Develop Bugs

[Q] something is draining my battery - how can i tell what it is?

So i rooted my evo and installed a custom rom pretty much as soon as I had it out of the box. And then started installing apps. And i've pretty much NEVER had a fully charged battery last for a whole day even with very little to no usage of the phone.
A few days ago my friend also got an evo but hasn't rooted it or installed any apps yet. And he is easily getting TWO days or more out of a charge.
so i decided to do a full wipe of my phone, and what do you know, I'm suddenly getting 2 days out of the battery, maybe even a little more then 2 days.
Previously, i had setcpu installed as well as system panel. And i was never able to figure out what was draining the battery. When i looked in system panel the only thing that was using the cpu a little bit was system. Pretty much every other app listed was showing 0.1% of cpu usage.
So i'd like to know if there's a better method to figure out what's draining the battery. Do I have to install apps one at a time and wait a few hours/a day to see if the battery starts going down? or is there a better method?
thanks

I always check the awake time versus the time on. If the wake time is very high that means there is an app acting up.
What I'll do to investigate which app is I'll just go to the little stock battery report thing and look at what is using my battery.
Also, it should be noted that be wary of the facebook app. That thing is a complete and total battery hog. It was draining my battery from 20% over the course of an hour.

I was checking the stock battery report - it wasn't showing me anything useful when the battery was going dead.
right now i'm getting amazing battery life compared to before.
90 minutes since the phone was unplugged and it's only down to 96% and that's with me using it a bit. Previously, it would have been down to 85-80% by now.
I just have no clue at all what was causing the drain. I was hoping there was a better method other then installing apps one at a time until the battery starts draining to figure out the culprit.

There's an app called Watchdog and it monitors the background activity happening on your phone. If some seems to be getting out of hand it will notify you.
I had the same problem I installed Smobile security and it was KILLING my battery. Watchdog was able to tell what it was.
Hope this helps.

It looks like watchdog does basically the same thing that system panel does. and system panel wasn't showing me anything unusual. System panel shows the cpu usage of apps - and none of my apps were showing high cpu usage.
I guess there's really no app that can actually show you the battery usage per app - it can only show you the cpu usage.

You can try SpareParts from the Market,it may help you see if you have a wakelock issue of some kind and its free so no harm if it doesn't help.

BrianBusby2038 said:
You can try SpareParts from the Market,it may help you see if you have a wakelock issue of some kind and its free so no harm if it doesn't help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
actually, the rom i am using already has spareparts in it. I'm not sure what you mean by wakelock though. How do i determine that? What is it?

Battery life, android OS at 40% normal?

Sorry if this is the wrong section, but it seems like the only section specific to the Captivate Glide.
My wife's Glide is stock, very few widgets (google voice, battery, stock clock) and Android OS shows up at 40% when the phone is idle overnight and during the day during use. She has fb set up on socialhub with only contacts synced, 2 gmail accounts, and Touch(used to be pingchat). wifi is enabled and connected for most of the day. bluetooth is on too, but only connected when in the car.
I don't think it's Touch since I have it on my Atrix and Android OS is at 2-3% for me.
Any ideas?

gnahc79 said:
Sorry if this is the wrong section, but it seems like the only section specific to the Captivate Glide.
My wife's Glide is stock, very few widgets (google voice, battery, stock clock) and Android OS shows up at 40% when the phone is idle overnight and during the day during use. She has fb set up on socialhub with only contacts synced, 2 gmail accounts, and Touch(used to be pingchat). wifi is enabled and connected for most of the day. bluetooth is on too, but only connected when in the car.
I don't think it's Touch since I have it on my Atrix and Android OS is at 2-3% for me.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you have apps that can access your location? (weather apps, maps etc.) If yes, you may wanna go settings > location and security > and then uncheck "Use wireless network" in case you have not done it yet.

