[REF] Known identified battery drainers

[Entropy512]

In many cases, people who have battery drain issues have a tendency to end up being found to be using a known battery draining app or configuration. To help these people, I'm going to try to start a list here. I will, in the case of known rogue apps, include the reporting date so people can try updates to see if drain is fixed. (For example, Facebook is rarely a culprit any more, but it was the #1 most common battery eater in 2010.) The primary focus here will be things that shouldn't drain your battery but do.

Firmware bugs:

1. The UCKK6 OTA update contains a number of issues with wifi and bluetooth. Among these is that an oddball feature of our Wifi/Bluetooth chipset goes nuts and wakes up the phone once per second intermittently. Rebooting temporarily fixes it, turning off wifi temporarily fixes it, only permanent fix is to ditch UCKK6. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1409513 for more details - Appears as a variant of the Android OS "bug" - this is the only one that is actually 100% a firmware bug. International XWKK5 is also affected.

LAN Environment (WiFi):

• Broadcast LAN traffic can wake your wifi chip often. This also manifests as the Android OS "bug", but it's a small problem with the firmware base (XXKI3 and UCKK6 are known to be affected) and mostly a network problem. Examples I've seen so far include:
  • Windows Client Backup
  • UPnP (DLNA) SSDP
  • Dropbox Lan Sync Discovery Protocol
  • Buggy piece-of-**** routers that spam lots of ARP requests continuously - The 2Wire routers that are required for UVerse access apparently fit in this category.

You are more likely to have the above issue on some firmware bases than others. For example, XXKI3 disables all of the chip's packet filters, making it vulnerable to this sort of thing. UCKH7 and XWKL1 don't, leading to significantly improved life on "dirty" networks. UCKK6 almost surely also has the same problem.

Configuration issues:

1. Hotmail calendar sync
2. Misconfigured Microsoft Exchange servers - 1) is a special case of this. At least one person has reported that calendar sync to a non-Hotmail account was problematic for them, but email sync was OK
3. A bad Exchange configuration - the client apparently goes nuts if it can't contact the server
4. BLN - On Galaxy S II devices, there is no stable BLN implementation that does not hold a wakelock when a notification is active. This means that an active BLN notification will drain about 4-5%/hour. I say this in bold letters in my kernel thread, but somehow people still don't realize it...

Rogue apps:

1. Words with Friends (October 2011)
2. Skype (October 2011) - Particularly insidious, as it does not directly hold a wakelock. However, it causes lots of background network activity, and this activity keeps your phone awake. Since most of the time is spent wakelocked in the network stack, Skype drain shows as Android OS.
3. Any IM app that works similarly to Skype is likely to have the same issues.
4. AP Mobile Widget on stock AT&T ROMs - this one also blows through your data allotment quickly if you don't have unlimited data
5. AT&T Smart WiFi can sometimes hold excessive wakelocks - this is why AT&T bloat is bad for you.

The Obvious:

1. 3D or animation/action-intensive games

The Rare:
Apps that occasionally go nuts, but not frequently

1. Facebook - I've had it wakelock me once, and also, Facebook chat may have triggered my first obvious "AOS bug" episode once - so far, it's been responsible for drain once this month
2. StartingAlertService - some sort of Calendar notification related bug

The False Blame:

1. GPS Status and Toolbox - may appear to be high-drain but is actually not draining - this is an Android battery reporting bug - see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=23106668&postcount=491 for more details. Thank you for the info and the great app rhornig.

If you're having battery drain issues, I suggest the following:

1. Install BetterBatteryStats. The XDA edition from the author's thread on these forums is free. (Market version is paid.)
2. Also, having CPUSpy to see deep sleep percentages is VERY useful
3. BBS now shows kernel wakelocks - make sure to check these. If you have an older version that doesn't show kernel wakelocks, use the instructions below.

Get ADB up and running (Google it, and if you're on Windows, Googling Droid Explorer may help)
Using ADB, do the following:

adb shell cat /proc/wakelocks > wakelocks.txt
adb shell dmesg > dmesg.txt

Zip em' up and post em' here for analysis.

