Database Users

Battery Draining Bug?

I think I've discovered a bug on the X that's causing battery drain.
I installed Spare Parts and saw my phone had been unplugged for about 12 hours and that my phone was been Running (not sleeping) for 100% of that time.
After being methodical and getting data points after opening various programs, I determined that after I opened any program that accessed the GPS, the phone no longer would go into sleep mode.
To get the phone to start sleeping again, all I have to do is toggle GPS off and then back on again.
It's completely reproducible every time on my phone.
Now, I don't know what kind of effect this will have on battery life, but seems like it probably would have some effect.
If others can test this and see if it affect you at all, it'd be helpful to see if there's a potential major software bug here or if it's just something with my phone.
Easiest way to test is to start with a fresh reboot with GPS toggle on, install Spare Parts, plug in the phone for a second (to reset the counters), let it sit sleeping for a few minutes, then read the Running % in Spare Parts. Should be pretty low. Plug in the phone to reset the counters again. Then start Google Maps or any other program that will activate your GPS. Close that program and then let the phone sit idle for a few minutes. Check Spare Parts running time again and, for me, it's pegged at 100%.
It stays like that until I toggle the GPS off or reboot the phone.
Very curious to see if others get the same results.

lexluthor said:
I think I've discovered a bug on the X that's causing battery drain.
I installed Spare Parts and saw my phone had been unplugged for about 12 hours and that my phone was been Running (not sleeping) for 100% of that time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not trying to flame... but, after 12 hours your phone was unplugged, and still working... battery drain doesn't seem like a huge issue for me based on this information.
I would recommend an app called Tasker. I use it to turn gps off when it's not in use. I open google maps, gps starts. I close maps, gps off. I put my phone into the car mount, bluetooth starts, gps on, pandora on. unplug it, then everything off. I can have the cell radio off at night, but come on every 30 minutes to check for sms, email or whatever. I have Wifi turn on automatically when I get home, based on gps of course, and when I get out of the car, gps turns off and wifi turns on.
It saves a ton of battery for me, and might be something you'd appreciate. I have my phone running on performance mode all the time, and it still lasts all day and has 30+% to spare when I go to sleep. I'm a heavy user. almost 4GB of data this month with no tether.

That's not really the point.
The point is that there's potentially a bug with the phone that's not allowing the phone to go into sleep mode.
Seems like that might be a pretty important thing.

Point blank, the Droid X is one of the only Androids who last more than on day on the same charge! And what you all don't know is that if you use the blk taskbar and services.jar V.8 from teenfaces you will literally double or triple your life!
I have been unplugged for about 7 hrs and still have a sturdy 70%. All this with a normal discharge rate of about 5% every hour! That'd not bad! But then you have ATK set to aggressive... then the batt manager set to smart then cache mate running at full blast clearing caches every half hour. Plus the apps are killed and shut down when te screen ia off! So technically the X is dead till you power it up!
Take a look... I promise many will agree, that is if they did it right and are using V8.
Sent from my DROIDX via Telepathic DLNA.

What in the world is services.jar V.8 from teenfaces?
Ok, so then both of you are saying that the fact that the phone doesn't ever go to sleep once the GPS has been activated (even after the program that did so exists), isn't an issue?
Seems to me that you can only further improve battery life by having the phone sleep when it's not being used.
But who am I to argue I guess.

Seems like you dint understand my previous post. There is mod to change the task bar and shade. Like V8 is the latest with the services.jar replacment. Now how this affected my batt life i don't know, but, it did.
Now i see a lil longer batt life than with the original items.
Sent from my DROIDX via Telepathic DLNA.

this post is hilarious.
homeboy is trying to get bug testers, and people are talking about how to change the color of their taskbar : /

ixobelle said:
this post is hilarious.
homeboy is trying to get bug testers, and people are talking about how to change the color of their taskbar : /
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol yea. Im gonna head home and try what ur saying. I use tasker for turning wifi on and off for maps and the new google places thing (because most of the time im in buildings) but maybe i should use it for gps too. My friend with the evo has his turned off all the time he says its a huge battery drainer. I say how could that be if it only runs when the icon is up. But this might just explain that as well.
Also other logging programs might keep it awak but this one ur suggesting doesn't i take it. Good to keep in mind. Will update later today
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Sorry, I guess I'm lost/confused.
No one really has a concern that this is a potential system problem that's causing excess battery drain?

