Synch - Battery Drain and Options

[BenB2362]

I've had the Droid for about a month and up until about a 3 days ago was very happy with the device. My battery life was pretty darn good for a smart phone. I was getting about 2 full days between charges (if I wanted to wait that long) and that was with surfing the web, gmail and phone calls.

Then about 3 days ago I went to bed with around 70% battery and woke up with phone having run out of battery. After recharging I noticed that the sync icon in the status bar was staying on for several minutes which was not happening before. I monitored battery throughout the day and noticed that I was at 50% before a half day passed. So I used the power widget and turned sync off and was back to my usual 2 days of not having to recharge.

The only account I have is gmail and it has been static for over a week (No contact changes or emails) so I'm not sure why all of a sudden the sync is working so hard. I beleive it's the sync that's eating my battery since I've never seen the icon sit in the status bar so long and when I turn it off I'm back to acceptable battery life.

Up until the battery issue I never turned sync off in the power widget and I'd like to go back to leaving it on. I'm wondering if I changed the "account & sync" setting without knowing it and that is causing the issue.

Could someone explain the "background data" and "auto-sync" settings and how they work. If I turn on "background data" the power widget shows that sync is on. I thought I had turned off "background data" and was still able to receive gmail and contact updates without manually retrieving them.

Thanks!

 

[aminaked]

You normally want to keep all of your account and background syncing on. It usually uses very little battery power. It sounds like gmail is having a sync error. Check your gmail app's outbox and delete any emails if they are stuck in there.

If that doesn't work, try this:

go to Settings > Applications > Manage applications > menu > Filter > All > Gmail Storage > Clear data

There are a few things that can cause this type of error. Let me know if any of this works. There are ways to avoid the problem in the first place.

 

[Darkseider]

2 Days?! Hell if I turn everything off I get maybe 14 hours and that's if I just leave the phone alone, untouched, sitting on a desk. The only way I am getting 2 days ona full charge is if I unplug it and then turn it off.

 

[aminaked]

2 Days?! Hell if I turn everything off I get maybe 14 hours and that's if I just leave the phone alone, untouched, sitting on a desk. The only way I am getting 2 days ona full charge is if I unplug it and then turn it off.

It depends how much stuff you have running in the background. Everything takes it's toll. Widgets, automated task killers, location apps, reminder apps, etc. I can get at least a day and a half if I don't use my phone much, but I haven't installed anything that runs in the background other than k9.

 

[butch350]

Question

Since my Droid came with a battery charging cable - is there something wrong with putting it on the charger overnight - so it is fully charged and ready to go the next morning.

I see threads where people say the battery drains fast after
only two days of use - how long do you expect a device that runs apps
in the foreground and backround, sending text messages, playing music
and games and then wonder why the battery is getting low? (wtf)

 

[aminaked]

Since my Droid came with a battery charging cable - is there something wrong with putting it on the charger overnight - so it is fully charged and ready to go the next morning.

No, just charge it whenever you like. You could probably keep it plugged in forever. If you ever need a new battery, it's easy enough to replace and I think they're pretty CHEAP.

 

[BenB2362]

aminaked - I checked gmail and didn't see an "outbox". Being new to gmail I'm guessing there either isn't an "outbox" OR it only shows up when the send is running or failed. I'm going with it only shows up when the send is running or fails.

The last action my gmail account saw was on 3/7 and the issue started 3/15 so it would have to be something unrelated to gmail use.

I tested gmail sync this morning by adding a contact in gmail and sending a small text based email to my gmail account from my work email. I turned sync on manually using the power widget and immediately received both. BUT...the sync icon in the status bar continued to display longer than before the issue and after an hour I had lost 15% of the battery. Having had sync off for a day or two since the issue my battery went back to sipping its juice. Since it sipped without sync on and there wasn't any activity in gmail for over a week before the issue cropped up I think its safe to say the drain is sync related and gmail activity (new emails, adding contacts) is not the cause.

I'll try your "clear data suggestion" and report back.

ALL - Does anyone have any detail knowledge on how the "background data" and "auto-sync" settings work. I could have sworn I had "background data" off with sync turned on and my battery drain was fine.

 

[aminaked]

If it doesn't work then it may be a problem w/ contacts. I've read that contacts will sync forever in a few cases--something having to do w/ adding birth dates to contacts and perhaps having a contact w/ no first/last name.

If you search google fore droid manual sync you'll see a lot of complaints and solutions.

 

[BenB2362]

This is a double post for me but I didn't want to leave the thread hanging:

I did the clear data and clear storage for the contacts, email and calender and rebooted. I've never used WIFI. Still sucks battery juice like a hungry baby with sync back on. I lose about 20% per hour and it gets pretty darn toasty. I turned off sync and charged it to 100% before bed last night and right now after several calls and web surfing I'm still at 80%. I'm naming this disease based on the symptoms as "S3"- Sync, Stinks, Stuck.

After I tried the above without success I called Motorola support and was told to call Verizon. Called Verizon and they had me do a battery pull, *228 and option 1 - still S3. Verizon transfered me from support to warranty who suggested because I'm within the original 30 days I can get a brand new one and they suggested I not wait. I have till April 2nd to get a brand new one within the 30 days so I told them let me think about it. When I got my Droid we got another two so I wanted to compare their settings to mine and sure enough all three are set the same but I'm the only one having the issue. I'm calling Verizon now and I'm going to let them send me a new one.