Edit: Specifically, to get a good baseline measurement of idle drain - make sure to have CPUSpy installed for this procedure:
Charge phone to full
Reboot
Reset timers in CPUSpy, otherwise the percentages and bars will be wacky
Let the phone sit for a while - Overnight is best. Then provide data:

Deep sleep percentage
Time the phone was sitting
Percentage battery drained
I don't need screenshots of the above, just the numbers. Screenshots use up massive amounts of thread space
Grab /proc/wakelocks as mentioned above and post it, OR use BetterBatteryStats 1.4 or above to pull kernel wakelocks.

Note: If you're at or below 1%/hour idle drain, not much point of posting your wakelocks.

If you have high wlan_wake, wlan_rx_wake, or svnet-dormancy wakelock times, then you have an app eating data or one of the wifi wakeup bugs described above. Install Shark for Root - https://market.android.com/details?id=lv.n3o.shark

Start it, and change parameters from:

-vv -s 0

to

-vv -s 68

This tells it to only capture the first 68 bytes of each packet, which is all we need for this purpose. This provides two benefits: A smaller capture, and privacy for you. (It captures packet headers but not contents)
Then start a capture and let it sit for a bit.

Note that your drain will be higher during the capture than normal - we're collecting data here, not directly nuking the drain.

After a while where you are positive you are encountering drain, stop Shark and then pull the .pcap file - load it in Wireshark on your PC or post it here. If you post it here, MAKE SURE you have a truncated capture as instructed above!

 

[Artimus009]

Thank you sir. Will do in a few.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App

 

[chase10784]

Words with friends is an insane battery drainer. I had a screen on time of 4 hours and 15 minutes with 35% battery use and Words with friends had a 45 min cpu usage and was 26% of the battery drain...There is no way that should be so close to the screen usage. CRAZY.

 

[mcorrie1121]

Words with friends is an insane battery drainer. I had a screen on time of 4 hours and 15 minutes with 35% battery use and Words with friends had a 45 min cpu usage and was 26% of the battery drain...There is no way that should be so close to the screen usage. CRAZY.

I spent a while testing that app before finding out it is a phone-wide issue. Emailed the dev today but we'll see how it goes. Not a small dev anymore.

 

[chase10784]

Yea I hope they fix it...I love playing it but it kills my battery. If that app didnt run I may have like 5 hours of screen time on a single charge if not more. I looked at many of the reviews of it and many of them mention the battery killing it does.

 

[gtg465x]

Just discovered an interesting feature built in to the stock rom. Go to task manager > storage and you'll see it©.

 

[Rolex81]

The tower defense game Sentinel 3 will put a HEAVY drain on your battery.

Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium

 

[DefTaker]

Just discovered an interesting feature built in to the stock rom. Go to task manager > storage and you'll see it©.

Huh? What happens?

 

[morrichad]

Apparently an app I come to love and use on all my devices is Battery Monitor Widget. According to to someone's post from the BBS thread and due to my own investigation. BMW will cause a lot of wake time up to 970 awakes over a 12 HR period. That is a lot time consuming battery and resources.

 

[penskyc]

rebooted my phone reset cpu spy and going to leave it not charging and I will abd into the phone and get the demesg and other file and post here.. been losing 30% over night on about 8 hours which I know is way off... no skype I have wifi data sync and gps on as well as syncing a google account twitter tango and facebook.... which I understand might be alot but shouldn't this phone be able to handle all that? I also live in a basement with poor service but right next to the router... getting a microcell on Friday which I hope helps. My AOS is around 65% in battery status and suspend and events/0 are definitely running more than one minute every 10 hours, more like 20 minutes at least every charge, and my phone is lasting 11 hours give or take with minimal to no use

 

[Entropy512]

rebooted my phone reset cpu spy and going to leave it not charging and I will abd into the phone and get the demesg and other file and post here.. been losing 30% over night on about 8 hours which I know is way off... no skype I have wifi data sync and gps on as well as syncing a google account twitter tango and facebook.... which I understand might be alot but shouldn't this phone be able to handle all that? I also live in a basement with poor service but right next to the router... getting a microcell on Friday which I hope helps. My AOS is around 65% in battery status and suspend and events/0 are definitely running more than one minute every 10 hours, more like 20 minutes at least every charge, and my phone is lasting 11 hours give or take with minimal to no use

Suspend and events/0 at 1 minute every 10h aren't too bad. AOS at 65 is a bit high.

