charging, hold down volume up+volume down+power button and continue holding
Phone will turn on and off repeatedly every 15 seconds or so while continuing to hold all three buttons
Keep this going for 2 minutes, then release buttons when phone is ON
Now, let phone charge fully normally (with phone either on or off--doesn't matter) and battery level reporting, charging and battery life should be normalized.


Do this every month or so to keep power system healthy--even if everything seems fine. Also, don't leave phone on charger overnight for best long term battery life (according to HTC tech support: "The first thing they tell us." This is true even though charging is supposed to turn off when battery is at 100%)

NOTE: Another potential fix for battery/charging abnormalities if this procedure fails (esp. after an OTA update when corrupted files can remain stuck in device cache partition)--clear cache partition using this method: http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-htc-one/315416-how-clear-cache-partition-stock-recovery-un-rooted-phone.html

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

As xochipilli pointed out, there is no fast boot option in Marshmallow.

My battery indicator goes crazy from 92% goes down to 86% in just 1 minute, first i think because the ROM or kernel issues but trying different ROM doesn't give any changes, and battery eep going crazy. Searching XDA forum and found this, then i do this step mentioned by the OP in the first post, the result is frickin awesome. i dunno what magic this is but it works!

In my experience I'm press and hold the volume button (both) and then power button when the phone is ON, in a few sec the phone reboot and screen showing HTC logo then it came OFF, then it showing battery indicator (like when we charging while the phone is OFF), then goes OFF again then another battery indicator, this is repeated for 3 times and almost 2 minute pressing the screen is suddenly ON with HTC logo, so like mentioned in the first post i release all button, and the phone boot normal.

Oh im on Marshmallow. i hope this help others.

rudachmed said:

Oh im on Marshmallow. i hope this help others.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Where was the fast boot option bro?

Knightofrepublic said:

Where was the fast boot option bro?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It doesn't exist, hasn't since KitKat.

And therefore, doesn't need to be disabled, to do the remaining steps.

Need help

redpoint73 said:

It doesn't exist, hasn't since KitKat.
And therefore, doesn't need to be disabled, to do the remaining steps.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I drained to zero and it wouldn't even charge for a while, something happened idk what...could that ruin my battery?
also on rooted phones can I just charging logic reset (2 min) using an app? same with cache?

Hmz27 said:

I drained to zero and it wouldn't even charge for a while, something happened idk what...could that ruin my battery?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The battery is not actually zero voltage when the phone shuts off. It can however, be too low voltage to properly charge. Safeguards are supposed to shut off the phone before the voltage drops too low. But we've seen plenty of cases where the safeguards don't do that.

Try leaving the phone on charger several hours (such as overnight). Then hold power for a minute or so, and see if the phone boots (if not , try holding power+vol up for a minute or so).

Hi, my m8's battery cannot hold a charge. While charging when turned off, it shows the battery symbol with an exclamation mark inside and i don't know what the problem is.

Timely thread resurrection! This did not show up on the first few pages of my battery life thread search.

EDIT - Complete.
Wow, you wouldn't think holding all three buttons down for 2 minutes would be so hard on the fingers. I have dents in two fingers I was holding the vol buttons down with. I was holding them real tight because I have a case on and didn't want to let go during the process. We'll see if it fixes my battery problem posted here:

Carrier Unlocked GSM M8

EDIT #2:
Didn't seem to do much. I did notice it took longer to drop off of 100%. I just wiped cache at 40% to see what that does.

EDIT #3:
Clearing the cache didn't do the trick. I went to bed with 86% and woke up with 34%. I have an app sucker or two. Now I'm either going to find them or just flash another ROM.

Does this work for the M9? Having crazy battery issues on my M9 and nothing like this thread for the M9.

bikercr said:

This is directly from HTC tech support. To recalibrate battery and HTC charger when battery rapidly or erratically discharges, this procedure clears all battery stats, coordinates and normalizes charging.