I do we still don't have an extended battery im very curious to what we can do with the battery life. If this is true id imgine tasker is the way we would go around fixing it. But went we getting 2.2 next week? Maybe that will fix it. Like i said when i get home im going to try what u said when i get home
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Just noticed something, I formated my phone just today. (for some reason i had to activate again. is that normal never had to do that with my WM phone when i would put roms on it and stuff)
During setup it asked if i wanted to share anymous location info to google, which i know the fist time i said yes (actually maybe the guy at verizon said yes for me) in any case it says under it something "will anonymously collect your location data even if a location app isn't running"
which could explain why it stays on when the gps is on
if you can go into your system settings and it's on for you try turning it off and see if then leaving the gps switched on will still keep the phone on.

mavermc said:
Just noticed something, I formated my phone just today. (for some reason i had to activate again. is that normal never had to do that with my WM phone when i would put roms on it and stuff)
During setup it asked if i wanted to share anymous location info to google, which i know the fist time i said yes (actually maybe the guy at verizon said yes for me) in any case it says under it something "will anonymously collect your location data even if a location app isn't running"
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that's the option in settings->privacy, which I turned off the other day, so I don't think that's it.

Good find. Seeing the same thing. Repeated your test, and yep, system stays on till gps is bounced.
Certainly doesn't look right. Is it that once satellite fix is established, it's maintained (even if not used)? And on GPS on/off, the fix is lost and the system forgets about GPS till it's actually called?
Next step would be to see how it affects power consumption. Will try to run some more tests later in the day.

Is there an easy way to test power drain? it'll be very interesting to see what effect this is really having.

lexluthor said:
Is there an easy way to test power drain? it'll be very interesting to see what effect this is really having.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately with the Droid X only showing battery power in 10%, it's not easy to discern small differences without waiting for hours.
I wonder if looking at the voltage would offer more precision. But, not sure how reliable that is. After all, if it was, why wouldn't the 3rd party battery meters use that to show more precise % readings.

exempli_gratia said:
Unfortunately with the Droid X only showing battery power in 10%, it's not easy to discern small differences without waiting for hours.
I wonder if looking at the voltage would offer more precision. But, not sure how reliable that is. After all, if it was, why wouldn't the 3rd party battery meters use that to show more precise % readings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'd actually have to write an event for every single percent in the Android system for anything to detect the battery much more accurately and Motorola is too lazy to do that. Its only gonna show every 10% because thats what Android was programmed to show.

just an update, i said no to google doing it's data mining off my gps. but then i found in location, when i check "use wifi" it asked me again. My guess is thats how they know where you are when you turn on wifi, because if you want that feature you also have to be used in mining data of where the wifipoints are physically located.
So maybe that has something to do with it.

Saw this on Android Central Yesterday.
I can confirm it, when used with fancy widget. When standard weather app is used, no major power drain. Fancy widget seems to pin the GPS and run it hard the entire time.

hijackerjack said:
You'd actually have to write an event for every single percent in the Android system for anything to detect the battery much more accurately and Motorola is too lazy to do that. Its only gonna show every 10% because thats what Android was programmed to show.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would think that if Android had 1% events some app would take advantage of it (there are certainly plenty of battery monitors in Market). But I don't know of any that show anything other than 10%. The HTC phones do 1%, and the battery widgets on HTC phones show likewise. Must be a Motorola implementation limitation.

Phone Idle 73% and killing battery life

last night the phone was fully charged at 7pm. made no calls, went on the web for 10 minutes, checked my alarm to be sure it was set. at this point it was 9pm at 70%. woke up this morning at 23% at 6am.
what the heck is going on? i have to say, i never had this problem before i did the ODEX Mod. but noticed it started around the same time that i also installed the Weatherbug app which is always updating. so i deleted that.
is there anything i can do to check what exactly is using the battery?

