Database Users

Strange battery issues

I'm running a Sprint Mogul using no2chem's nueROM 2.2 Preview 7 (8's touchscreen issues made me downgrade), and having some very peculiar battery problems I'm hoping someone has advice about.
A few weeks ago I woke up, pulled my phone from the charger, and watched the battery instantly drop from 100% to around 83%. Over the next 15 minutes it dropped to the mid-70s before leveling out and discharging at a more normal rate. This occurred the next day and so on. Now this was with Seidio's 3200mAh extended battery. I then switched to my (sigh) OEM battery and didn't have the same problem, so assumed it was Seidio's battery, filled out an RMA, and sent it off to be repaired.
Now a couple of days ago the OEM battery started doing the same thing. I'd pull it off the charge and it would have somewhere in the range of 60% battery remaining. I'd have to plug it into my car charger or USB cable on my notebook to charge it up the rest of the way (albeit very slowly).
This morning I decided to watch the process from before I even unplugged it. First I noticed the orange light was on after a full night's charge. If memory serves me, the light's supposed to go out when it's at 100% (I may be mistaken). Meanwhile the battery meter was at 60%. I unplugged it and it remained there. I plugged it back in and watched no2chem's charge meter show the power connection, and I went ahead and left it plugged in for a little while before checking it again. It was now at 63%.
So what I'm finding is that at some point during the night my phone stops accepting a charge, despite the charge light remaining on.
I'm going to experiment with two things to further troubleshoot: tonight I'm swapping chargers with my wife's. I'm pretty sure the phone controls whether or not it's continuing to charge the battery, but I'm going to rule this out the only way I can. Then if that doesn't improve it I'm going to flash back to a Sprint official ROM (sigh) and see if maybe no2chem's power applet or power management settings are somehow causing this oddity.
Does anyone have any extra experiences with problems like this that might give me an idea of what else to try? Otherwise my thinking is if those two steps yield no improvements, then it's the phone's physical battery management hardware that's faulty and I'm going to have to use my insurance to replace the phone. I'd like to exhaust all the other resources before I spend the $50 on the deductible, though.
Thanks!

sometimes mine overheats while charging, at that point the LED flashes orange until it cools down enough to resume charging, this might be happening to your in the middle of the night

I thought I heard purple meant overheating. Either way, it's not clearly describing it. Also this has never happened before, so if it's happening every single night now, I've definitely got a problem.
Anyway, just plugged it in with my wife's charger. Let's see how it turns out in the morning.

You said :
"I'd have to plug it into my car charger or USB cable on my notebook to charge it up the rest of the way (albeit very slowly)."
Sure sounds like a bad charger.

worwig said:
Sure sounds like a bad charger.
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Now confirmed. Just pulled it off my wife's charger after a full night, at 100%. Five minutes later, 99%. Much better. I wonder what would cause the charger to stop charging halfway through the night, but keep the charge light on. Well, at least the mystery's been solved.

I am sort of having the same issue. A couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade from the standard Verizon ROM for my xv6800 to DCD's 3.2.2 ROM. The upgrade went perfectly. I always plug in my phone every night before I go to bed. The light turns orange while it is charging and then it is green when I wake up. The phone always showed 100%. Now with the updated ROM, I do the same, plug in before I go to bed, the light turns orange, and it is green when I wake up. But, when I look at the battery level when I unplug it, it is usually at about 94%. The battery level also seems to go down quicker than before, but I figured that had to do with the GPS radio and WM6.1. Why do you think the battery would no longer show 100% when I unplug it? Seems very weird that right after I upgrade the ROM my battery would start failing.

jeffgman said:
I am sort of having the same issue. A couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade from the standard Verizon ROM for my xv6800 to DCD's 3.2.2 ROM. The upgrade went perfectly. I always plug in my phone every night before I go to bed. The light turns orange while it is charging and then it is green when I wake up. The phone always showed 100%. Now with the updated ROM, I do the same, plug in before I go to bed, the light turns orange, and it is green when I wake up. But, when I look at the battery level when I unplug it, it is usually at about 94%. The battery level also seems to go down quicker than before, but I figured that had to do with the GPS radio and WM6.1. Why do you think the battery would no longer show 100% when I unplug it? Seems very weird that right after I upgrade the ROM my battery would start failing.
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DCD roms included new code to show 1% changes. The original code showed 10% changes only. Originally, you likely saw 100%, 90%, 80% etc. Now you see 95%, 94%, 93%, etc. It seldom goes to a perfect 100% and it LOOKS like it is discharging faster. In reality it is simply showing more detail.