Turn off Fast Boot in settings. Power off phone.
Plug phone into HTC charger and charge for two minutes or more
While charging, hold down volume up+volume down+power button and continue holding
Phone will turn on and off repeatedly every 15 seconds or so while continuing to hold all three buttons
Keep this going for 2 minutes, then release buttons when phone is ON
Now, let phone charge fully normally (with phone either on or off--doesn't matter) and battery level reporting, charging and battery life should be normalized.


Do this every month or so to keep power system healthy--even if everything seems fine. Also, don't leave phone on charger overnight for best long term battery life (according to HTC tech support: "The first thing they tell us." This is true even though charging is supposed to turn off when battery is at 100%)

NOTE: Another potential fix for battery/charging abnormalities if this procedure fails (esp. after an OTA update when corrupted files can remain stuck in device cache partition)--clear cache partition using this method: http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-htc-one/315416-how-clear-cache-partition-stock-recovery-un-rooted-phone.html

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Is method applicable to phones of other companies too???

I have researched and written a program to charge Lithium batteries in the past as part of an embedded system. Communication was via I2C and was pretty simple.
There is no memory effect as with NiCad etc The battery reports its state of charge accurately along with last charge state max and min charges along with pretty much everything you need to know about the battery including times to full and no charge.
If a battery is reporting the wrong charge then it is the program which is at fault, not the battery( unless that is duff). It is more likely that the program was written incorrectly and factors were ignored or the scheduler is not working as expected. Either way you have to get the system to reset the battery status as fas as the android device is concerned. It all depends on the Battery API and how the programmer has used it.
Someone ar HTC has gone through this process and found it resets the battery status on the phone.
There are a number of Apps that say they can reset the battery and for all I know the people who have developed these apps have used the app correctly. TBH with the amount of problems you see with many different phones, I would be inclined to say the API is either not used properly or the API itself is duff.

bikercr said:

This is directly from HTC tech support. To recalibrate battery and HTC charger when battery rapidly or erratically discharges, this procedure clears all battery stats, coordinates and normalizes charging.

Turn off Fast Boot in settings. Power off phone.
Plug phone into HTC charger and charge for two minutes or more
While charging, hold down volume up+volume down+power button and continue holding
Phone will turn on and off repeatedly every 15 seconds or so while continuing to hold all three buttons
Keep this going for 2 minutes, then release buttons when phone is ON
Now, let phone charge fully normally (with phone either on or off--doesn't matter) and battery level reporting, charging and battery life should be normalized.


Do this every month or so to keep power system healthy--even if everything seems fine. Also, don't leave phone on charger overnight for best long term battery life (according to HTC tech support: "The first thing they tell us." This is true even though charging is supposed to turn off when battery is at 100%)

NOTE: Another potential fix for battery/charging abnormalities if this procedure fails (esp. after an OTA update when corrupted files can remain stuck in device cache partition)--clear cache partition using this method: http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-htc-one/315416-how-clear-cache-partition-stock-recovery-un-rooted-phone.html

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Did you guys get successful preventing sudden phone-off?
I recently bought this device. It was already updated to marshmallow. I did the volume button thing, saw this way and tried that. In the very next boot,everything is okay, battery drain till last drop. But in subsequent boots, problem reappeared . I tried wiping cache partition with twrp. But the problem comes again. Did you guys get it solved 100% in one time? Did I miss something? Or is it like me everywhere ?

Holy cow what a lot of misinformation on batteries in this thread! For starters this chickenchoking thing - if it even works at all - is only going to work on a NEW or nearly new battery. It's been 4 years since this phone was released. You ARE NOT going to "resurrect" a 4 year old phone battery and make it work "like new" no matter how many buttons you press.
Batteries fall in a fairly predictable bell curve. 1-10% will die early - like within 6 months of manufacture - that's why we have warranties. 1-10% will last longer than your grandpa's rawhide rubber. But the rest of them fall in the middle. 4 years is decent life for a nicely treated battery. That means a battery that isn't in a phone that's left on the car dashboard in Arizona and heated up to 150 degrees every day. Or one that's operated in Antartica. The battery electronics in the battery works fine in these middle-of-the-curve batteries. Over time they lose capacity. The electronics in the battery cannot measure capacity loss. It can measure battery voltage and supplied current and voltage drop when the battery is supplying current and refer to it's table of these things to guess what the battery state of charge is. If the battery is mostly working the tables in the chip are accurate and this calibration nonsense does nothing. If the battery is worn out the chip cannot deal with that and reports garbage.
If you have a new or a 4 year old battery that acts crazy like displaying 100% of charge then 5 minutes later it's dead - then the battery is shot. Simple as that. Buy a new battery and replace it. And be aware that most new batteries are never going to last as long as the original did. That's because the manufacturers are buying these batteries in bulk and have the purchasing muscle to get the top-grade batteries from the battery makers. But when you buy a single battery you get the 2nd tier stuff that is probably going to be better than a worn out battery but it won't be the best. If you want a better battery then go to a chain like (in the US) Batteries Plus that buys these things from China in bulk and also has the purchasing muscle to get the top tier batteries - and all you have to do is hope that the battery you get from them wasn't sitting in their warehouse a year.