I'm using SystemPanel (paid), because it has a monitoring tool, and allows me to check the which apps are in used.
It did help me weed out certain bad apps that were taking up resources.

kalte84 said:
I'm using SystemPanel (paid), because it has a monitoring tool, and allows me to check the which apps are in used.
It did help me weed out certain bad apps that were taking up resources.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which apps were those?

9 Hours 55 Minutes since last unplugged.
Phone idle - 60%
Cell Standby - 24%
Display - 17%
Battery is still at 90+ percent.
I don't have any program managers running other than the factory system manager which has nothing on its terminate list. Something is definitely up with some program or mod you have done.

Vangelis13 said:
Which apps were those?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest with you, I can't recall because I was using those when I got the Captivate months ago...on top of my head, the official facebook app, some random battery widgets, but mostly have been updated since or I stopped using those.
I do have to add, I'm not sure how well the SystemPanel reports on the Atrix, because it shows as single core. I'm going to check with the dev.
Mine was unplugged (fully charged) from 8pm yesterday through now (12.30pm, and I still have 40%. (approximately 16.5 hrs?).
I left emails on (MailDroid, with sound/vibrate off from 12am - 7am), light flow LED night save mode off, battery to performance mode).
My widgets on screen (currently on the Atrix): 3G watchdog, LauncherPro's facebook widget and calendar widget, GTask, Catch notes, 2 sets of extended controls and beautiful widgets home.

blame Weather Bug...
tha5150 said:
last night the phone was fully charged at 7pm. made no calls, went on the web for 10 minutes, checked my alarm to be sure it was set. at this point it was 9pm at 70%. woke up this morning at 23% at 6am.
what the heck is going on? i have to say, i never had this problem before i did the ODEX Mod. but noticed it started around the same time that i also installed the Weatherbug app which is always updating. so i deleted that.
is there anything i can do to check what exactly is using the battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...had the exact same problem. Uninstalled WeatherBug and that fixed it!

me too had the same problem with weather bug, if you really want a weather widget get one that you can set how often it downloads data. i use sense home clock with weather set to refresh every 3 hours.

i uninstalled weatherbug and still having the same problem. before the Atrix i was on the Droid X and had to SBF to get rid of the issue with weatherbug killing my battery. i proved it with a friend. very very odd..
what i want to do now is SBF this phone, but how? i have ODEX'd or whatever and rooted.
how do i get it back to out of box state?

give the phone some time to recalibrate the battery stats or you may have other apps that are still draining your battery

neotekz said:
give the phone some time to recalibrate the battery stats or you may have other apps that are still draining your battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nah, its already been 2 weeks almost i have been dealing with it. not sleeping well at night cause i think my phone will die overnight and not wake me up in the morning hah.
isnt there a way to sorta SBF this since there hasnt been any real development yet for ROM's??

or will a factory reset be ok and possibly fix my problem?

tha5150 said:
nah, its already been 2 weeks almost i have been dealing with it. not sleeping well at night cause i think my phone will die overnight and not wake me up in the morning hah.
isnt there a way to sorta SBF this since there hasnt been any real development yet for ROM's??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why wouldn't you just plug it in overnight then?

just did this process and i hope it works.. unfortunately, i choose Google to backup my apps and they are not coming back... where is this setting to double check?
To perform an External Manual Reset of your handset to restore to factory settings, read instructions below and then perform.
Power off the phone, press and hold volume down button, press power button.
Screen will come up with "Fastboot", press Vol down key to cycle through choices until you get "Android Recovery", then press Vol up key
Wait for the "triangle ! / Android" screen then go on to step 4
Tap on bottom right corner of the screen (may take a few times). a menu will come up
Tap on "wipe data/factory reset", and tap OK. Another Confirmation screen will come. Tap Yes and OK
After userdata is cleared, the "reboot system now" option will be highlighted by Default. Tap OK.
Phone will reboot to initial setup MOTOBLUR screen.

