Battery life in the last few days

Well, I left my phone with "use only 2g networks" selected today, and it solved my problem. I've been on the battery 13h 57m and still have 54% charge left. Quite an improvement from going completely dead in ~4-5 hours idle.

Turns out Deliamber was exactly right. I had no idea that it would have made a difference even with the data network turned off.

I hope they get this fixed ASAP.

I'm sure by now everyone has heard about this but I'm gonna post this anyway just in case..


http://support.t-mobile.com/thread/3544?tstart=0

TMO wants to know what device/area/and if switching to 2g helps.

could this issue be all about gmail?

In searching around to find this issue, I noticed complaints from people starting in the past few days that includes people on other networks. i.e. not just T-Mobile. It seems to me that perhaps T-Mobile doesn't have anything to fix, and we should be leaning on Google a bit more.

I don't think its a google thing because I uninstalled gmail and maps and also did a factory reset and etc... Same result....in battery depletion...

wraith404 said:

In searching around to find this issue, I noticed complaints from people starting in the past few days that includes people on other networks. i.e. not just T-Mobile. It seems to me that perhaps T-Mobile doesn't have anything to fix, and we should be leaning on Google a bit more.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

The google apps that were updated around that time were the Market, Maps, and Gmail.

It's strange that some folks in the DFW area were able to get some restoration of battery life just by reverting gmail. This has not been reproduced elsewhere. So, I can only conclude, that's really weird?

I have both uninstalled completely and reverted gmail. Yesterday, with the older gmail, on 3g, I lost 22% in 1h20 min, which is ridiculous. I have also tried reverting to the old Market. Others have reverted maps. Those don't seem to work either.

I'm just glad there is very active interest in getting to the bottom of this.

waylo said:

The google apps that were updated around that time were the Market, Maps, and Gmail.

It's strange that some folks in the DFW area were able to get some restoration of battery life just by reverting gmail. This has not been reproduced elsewhere. So, I can only conclude, that's really weird?

I have both uninstalled completely and reverted gmail. Yesterday, with the older gmail, on 3g, I lost 22% in 1h20 min, which is ridiculous. I have also tried reverting to the old Market. Others have reverted maps. Those don't seem to work either.

I'm just glad there is very active interest in getting to the bottom of this.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It could well be that some folks encountered some increased battery drain coincidentally due to applications or updates, perhaps on T-Mobile in areas unaffected by the HSPA+ drain issue and on other networks entirely. That would explain why their issues were corrected just by making application changes (rolling things back, disabling automatic sync, etc.)

However, those would be problems distinct from what's been pretty definitively identified as a widespread T-Mobile network/tower issue in many of their "4G" coverage areas, and the one most people are reporting about. It's unfortunate that it ends up causing confusion about what the root cause of the problem is, when really they're probably completely different problems to begin with that just happen to have the similar effect of shortening battery life.

Deliamber said:

It could well be that some folks encountered some increased battery drain coincidentally due to applications or updates, perhaps on T-Mobile in areas unaffected by the HSPA+ drain issue and on other networks entirely. That would explain why their issues were corrected just by making application changes (rolling things back, disabling automatic sync, etc.)

However, those would be problems distinct from what's been pretty definitively identified as a widespread T-Mobile network/tower issue in many of their "4G" coverage areas, and the one most people are reporting about. It's unfortunate that it ends up causing confusion about what the root cause of the problem is, when really they're probably completely different problems to begin with that just happen to have the similar effect of shortening battery life.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

That makes sense. Thanks for the response (and to the other couple of people who also did). I took a scorched earth approach and rolled back apps and set 2g. I guess I'll go ahead and let my apps update again.

wraith404 said:

In searching around to find this issue, I noticed complaints from people starting in the past few days that includes people on other networks. i.e. not just T-Mobile. It seems to me that perhaps T-Mobile doesn't have anything to fix, and we should be leaning on Google a bit more.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

EDIT: Sorry wraith404, your earlier reply went in as I was composing this.

I very much doubt it. As I reported upthread, I tried uninstalling updates and even completely wiping my phone. I also tried completely uninstalling Google Maps when that was initially suspected as the issue. Others have tried similar rollbacks of suspected applications and updates with no impact.

Even disabling data completely (as futuremonkey reported) doesn't solve the problem. That means if it were an application issue it'd have to be a problem with one of them hogging the CPU. No other way they could cause such severe battery drain. Yet the battery usage stats don't show evidence of that. My phone's been off the charger for nearly 5 hours, and GMail (2.3.5) is only responsible for 2% of the power consumption since then. Not to mention that if it were a CPU hogging issue then switching to 2G only for the cell connection, even with data disabled, shouldn't show the dramatic improvement that it does.

We also have reports that T-Mobile engineers are aware there's an issue, and are working on a fix. The new thread posted at T-Mobile support soliciting details from those affected supports this as well.

In sum, there's widespread evidence indicating a configuration problem with many of T-Mobile's HSPA+ towers, and very little to point to an application issue. On the contrary, a lot of testing and investigation has ruled out an application or OS problem as the cause for most people.

That doesn't mean that some folks might have unrelated application issues that also cause some increased battery drain, and which they've found they can fix by rolling something back or disabling cell data use, but those would be separate issues. Confusingly coincidental and seemingly similar yes, but not with the same cause.

It looks like this may have been fixed here in Portland. I posted my results here: http://support.t-mobile.com/message/16215#16215

Testing it out in Portland. Thanks for reporting.

Big Smooth said:

It looks like this may have been fixed here in Portland.

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Click to collapse

I can only say what testing I'm aware of, but the Portland OR market and, I believe, Corvallis tested much better today.

There's no guarantee it will stay better, and I have no idea about other markets, but I've been on 3G since 12.30p and I still have 53% battery left.

So, while the problem is gone for the moment, there's no guarantee it will remain that way.

I'm attempting to get more information from my contacts, but as of yet I don't have anything.

-Greg

It looks like battery drain issues for me have largely resolved since yesterday, here in Portland. Thanks to everyone who's reported in. Also for posting on the official T-mobile site. Hopefully other areas will be fixed soon.

Seems a lot better today for me too.
Houston Texas

Dallas/Ftworth seems to be back to normal....

San Antonio is cruising too...was at 85% at noon today. Last week it was 45%. I actually managed two days on a single charge over the weekend, shutting it off overnight, but no charging.