sudden battery drain problem

[glasshalffull]

in the last couple of days, something is causing my bionic battery to drain super fast...so fast i can hardly charge it as fast as it discharges.

Phone is very warm.

this happened suddenly

I have had the phone since the day the bionic was made available to the public.

running the default system, not rooted or running any custom/different user interface

i checked, settings/battery & data manager/usage statistics and have attached screenshots of the results

I had just installed these 2 apps recently:

Car Locator - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.edwardkim.android.carlocatorfree&fe ature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5lZHd hcmRraW0uYW5kcm9pZC5jYXJsb2NhdG9yZnJlZSJd

Field Trip https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.scout

I have uninstalled them both.

352 MB RAM being used by applications with 360 MB free, 2.8GB app storage free

I have tried these things to solve the problem and they have not worked:

1. Pulled the battery and restarted after 1 minute
2. turned on and off wifi ( phone is running fine, like normal, on my home network)
3. uninstalled 2 apps that i recently added within the last week.
4. made sure all of the video players and apps were closed and signed out of

what could be the problem? any ideas how to fix

 

[josh1980]

It's possible one of your apps is sucking down power. I changed an SQL entry before, and due to a mistake i could barely keep the battery at the current percentage when plugged into a fast charger. The phone also was warm. Eventually I figured out what I did. Took about 8 hours of on and off troubleshooting to identify the problem. Whoops!

My recommendation would be to start freezing apps if rooted or start uninstalling them. Do a few at a time and see if anything changes. If not try a few more. It's quite often an app that is to blame.

I also tried disabling data and wifi when trying to narrow down the problem to see if the issue is an app that is constantly calling someplace that isn't connected to the internet. If turning off data and wifi makes the problem instantly go away, the issue is almost certainly an app(or the OS) trying to contact something on the net. I've seen only 1 app that did that so far. There are probably apps out there that will tell you what connections are open and you could maybe identify the offending app.

It's going to be troubleshooting one thing at a time until you can narrow down the exact cause. If you just want it gone you could try a factory reset. But I try not to recommend those except as an absolute last resort. It just sucks having to start over.

 

[mamawm]

i agree that it's most likely app related. since you already uninstalled the apps you recently added, then it most likely is an update to one of you older apps. this is why i have all my apps set to manual update. i read all the current reviews before i update anything just in case this type of problem is being reported. if you can figure out which one it is, you can go into manage apps and uninstall the update.

 

[DevilDogMP]

Try downloading battery monitor widget to see what is using the most battery.

 

[glasshalffull]

It's possible one of your apps is sucking down power. I changed an SQL entry before, and due to a mistake i could barely keep the battery at the current percentage when plugged into a fast charger. The phone also was warm. Eventually I figured out what I did. Took about 8 hours of on and off troubleshooting to identify the problem. Whoops!

My recommendation would be to start freezing apps if rooted or start uninstalling them. Do a few at a time and see if anything changes. If not try a few more. It's quite often an app that is to blame.

I also tried disabling data and wifi when trying to narrow down the problem to see if the issue is an app that is constantly calling someplace that isn't connected to the internet. If turning off data and wifi makes the problem instantly go away, the issue is almost certainly an app(or the OS) trying to contact something on the net. I've seen only 1 app that did that so far. There are probably apps out there that will tell you what connections are open and you could maybe identify the offending app.

It's going to be troubleshooting one thing at a time until you can narrow down the exact cause. If you just want it gone you could try a factory reset. But I try not to recommend those except as an absolute last resort. It just sucks having to start over.

Thanks for the advice, Josh, we'll give that a try.

I'm leaning towards the idea that it's an updated app that has gone "rogue" and is chewing up battery life

lol...someone needs to develop an app to automatically do exactly what you recommend as it's gonna take time

 

[glasshalffull]

i agree that it's most likely app related. since you already uninstalled the apps you recently added, then it most likely is an update to one of you older apps. this is why i have all my apps set to manual update. i read all the current reviews before i update anything just in case this type of problem is being reported. if you can figure out which one it is, you can go into manage apps and uninstall the update.

thanks for the advice, mamawm, looking into that now

 

[glasshalffull]

installed GSam battery monitor as a suggestion from someone, it's a great, free app for looking at detailed reports on what is using power on your phone.

has an "appsucker" stat showing all running apps and % power used and phone temperature chart

really gets into detail

 

[glasshalffull]

something had changed the brightness of the display to high, so i have turned that down and the battery isn't draining as fast and is not as hot as it was previously but is still warmer than normal.

I have just checked the battery usage and the "media" is using 64% of the battery....far more than anything else.

see the screenshot,

not sure what I'm looking at in that screenshot and how to fix it

any suggestions?

 

[glasshalffull]

I think (knock on wood) that i have found the answer and solved the problem.


I located another thread with a similar problem here : http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-3-tech-support/189222-media-using-battery-up.html and that seems to be what was wrong with my phone.


I had a large video on my laptop that i reformatted/rendered in handbrake for my phone using the "Android Mid" settings in HB.


The video was too large and i wanted to make the file size smaller, i also cut the frame rate down to something like 12fps.


i stored that video on my sd card where i have stored other videos lots of times....videos that i also rendered in HB using the same method as this video.


I removed this video from my phone and the problem has stopped for several hours now (crossing fingers)


temperature is down to normal


"Media" is no longer shwoing as the biggest user of juice in GSam Battery Monitor


battery is holding charge and back to normal, not draining




Hopefully it will stay this way.


For future reference,this might be something to consider when others troubleshoot similar problems in the future


I'd like to thank everyone that has offered their help in this thread!


You guided me and I wouldn't have figured it out without your help.

 

[Tiger]

I have the same issue that started 2-3 weeks ago. I did install an app also, and seemed to start after that, but I've uninstalled since. May be due to updated app. Phone gets up to 124° sometimes according to GSam Battery monitor, and according to it, most of the time it's the apps draining most of the battery, but within the apps, it's the Kernel responsible for like 80% of it. Even charging the battery (appears to be after installing the GSam monitor, but may be coincidence) the charging takes much longer as well. Could it be my battery is gone bad? I have a spare that I guess I can try and see if reacts the same way.