Spikevyxel said:
9 Hours 55 Minutes since last unplugged.
Phone idle - 60%
Cell Standby - 24%
Display - 17%
Battery is still at 90+ percent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow sounds amazing, my phone drains 10% an hour with absolutly no use and no apps installed and nothing syncing

shanghei said:
wow sounds amazing, my phone drains 10% an hour with absolutly no use and no apps installed and nothing syncing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is something seriously wrong with your phone then, that's all I can say. With no apps and no syncing I would assume it is a hardware issue.

I think you guys are missing the point entirely. A few of you may have rom issues, software issues or even hacker issues. 70% of battery issues are due to a dead or dying battery . If you do the research you will find batteries are made to last 1 year with moderate usage and that is only if you follow the manufacturer's charging instructions to the letter. Come on guys how do you think the capitalist make their money? Lol I guess you thought they were gonna give you an atomic battery that would never die! It's probably banned by the trade federation even though it does exist. Anyway congratulations it's time to go shopping.
- Posted via mobile

If you like me and you refuse to play the pig game... charge your phone via usb only. My charger put out 1 amp power. Usb puts out half that power. The slower you charge a battery the longer it holds a charge.
It really is interesting to me to see all these modified roms floating around. It's like you think you can trust anybody. I don't trust my own mother. Just last night she had the phone company put a signal locator on my IMEI (international mobile equipment identifier.) History will prove it is true that if you give people power they will abuse it.
- Posted via mobile

found a response to my own questions from this morning about SBF....
[FLASH_SBF] Motorola Atrix 4G U4_1.5.2

Avid Droidery said:
I think you guys are missing the point entirely. A few of you may have rom issues, software issues or even hacker issues. 70% of battery issues are due to a dead or dying battery . If you do the research you will find batteries are made to last 1 year with moderate usage and that is only if you follow the manufacturer's charging instructions to the letter. Come on guys how do you think the capitalist make their money? Lol I guess you thought they were gonna give you an atomic battery that would never die! It's probably banned by the trade federation even though it does exist. Anyway congratulations it's time to go shopping.
- Posted via mobile
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had my atrix for less then a year, I am on stock, restored factory, let battery die few times. I talked to some friends who have had the atrix for over a year and there batteries out preform mine.

shanghei said:
I have had my atrix for less then a year, I am on stock, restored factory, let battery die few times. I talked to some friends who have had the atrix for over a year and there batteries out preform mine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ummmm....the Atrix came out last month. Soooo, how did your "friends" have one for more than a year?

should i return this iconia?

Hello all,
I bought my iconia tab last Tues. I am a big fan of android. But I have used an I pad since they were released. Now I'm not going to make comparisons, but I'm thinking I may have received a bad unit. Or maybeothers can verify my findings.
Battery life is horrible.
I barely get 4 hours of use before I need to go running for the charger.
Random shutdowns and reboot.
Unit will shutdown at random, even when I'm using it. And it reboot any time it loses a wifi source. Ex. I have a mobile hotspot. If I shut the hotspot off, the iconia will reboot when it loses the signal.
Screen on/off all day.
When I put the unit in standby, the screen turns on and off about evey 2 minutes.
Laggy keyboard.
Even as I type this, the keyboard is extremly laggy.
I am running this unit stock now, nothing extra has been installed.
I even did a factory reset and hard reset.
Ii have not received any updates, although I check all the time. I'm still on the 1.104. Build.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

from your description, yeah, you should probably return this unit...

just return my device is not that bad, battery last 1 day with normal use, never random shut down
the only thing i got troubled with is screen on/off , that is solved by pressing powerr button several times, very annoying actuallly

I've gotten 2 days of moderate use, I usually charge every night but unless I'm playing games for hours at a time I'm usually @ 40% before I plug in.
If the tab is rebooting on a frequent basis, particularly if you can do it on demand, definitely return it.
The screen random on should be fixed by the .141 update

I don't want to start anything but when i read "Should I return it?" and your posting it in this forum, then most likely the person posting it (if you found this forum) knows a little about it. But to read, it shuts off, battery life is terrible, etc..
I dont use it all day but i will use it with lowest brightness, 1 min timeout, and i dont use twitter or play movies, but get like 5-8 days on a charge.. NOW, one key thing, i turn the power OFF when done using it and does hold the battery much better (I never tried airplane mode)..
Never mind, got off on a rant from the thread...unrelated, there are some very cool news apps that are out now for HC.