tmittelstaedt said:

Holy cow what a lot of misinformation on batteries in this thread! For starters this chickenchoking thing - if it even works at all - is only going to work on a NEW or nearly new battery. It's been 4 years since this phone was released. You ARE NOT going to "resurrect" a 4 year old phone battery and make it work "like new" no matter how many buttons you press.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I agree that the top post is poorly worded. It seeks to correct battery meter problems, is what it should say. Its a semantic error I see often "calibrate the battery" which makes no sense. You are simply calibrating how the battery charge is metered and displayed. "Fix battery problems" and "calibrate the battery" makes it sounds like pressing buttons is going to somehow change the battery chemistry. Which is obviously false.

As for the OP's statement that the fix supposedly "coordinates and normalizes charging", I can't say whether it is true or not. As the battery charging is somewhat dependent on the metering, I suppose its possible to some extent. But it also sounds a little too good to be true.

You are correct in that, I should have pointed that out. My experience in these things is that a bad battery will start handing out bad data to the phone, and when you replace the battery with a good one, you have good data from the new battery that gets averaged in with the bad data from the old battery and for a few charge cycles the phone will report strange states of charge even though the battery will last a decent amount of time - but after a few charge cycles things settle down and the phone will start reporting an accurate charge.
From a design standpoint the battery chip on the phone MUST have an adaptive feedback loop otherwise on even a good battery over multiple charge cycles the chip in the phone is going to get further and further off what the battery is actually doing. Unless something is really cocked up it's better to depend on that loop settling things down over time rather than to try to "reset" it.
I think the problem specifically with the m8 is that changing the battery is such a PIA that people get desperate to believe that there's some magic thing that will cure battery problems without opening the case. If this was a model with a battery door you could just pop the battery out and replace it, I doubt this thread would even exist.

Thanks for the useful thread.
I am on HTC 10.
Wanna try your way to reset battery stats. But nowhere is there an option to turn off or on Fast Boot. What should I do? Can you kindly help me?

SiAmaze said:

Thanks for the useful thread.
I am on HTC 10.
Wanna try your way to reset battery stats. But nowhere is there an option to turn off or on Fast Boot. What should I do? Can you kindly help me?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

If the "Fast Boot" option doesn't exist in power settings, you don't need to turn it off. So this step can be disregarded in cases where the option does not exist. HTC removed this option from the M8 fairly early on (since the move from KitKat to Lollipop) so it didn't even exist on the M8 for the most part. All this step does (turning of "Fast Boot" ) is to ensure the phone is truly powered off. Since button combos only work when powered off or full reboot. "Fast Boot" was not a true power off, but merely a deep sleep trick used to make the phone "boot up" faster. For you (HTC 10) powered off is powered off.

That being said, I don't know of the same button combo will reset the battery meter, as it does on the M8. You might want to research that, as the button combo may or may not be device specific (might not work on your device).

redpoint73 said:

That being said, I don't know of the same button combo will reset the battery meter, as it does on the M8. You might want to research that, as the button combo may or may not be device specific (might not work on your device).

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Please do tell me what the combination is if ever you find it anywhere. Thanks again.

I'm rly sorry for my dumbness, but where is Fast boot setting? Looked for it in every catalogue of phone settings and didn't find.