worwig said:
DCD roms included new code to show 1% changes. The original code showed 10% changes only. Originally, you likely saw 100%, 90%, 80% etc. Now you see 95%, 94%, 93%, etc. It seldom goes to a perfect 100% and it LOOKS like it is discharging faster. In reality it is simply showing more detail.
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Yes, I noticed the 1% increments, I figured it was Windows Mobile 6.1 compared to 6.0. I think the old method was reporting in 5% blocks.
So, your battery never shows 100%? Very weird. So, my battery is probably fine and it is probably behaving just like it always has?
Thanks for the information.

Major Battery Issues

I've been having problems with my battery for a week now, I noticed it wouldn't charge to 100% so that the green light comes on it will just goto 99% and then stay there. The battery then drains so fast, like literally I will be on 1% in an hour and a half.
So I tried a full reset of the phone and that didn't work. I also bought a new battery and that didn't work so I'm guessing the phone might well be knackered.
Also the phone seems to be really hot I never noticed it that hot before.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Replace battery immediately! Do not attempt to charge it anymore, it could go very bad!

I did, I bought a new battery and the same thing happens.
I have to have it on charge constantly all day.

Maybe charging control unit(in phone) is damaged, or charger is not working properly.
Can you check voltage on charger?
Also are you sure you use original battery manufactured by HTC?

Right here, my problem

Very bizarre charging behaviour from 2012 N7!!

Ok I've not seen any threads quite like my issue, so I'll try to explain best I can. Ok, here I have an N7 (2012) wifi. Now, I work in electronics therefore know a bit about charging etc, so I've got the back off it to measure the voltage directly at the battery terminals. I have 4.2V across it - which is about as high as you want a 3.7V cell to reach at full charge. Also the unit (powered off or on, with screen off) is drawing about 17mA from my bench PSU (set to a 2.5A limit, @ 5.25V), which is what I'd expect of a full battery, along with the fact it's up at 4.2V.
However, and this is the bizarre bit - unplug it, and the unit bleats away saying there's 5% battery left. So, back in with the power, it says charging. Leave the screen to go off. Check it about an hour later, the unit isn't switched on. Boot it up, it bleats again saying 2% left. Take out the power and put it back in. Charging again (allegedly). So I look in the battery section of settings to see what had occurred over this last hour or so... and according to the graph, while I had left the unit to charge, it rose from 5% to 15% over a period of around half an hour, then steadily DISCHARGED for the next half hour right down to 0, and switched off !! Situation now - it's "charging", and has been sat at 2% for about two hours. However, as expected, on another battery check, guess what - still at 4.2V - fully charged, about where it has been throughout. Well the lowest I saw it go was actually 4.13V.
Any help would be appreciated here, as I can't see what the problem is, other than the battery is full and the os thinks it's empty. It was doing this on android 4.2, and I've since updated it to 4.3, and then 4.4.2. Same results, no change. I've also performed a factory reset via the os, and a hard reset (factory wipe/reset) via recovery. This is really strange, never come across this ever before. As I say, I've seen lots of battery issues experienced by N7 2012 owners, but nothing quite this odd!

Here's a screenshot of this evening:

Stranger and stranger. Long spell of charging, then it goes straight to 0%. So I leave it turned off for a while (not connected to charger), then turn it back on and miraculously it now has 32%! Which then jumps straight to 0 a few mins later. Now switched back on again, and it's back up to 24%!! See attached.
Bizarre.

Your situation is unusual, for sure. I had a situation where a rogue app consumed power faster than my N7 charger could supply it. Killing the app stopped the madness. Have you checked battery usage?
I would reinstall your ROM, as corrupted software seems to be the likely cause.

First thing I would check before messing with reinstalling ROMs or similar actions, is take the back off the device, and ensure the battery plug is firmly seated and not loose or crooked.
I had similar erratic behavior pop up all of a sudden, and this was the culprit.

Yep done that, it's on official 4.4.2, also done a factory reset and a hard reset, neither made a difference. The thing is, the battery voltage is around 4.1 to 4.2V at all times, indicating it's fully charged. Checked connector as well, no loose connections at all. Very odd indeed.