Ok. Returned it for a fresh unit. Letting it get a full charge before I do anything with it.
Fyi. Previous unit only gave me 4 hours. Regardless if I was using it or it was sitting in standby.
Does anyone know of a way to get the 141 update without rooting?
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

BadGrim said:
Ok. Returned it for a fresh unit. Letting it get a full charge before I do anything with it.
Fyi. Previous unit only gave me 4 hours. Regardless if I was using it or it was sitting in standby.
Does anyone know of a way to get the 141 update without rooting?
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For the first time since I bought it I haven't used my device for a day. In around 22 hours of standby it lost 3% battery.
So draining in 4 hours in standby sounds completly defective to me.

when I got mine
battery was at 50%
I used it during the day, and when the battery was arround 5% I did a full charge
- regular usage : 1day ++
- working usage : 8 hours (web apps dev...)
4 hours, use it or not it's awfull...
Wish you got better now

interqd said:
just return my device is not that bad, battery last 1 day with normal use, never random shut down
the only thing i got troubled with is screen on/off , that is solved by pressing powerr button several times, very annoying actuallly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What kind of screen problem? Is it turning on randomly while in stand by or the other way around, turning off while in use?
And for my future reference, how do you do returns in Indonesia? Do you take it to the store or to the service center (or either)? Thanks in advance!

iqbalbaskara said:
What kind of screen problem? Is it turning on randomly while in stand by or the other way around, turning off while in use?
And for my future reference, how do you do returns in Indonesia? Do you take it to the store or to the service center (or either)? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the screen would randomy turn on/off while in standby.
The other. The tablet would actually power off while i was using it, not just th screen, the entire thing.

iqbalbaskara said:
What kind of screen problem? Is it turning on randomly while in stand by or the other way around, turning off while in use?
And for my future reference, how do you do returns in Indonesia? Do you take it to the store or to the service center (or either)? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
its turning on randomly while standby, usually i have to pres power button 3 or 4 times before it went off without turning on again...
i think its not possible to return to the store here, just take to the service centre... but i dont know if they will give new device.. as i know here only apple , blackberry and samsung that will give new device if found defective ..

[Q] Slow charging with orb?

I got the orb recently and my plan was to use my phone as a bedside alarm clock with it. However, when I have the phone on "desk clock" mode while on the charger, the battery slowly drains overnight by around 1-2% every half hour instead of going up. When the screen is off, it seems to charge fine. Is the orb just really that slow at charging? It kind of defeats the purpose if it can't keep a steady charge with the screen on as I like be able to just glance at the time while in bed instead of having to turn on the screen first.

well the orb wont charge as fast as wall charger
but if it doesnt provide enough mA to charge while screen on i guess there is something wrong. however i dont have the orb, so cant help you any further.

It should still charge with the screen on. Mine will gain 1-2% every 10mins with the deskclock night clock on. Are you using a case?

username8611 said:
It should still charge with the screen on. Mine will gain 1-2% every 10mins with the deskclock night clock on. Are you using a case?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No case at all. I am using the power adapter that came with it too, because i read using a different one caused problems too. I am however using visceralpsyche's gamma color settings from franco's thread which require you to have your brightness at 50%, but I should still be able to get a positive charge I would think.

traybourne said:
No case at all. I am using the power adapter that came with it too, because i read using a different one caused problems too. I am however using visceralpsyche's gamma color settings from franco's thread which require you to have your brightness at 50%, but I should still be able to get a positive charge I would think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think you definitely still should. I know that if you place the phone on it centered near the bottom half (if you do it vertically, the phone will be about 1/2 - 3/4" from the table or whatever surface the orb is on), thats the optimal part of the phone to have touching it. If it's still not working, I'm guessing something isn't quite right with it.