I could try the factory reset but I don't think it's an acceptable fix. Clear and Reboot..sure...complete reset ... not so much.

Another thing I noticed was that my sync icon in the start bar never goes away while the other two Droid in the house only shows for a second or less every now and then. This could be a Google server issue since I've had several emails with attachments more than the other two phones but I'm not gonna play any further.

Forgot to mention that the Verizon rep questioned the battery as a reason for replacing the unit and also said he understood that although I could manually sync that it's key functionality to auto sync and would understand why I'd want one with the functionality that works. I haven't tried WIFI yet but I'd feel the same way if it ate my battery and other Droids didn't.

 

[aminaked]

Ben, do you know what can't finish syncing? gmail, contacts, calendar? Go to phone settings > Accounts & sync Do you just have one account under "Manage accounts"? If so, it probably says "Sync is ON" under the account. Tap on the account to view individual checkboxes for each google service. Do any of these services have the sync icon next to them? They should each have a time/date of last sync. Are those fairly recent?

So, you cleared gmail storage data? There is other stuff you can try clearing including calendar storage and contacts storage data. You can also clear data for Calendar, Contacts, and Gmail--as opposed to Calendar Storage, Contacts Storage, and Gmail Storage. Clearing all this stuff should stop the endless syncing.

You're not using a task killer, right?

 

[anewday]

I had the Droid for almost a month and I experienced the same thing this morning.

 

[BenB2362]

Aminaked - I appreciate you hanging in there like this.

I only have the one account for sync and thats gmail. I don't have task killer. To be clear - I hadn't even installed anything on it yet. The phone was basically stock.

I had already tried the clear data and storage for the gmail, contacts and calender followed by a reboot. I also tried the clear data and storage for gmail, contacts and calender followed by a battery pull. I also tried the clear data and storage for gmail, contacts and calender followed by a battery pull and then *228 and option 1. None of these worked.

I did the manual sync and verified what was stuck in sync was the calender. When I manually sync'd gmail and contacts it took barely a few seconds to complete but the calender continued to sync even after it pulled down a test entry I did just to see if it brought everything down.

Long story short - I was within my 30 days so I took it back and they gave me a new one and tested it right then. Everything came back down including my backup settings and the sync barely lasted a few seconds. The good news is the sync icon stopped showing up in my start bar on the new phone within seconds like it's supposed to.

If it happens again I'll do the factory refresh to see if it solves the issue like a new phone just did. I was thinking the issue was with the Google server not the phone but now that it's working correctly I guess I have to accept that it was the phone. I do computers for a living so I know that sometimes a file can corrupt or be updated incorrectly causing software to loop endlessly - maybe that's the cause and a factory refresh can solve it. Sure hope it doesn't happen again.

 

[aminaked]

Ohh, the calendar sync thing. That's the one sync issue I'm not sure about. There seem to be "cures" for the gmail & contacts sync errors, but not the calendar error. At least I haven't read about any fixes yet. Maybe the factory reset'd cure it.

 

[BenB2362]

This is (I hope) is the final installment for me on this topic.

The new phone I got Tuesday was charged to 100% Tuesday night and here I am Saturday morning with 20% still remaining without having recharged and all sync related processes seem to be back to normal. Granted, I haven't been stressing the phone and have only done some minimal web crawling and a few phone calls and texts.

For me the moral off the story was after trying every fix I could find EXCEPT a factory refresh a new phone seems to have been the fix.

As I said earlier in the thread - if the issue starts up again I'm doing the factory refresh since that's similar to getting a new phone. Do I think the issue was the phone's hardware...I don't think so. My gutt tells me the issue was a software malfunction involving a file's contents which could only be resolved by restoring that particular file's contents to stock. Similar to a cookie or INI file being updated incorrectly and having to delete the cookie, clear the cache or reinstall the software to eliminate the bad update.

If it happens again I'll update the thread but I sure hope I don't have to.

 

[mangmang]

I've had the Droid for about a month and up until about a 3 days ago was very happy with the device. My battery life was pretty darn good for a smart phone. I was getting about 2 full days between charges (if I wanted to wait that long) and that was with surfing the web, gmail and phone calls.

Then about 3 days ago I went to bed with around 70% battery and woke up with phone having run out of battery. After recharging I noticed that the sync icon in the status bar was staying on for several minutes which was not happening before. I monitored battery throughout the day and noticed that I was at 50% before a half day passed. So I used the power widget and turned sync off and was back to my usual 2 days of not having to recharge.

The only account I have is gmail and it has been static for over a week (No contact changes or emails) so I'm not sure why all of a sudden the sync is working so hard. I beleive it's the sync that's eating my battery since I've never seen the icon sit in the status bar so long and when I turn it off I'm back to acceptable battery life.

Up until the battery issue I never turned sync off in the power widget and I'd like to go back to leaving it on. I'm wondering if I changed the "account & sync" setting without knowing it and that is causing the issue.

Could someone explain the "background data" and "auto-sync" settings and how they work. If I turn on "background data" the power widget shows that sync is on. I thought I had turned off "background data" and was still able to receive gmail and contact updates without manually retrieving them.

Thanks!

Yes Can someone please explain the difference between "background Data" vs "auto-sync"

Thank You