When I first got my nexus 7 1 year ago
I got the same problem
Then I found out it was the stock charger
Then I got a 2.1a charger and that fixed the problem.
My battery never got to 5v
4156mv = 4.1v
And it charges at 1500ma
If it were off then it will be 2000ma

remove the battery and put it back, it may help and also charge while it's turned off

USBhost said:
.... 41560mv = 4.1v
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You sure about that??

spark001uk said:
You sure about that??
Click to expand...
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No lol the 0 should not be there

USBhost said:
No lol the 0 should not be there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah OK, thought so! Also when you say your battery never got to 5V, did you mean across the battery itself? If so 4.1V sounds almost fully charged to me. It's a 3.7V li-po so 4.2V across it would be the absolute max.

Also I have this handy little gizmo, tells me precisely how much current I'm pulling on a USB line, and also the voltage.

Battery is fully charged but os reporting low?

Ive had a good look but i cannot find anything on this particular behaviour. Please could anyone help, its driving me round the bend now!
The battery will not charge past about 15 to 20%, no matter what, or how long I charge it (used original charger, plus another couple rated at least 2A, no difference). Ive had the back off and measured with a multimeter directly across the battery at this point, which reads around 4.2v, which is fine, thats what a fully charged cell should be. However, in this fully charged state, with a number of battery apps that read voltage from the os, it reports only 3.7v. Similarly, when the unit reports around 3.5v, consequently turning off, the battery is actually still at 4v!
I just dont get it, i cant seem to get it to correct itself, ive tried everything. Does anyone have any other ideas? Cant be the battery, its reaching full charge just fine, and is not nearly becoming discharged.

This is strange, have a look at this battery history screenshot, after staying for hours on 20 to 30% it jumps straight to 2%, while still on charge. And also once its shut down, i turn it straight back on again and its miraculously got 20 odd percent back in it. As you can see it keeps doing it. Anyone?

Someone recommended me this app against slow charging problems in another thread on xda. However I haven't had time to try it out yet.
Years ago my Moto Defy+ only charged to 80% because I had flashed the wrong firmware. The correct one restored the normal behaviour. So, it's just an idea, but you could try to flash a factory image, to make sure it's not a software issue.

Charging intermittently stops and resumes rapidly

My 6P on 6.0.1 stock with the march update has had occasional times where it will intermittently charge, then stop, then charge endlessly, changing back and forth about once a second or more often. There's been times I've woken up, like today overnight when I noticed it barely inched up a percent or two on the Google USB-C cable connected to my laptop.
To isolate this from being a defective cable issue, this has also happened with the Google charger that came with the phone. I would see the screen turn on in fact, like when you first plug the phone with the screen off, to indicate charging has begun. That would occur every few seconds.
I'm a little concerned. The time it happened with the charger, a reboot seemed to have calmed it down. But today no matter the restart, the charging just keeps cycling nonstop.
Anyone else had this? Would it be wise to file a problem with the Google forums and contact support?
Thanks for any help!

Same problem here

Dang, good to know I'm not alone!
I've also experienced higher battery drain (twice more I'd say) than normal recently. Even overnight when I used to see hourly drain rates of 0.5%, now I see 1.5% and higher. Getting worried the charging issue may be damaging the battery. But it could also be the patch or a rogue app.

I have the same issue - it started about 3 days ago

Well either the cords bad, the brick is bad, or the receptacle. Or the charging port on the phone, the battery or power control module in the phone. Or if theirs a thick case on your phone.
Sounds like it starts to charge then stops. But I'm no electrician. Oh wait, yes I am.

It starts to charge, then stops as though the cable was disconnected, then resumes within half a second, then disconnects, and so on and so forth non stop.
Case might be a reason. It's a rubber and plastic transparent Spigen one. I'll try removing it when it happens again next time.
But at this rate, sounds like 3 people are having the same issue, and if it's a hardware one, then damn....

This isn't the charger... There is something buggy with the update. I woke up a few days ago after the march update with an almost dead phone, and the charging icon flashing over the battery, as if the phone new it was plugged in but refused to charge. I unplugged and plugged it back in with the same result. I restarted and tried again, same result. I was only able to get it to charge my plugging it into my girlfriend's nexus 5x charger, which instantly started charging my phone. I went back to my charger and all of the sudden no issue and the phone was charging fine. There is definitely something up with this update.

Well then, that makes 4 people now.
What's a good way to report this?

I'm not seeing the same exact issue as you guys, but I AM having charging issues after updating to MHC19I. I can still charge my phone from the stock charger and my other USB-C chargers, but now none of them allow my phone to charge rapidly. Do you guys who can get your devices to charge from a rapid charge compatible charger see the "Charging Rapidly" message on the lock screen? Ever since this recent update, I've noticed that my device isn't (and is taking over 2 hours to charge fully from ~20%).