Unless one of the above apps you use is implemented badly, your phone should be able to handle the above. I have Google and Facebook and get great drain. I haven't heard reports of Twitter causing problems.

Tango is an unknown - it's in a similar class to Skype so could be driving excessive idle network traffic.

To the person who posted that a game drained their battery - well, that should be pretty obvious. I guess I'll add it to the first post later, but I'm primarily focusing on the "non-obvious" stuff - things that SHOULDN'T drain your battery but do.

 

[roadrash7]

Tango is all good had it installed on my phone forever my batt life is amazing. It doesnt require a sign in. Look out for anything that make you sign in besides google as far as im concerned

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium

 

[SNadler]

In many cases, people who have battery drain issues have a tendency to end up being found to be using a known battery draining app or configuration. To help these people, I'm going to try to start a list here. I will, in the case of known rogue apps, include the reporting date so people can try updates to see if drain is fixed. (For example, Facebook is rarely a culprit any more, but it was the #1 most common battery eater in 2010.) The primary focus here will be things that shouldn't drain your battery but do.

Configuration issues:

1. Hotmail calendar sync
2. Misconfigured Microsoft Exchange servers - 1) is a special case of this. At least one person has reported that calendar sync to a non-Hotmail account was problematic for them, but email sync was OK

Rogue apps:

1. Words with Friends (October 2011)
2. Skype (October 2011) - Particularly insidious, as it does not directly hold a wakelock. However, it causes lots of background network activity, and this activity keeps your phone awake. Since most of the time is spent wakelocked in the network stack, Skype drain shows as Android OS.
3. Any IM app that works similarly to Skype is likely to have the same issues.

The Obvious:

1. 3D or animation/action-intensive games

If you're having battery drain issues, I suggest the following:

1. Install BetterBatteryStats. The XDA edition from the author's thread on these forums is free. (Market version is paid.)
2. If BBS doesn't show any significant wakelocks, and no apps show as hogs in Settings->About Phone->Battery, do the following:

Get ADB up and running (Google it, and if you're on Windows, Googling Droid Explorer may help)
Using ADB, do the following:

adb shell cat /proc/wakelocks > wakelocks.txt
adb shell dmesg > dmesg.txt

Zip em' up and post em' here for analysis.

Can you please take a look at this one to see if there is anything out of order?
Much appreciated!

 

[penskyc]

Suspend and events/0 at 1 minute every 10h aren't too bad. AOS at 65 is a bit high.

Unless one of the above apps you use is implemented badly, your phone should be able to handle the above. I have Google and Facebook and get great drain. I haven't heard reports of Twitter causing problems.

Tango is an unknown - it's in a similar class to Skype so could be driving excessive idle network traffic.

To the person who posted that a game drained their battery - well, that should be pretty obvious. I guess I'll add it to the first post later, but I'm primarily focusing on the "non-obvious" stuff - things that SHOULDN'T drain your battery but do.

what I meant to say about the suspend and events/0 is that i wish i was getting a minute every 10h, it is more like 20minutes.. I just finished my over night test, I put the phone down at 11:09 with 69% battery left, waking up just now with 30% at 8:16, did not touch the phone once.. should have been asleep the whole time.. also my suspend is at 31minutes (BBS) and my events/0 is at 30minute (BBS), i also reset my cpu spy. deep sleep 5:49 hours, 200mhz 1:29 hours and 800mhz 1:21 hours (14%)

and lastly, here is my dmesg and wakelocks... so yea this looks pretty horrible to me!


