Sync/Battery drain issues since update

[kudzu71]

Since I installed the 2.2 update on my Motorola Droid I have had severe battery drain issues. If I leave background sync on then the battery overheats and goes dead in less than 4 hours. Once I disable sync it seems fine, but this was never an issue before the update where I used to get almost 48 hours of heavy use out of the phone with sync set to automatic before I had to charge it.

Initially my email settings were set to get new messages instantly so I changed it to every 30 minutes and then to every hour to see if that would help. Battery life improved slightly, but I didn't see battery life anywhere near what I used to get until I disabled sync entirely. Even then I had to charge the phone 11 hours later.

I suspect there is no immediate fix for this, but I am hoping that a patch is in the works and soon.

 

[Snoking]

If you have a Task Killer, then remove it! Not needed and Froyo fights with it. Chris

 

[wills03]

So if you have advanced task killer this causes a battery drain cause of Froyo?

 

[InfernoX51]

So if you have advanced task killer this causes a battery drain cause of Froyo?

That was my experience as well. It seems that Froyo likes opening more apps in the form of background services, which the TK likes to kill. The constant opening -> killing of services is murdering your battery.

I still have a task manager on mine (SystemPanel), but I never really use it other than just quickly seeing whats open, and I can close an individual program if I want.

 

[wills03]

I use the task killer to kill all the apps that randomly open. I might try and take the widget off and see if that helps my battery drain problem.

 

[kudzu71]

I have no task killer installed, unless one came with it that I am not aware of.

 

[wills03]

I got Advanced Task Killer from the market.

 

[InfernoX51]

I have no task killer installed, unless one came with it that I am not aware of.

Nope, wouldn't have come with one, but check applications anyhow. Other things that could be kicking the crap out of your battery:

- 2.2 has an "Auto Brightness" setting on Power Control widget. I don't like it.
- Bad cell reception/signal? Constantly having 1-2 bars will eat battery.
- Check your apps/widgets and make sure they aren't refreshing every 10 seconds.
- LauncherPro with Beautiful Widgets causes battery drain, somehow.

Any of these make sense?

 

[aminaked]

Don't use a task killer.

You've narrowed it down to "background sync" causing the problem. Are you talking about sync (like syncing gmail, contacts, and calendar) or are you talking about "background data"?

Anyway, you might want to dial *#*#4636#*#* to see what's using your battery.

But if I had to guess, I'd go to phone settings > applications > manage applications

find "Gmail storage" and clear it's data
find "Calendar storage" and clear it's data
find "Contacts storage" and clear it's data
Another thing that's been causing problems for people lately is syncing facebook contacts. Try removing the sync of facebook contacts.

After all that turn on sync and background data and see how it goes.

 

[kudzu71]

I turned off background data and auto-sync for applications. I left the house this morning with a full charge and it was down to 20% by lunchtime. I have uninstalled Layar and IM+ which are apps I suspected could be using my battery up. I tried to uninstall Facebook but it won't let me. The only option I have there is to "uninstall update".

I'll try deleting all the data for those apps but it seems that if I have to continually delete all my accounts and emails and contacts in order to keep my battery from going dead then this phone isn't worth what I paid for it.