I have this problem too. It's fixed by a reboot so I'm assuming it's not a hardware problem. It only happens once a week or so.
The first time it happened I didn't notice the charging/not charging and only realised something weird had happened because my phone was off & showing fully charged. My phone is never switched off.
I figured it out the next time when I noticed the screen was still on during the night. Switching from charging to not charging was keeping the screen on.
So glad it's not just me.

flightsimmer said:
I'm not seeing the same exact issue as you guys, but I AM having charging issues after updating to MHC19I. I can still charge my phone from the stock charger and my other USB-C chargers, but now none of them allow my phone to charge rapidly. Do you guys who can get your devices to charge from a rapid charge compatible charger see the "Charging Rapidly" message on the lock screen? Ever since this recent update, I've noticed that my device isn't (and is taking over 2 hours to charge fully from ~20%).
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I normally see it say that on the USB C charger. That being said, you seem to have an intermediate speed going on, as opposed to super slow normal USB cable speeds and the USB-C fast charger. In my experience most 1-1.5V low amp ports like my Mac's, or the car's USB port will charge at a rate of about 1% per 3-5 minutes. So a full charge would take 8-9 hours from 0%. From the USB-C wall charger it would be about 1%/m so an hour and forty is enough to get it back to full.
Based on that your charger seems to be somewhere in the middle.
But yes it isn't normal. If you are using Google's native hardware, you should see the same charging speed as I am.
I'm just terribly worried this cycling is destroying my battery. I have definitely not gotten the same battery life the last few weeks.

Hey guys!
I experience sort of the same problem as you guys, but i have the Nexus 5x
i copy from my thread at google nexus forum
My phone just randomly die. It will work for like 2 hours. Almost like the battery would been disconnected.
When the phone shutdowns it says the battery is low and try to charge. The Battery icon with a flash is showing, but just for 5-7 seconds, then it shutdown again and it's looping again and again and again.... To get out of the loop i'm booting in to fast boot, then push at start. and it is almost 50/50 if it is working. It can be booting up and you see the red/yellow/green/blue yada yada boot-up sequence then in 5-7 seconds in to the sequence it would shutdown again immediately.
I tried several factory-resets. re-flashed to stock. Nothing helps.
/marcus

Same issue
Just starting having this issue. It constantly says charging then a second later shows no charging and the process keeps repeating itself. I did a reset and the issue seems to be resolved for now. Really hope this isn't a constant issue. Definitely appears to be software related though.

zxphenomenalxz said:
Just starting having this issue. It constantly says charging then a second later shows no charging and the process keeps repeating itself. I did a reset and the issue seems to be resolved for now. Really hope this isn't a constant issue. Definitely appears to be software related though.
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I hadn't had it for a while then recently it happened again once. I still don't know what triggers it for sure.
The battery drain is also rather random. There are days I can expect the unit to idle and drain at or below 2%/h, but lately it just goes through it way faster, twice that. I am unsure why and how that happens so randomly. Seems the Google Play Services and Google Apps are using up some %s. Not much else I can identify.

I've had this issue since a few days ago, restarted the phone and it's come right for now.

Haven't experienced this in weeks now.
Seems largely gone.

Any updates on this? My Nexus 6P started showing the same symptoms (either won't charge at all, or charging cycles on and off rapidly (< 1 second) and only sometimes charges). The issue appeared out of the blue 4-5 days ago, just before the 1 year anniversary of receiving the phone. I tried different cables and adapters, still no change. Last night at 11pm it was at 50% when I set it to charge and it seemed to charge. This morning at 6:30 am it had only charged up to 83% and was charging on and off. Worried about how to reliably use the phone if it won't charge, and also how this might affect the battery / other circuitry.
Any help/tips appreciated!
Edit: The phone hasn't been dropped or had any other issue that may affect the hardware. Also, no OS update or anything recently (AFAIK - it did not ask me to install anything, not sure if there were any silent updates). It is currently on Android 7.0 Nougat (baseband version angler-03.72, build NBD90X, security patch level Oct 5, 2016).

Have not had this in a long time. It sort of stopped on its own. :S

Solved (for me anyways)
I just had to restart the device.

I'm having the same issue on my LG G5. Started out of the blue and like others, restarting temporarily solves the problem. Anyone solve this yet?