I actually went to the at&t store to exchange this phone yesterday cause I am convinced something is wrong with it, no one really seems to be getting the severe drainahe and stats that i am getting, so I assumed it has to be the phone, well its 2 weeks old and the guy wouldnt take it cause he needed proof there is a battery problem.. Also I went back to stock yesterday before i was going to exchange my phone and the issue seemed to be happening aswell no matter where I was and what apps were installed, hoping these files will figure something out! thanks for your help!

 

[Dxtra]

There's alot of careless and sloppy developers out there that has no concern on users battery. Android support Push notification since froyo and it's only implemented in a few apps like tango. Why? Go to the appstore the same exact IM and video chat apps uses push notification, but not on the android version. Instead you have to log in all day clogging your Ram and battery. As of now the only IM client I use it's Google Talk screw Skype oovoo ect or any other apps that has no push. BTW Facebook it's another mess, soon Ill be deleting and using the browser.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium

 

[AndreiLux]

what I meant to say about the suspend and events/0 is that i wish i was getting a minute every 10h, it is more like 20minutes.. I just finished my over night test, I put the phone down at 11:09 with 69% battery left, waking up just now with 30% at 8:16, did not touch the phone once.. should have been asleep the whole time.. also my suspend is at 31minutes (BBS) and my events/0 is at 30minute (BBS), i also reset my cpu spy. deep sleep 5:49 hours, 200mhz 1:29 hours and 800mhz 1:21 hours (14%)

and lastly, here is my dmesg and wakelocks... so yea this looks pretty horrible to me!

It seems to be the same issue as everybody else is having, getting excessive network traffic waking up the phone. Either you do a network capture of the packets and identify it by the highest common port which comes in (complicated), or you turn off each service off one by one. In the last case I'd start with the network location service (Kill it with Titanium) as that was known to be a *****.

 

[penskyc]

It seems to be the same issue as everybody else is having, getting excessive network traffic waking up the phone. Either you do a network capture of the packets and identify it by the highest common port which comes in (complicated), or you turn off each service off one by one. In the last case I'd start with the network location service (Kill it with Titanium) as that was known to be a *****.

so you think I should freeze each app one by one and let chill for an hour and see if there is drainage or not? is ot just processes or apps? cause I would never know to do something about network service unless u said something.. BTW I did, and i still lost 4% battery in an hour of idle.. so thats not it.. what about using this the other way you were talking about

http://www.vbsteven.be/blog/android-debugging-inspectin-network-traffic-with-tcpdump/

 

[AndreiLux]

so you think I should freeze each app one by one and let chill for an hour and see if there is drainage or not? is ot just processes or apps? cause I would never know to do something about network service unless u said something.. BTW I did, and i still lost 4% battery in an hour of idle.. so thats not it.. what about using this the other way you were talking about

http://www.vbsteven.be/blog/android-debugging-inspectin-network-traffic-with-tcpdump/

Exactly. By services I just mean running apps I guess. You can do it as in that guide too, but its hard to later find out which App listens to which port on Android...

 

[penskyc]

Exactly. By services I just mean running apps I guess. You can do it as in that guide too, but its hard to later find out which App listens to which port on Android...

ok, so I did try this to an extent, i would disable 4 apps at a time for the most part, only apps, none of the red items like wifi manager and stuff like that (even though i did try that at a different date)

I had no success.. I went back to stock, uninstalled all bloatware, at&t live TV, my account, bar scanner, all that bs, right now I have BBS, Cpu Spy and titanium, only apps that are not stock and are in the list of installed apps. I am still getting this issue!! could it be that I have poor service (though this never affected the iphone this badly) I lose 40% overnight though and it seems odd to me that would be because of low service..

 

[WGSXFrank]

GO.Keyboard and GO Contacts ( especially GO Contacts) was draining my battery at a phenominal pace. GO Contacts was using more battery than the display

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App