username8611 said:
i think you definitely still should. I know that if you place the phone on it centered near the bottom half (if you do it vertically, the phone will be about 1/2 - 3/4" from the table or whatever surface the orb is on), thats the optimal part of the phone to have touching it. If it's still not working, I'm guessing something isn't quite right with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried a few positions all with the same results. I did notice though that with the first 20 minutes of charging, it will go up like 3-4% like it should, but afterwards it just goes on a slow and steady decline. I guess I'll contact Google about it, and I already had to sell my DT-910 because of the problems with that charger :/

[Q] Battery Stat/Graph Reset?

Yesterday I returned my N7 device because it won't turn on despite having around 80% on the battery the night before. I woke up in the morning to find that it won't boot anymore. I tried all methods like holding the sleep and volume down button for 30+ seconds, plugging it to the wall, and connecting to my laptop. I went back to the store to have it looked at, and since it has only been 10 days since I purchased it, they agreed to replace it with an available unit in their stock.
Now, with my new device, everything is well except that the battery gives inaccurate reading on the up time. The battery status/graph shows how long your device has been on battery, but fails to reset after charging. Suppose I have been using it for 22 hours, if you go to the battery details, it will show 22 hours of use, however, I believe that if you charge it, it will be set back to zero. In this case though, it continues from where it left off. Same with the screen time, it should be reset back to 0 after prolonged period of idle time, however, it continues from previous use.
Is there any way to fix this so I may get an accurate data on my battery activity? Thank you.

Sprogetti said:
Yesterday I returned my N7 device because it won't turn on despite having around 80% on the battery the night before. I woke up in the morning to find that it won't boot anymore. I tried all methods like holding the sleep and volume down button for 30+ seconds, plugging it to the wall, and connecting to my laptop. I went back to the store to have it looked at, and since it has only been 10 days since I purchased it, they agreed to replace it with an available unit in their stock.
Now, with my new device, everything is well except that the battery gives inaccurate reading on the up time. The battery status/graph shows how long your device has been on battery, but fails to reset after charging. Suppose I have been using it for 22 hours, if you go to the battery details, it will show 22 hours of use, however, I believe that if you charge it, it will be set back to zero. In this case though, it continues from where it left off. Same with the screen time, it should be reset back to 0 after prolonged period of idle time, however, it continues from previous use.
Is there any way to fix this so I may get an accurate data on my battery activity? Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One way is to download an app called ROM toolbox and then go to ROM management>Management tab>Wipe options>Wipe battery stats.
I'm not sure if it requires root.

Thank you. I'm sure to try this out. Do you have any idea why it's acting up?

Sprogetti said:
Thank you. I'm sure to try this out. Do you have any idea why it's acting up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I can't really say since I haven't faced such a bug till now. But I think doing a hard reset fixes the issue because it's software related.(if the first method didn't work)
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Sprogetti said:
Yesterday I returned my N7 device because it won't turn on despite having around 80% on the battery the night before. I woke up in the morning to find that it won't boot anymore. I tried all methods like holding the sleep and volume down button for 30+ seconds, plugging it to the wall, and connecting to my laptop. I went back to the store to have it looked at, and since it has only been 10 days since I purchased it, they agreed to replace it with an available unit in their stock.
Now, with my new device, everything is well except that the battery gives inaccurate reading on the up time. The battery status/graph shows how long your device has been on battery, but fails to reset after charging. Suppose I have been using it for 22 hours, if you go to the battery details, it will show 22 hours of use, however, I believe that if you charge it, it will be set back to zero. In this case though, it continues from where it left off. Same with the screen time, it should be reset back to 0 after prolonged period of idle time, however, it continues from previous use.
Is there any way to fix this so I may get an accurate data on my battery activity? Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on your charging behavior. If you unplug it at 85%, for instance, then it should not be reset. Same with screen time.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

najaboy said:
It depends on your charging behavior. If you unplug it at 85%, for instance, then it should not be reset. Same with screen time.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yes, exactly. I charged it again to full all the way and it did reset the status monitoring. Thank you!