I don't think that's it. I have location enabled on my phone and have a weather widget. The wifes phone does not have a weather widget.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

gnahc79 said:
I don't think that's it. I have location enabled on my phone and have a weather widget. The wifes phone does not have a weather widget.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
She might have some app that is are using way too much cpu, try doing a factory reset and check the usage, mine is currently %17.
Also the facebook app is a notorious battery thief. Battery usage percentage isn't standard for different people, if she's not using much features, the majority of her battery will be used by the OS since there is nothing else to use it.

vil33 said:
She might have some app that is are using way too much cpu, try doing a factory reset and check the usage, mine is currently %17.
Also the facebook app is a notorious battery thief. Battery usage percentage isn't standard for different people, if she's not using much features, the majority of her battery will be used by the OS since there is nothing else to use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wouldn't phone idle be the max usage? For my Atrix phone idle is at 70% or so when I barely use the phone and Android OS is 3%. I can try disabling facebook overnight to see if the Android OS usage goes down.
The battery life for this phone is ok. It hits ~30% or so in the early evening, meaning we need to charge the phone if she goes out that evening. For my Atrix the battery doesn't hit 30% until midnight under light usage conditions (no games).
Is there an app or logcat keyword to filter to break down exactly which thread/process is using up the CPU?
edit: nm, going to read through this first

From looking at the wakelocks with BetterBatteryStats the likely culprit for the battery usage is the facebook chat portion of the fb app. The wife has many contacts in the chat, so it's probably polling quite a bit. For me the wakelock count for fb chat is fairly low. fb chat is a must for the wife so I can't disable it.
Also in the process screen I see several kworkers with high usage...not sure exactly what's causing that.

so for whatever reason the battery drain is now more acceptable even though the Android OS usage is still at ~50%. Could be the fb update, but the good battery performance occurred before the fb update.

gnahc79 said:
so for whatever reason the battery drain is now more acceptable even though the Android OS usage is still at ~50%. Could be the fb update, but the good battery performance occurred before the fb update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my infuse 4g has a battery drain because of fb.....it's always the next thing that is draining the battery (i hope to get screenies). I just force close fb (or set refresh interval to "never") when I am done using it....
I can't say that this is same as yours but it may be a thing to look up.

Has anyone loaded the new ATT update (2.3.6) yet to see if it has any effect?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927 using XDA App

eddiert said:
Has anyone loaded the new ATT update (2.3.6) yet to see if it has any effect?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just updated it within the past hour or so. No idea what changed.

eddiert said:
Has anyone loaded the new ATT update (2.3.6) yet to see if it has any effect?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably just bug fixes and stuff like that
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App

jayjayjoker2 said:
Probably just bug fixes and stuff like that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it's a bug and I hope that they have fixed it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I927 using XDA App

Doesn't appear to have fixed it. Charged up. Two hours later android os is at 26%. Second only to screen. Before I started using it it was at 60%.

Do you happen to use advanced task killer this may help
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App

Is there a certain task to kill?
I have had this problem since day one with this phone. I did a reset without loading a single app and I see it. Does every glide have this behavior or could this be a bad phone?

Well when I first use my phone a lot of apps are running at startup but you could have a bad phone I don't have the phone so I don't know
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App

eddiert said:
Is there a certain task to kill?
I have had this problem since day one with this phone. I did a reset without loading a single app and I see it. Does every glide have this behavior or could this be a bad phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the betterbatterystats output, I'm pretty sure the high Android OS usage is software related and specific to the stock ROM. The radio and wifi battery usage are normal.
I have no clue what the kworker processes are doing when the phone is supposed to be idle. Overnight my Atrix is 68% idle, 12% cell standby...android OS is 2%.

Idk you could try when putting it idle turn of Bluetooth and wifi and the data network this could help see
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App

jayjayjoker2 said:
Idk you could try when putting it idle turn of Bluetooth and wifi and the data network this could help see
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BT is already off. I could turn off both wifi and data network and if it turns out that is what is causing the battery drain (does not seem like it)...then what? Don't use wifi and the data network? It seems like there's little we can do as an average user to fix the high Android OS usage when idle. It does not seem like high kworker process usage can be fixed by TiBu or other simple fixes from a user.
Another update from Samsung, custom ROMs, and other dev fixes on xda seem to be the only options.

You need to find the source to find a rom that will repair this sometimes an launcher can make your battery die faster I know that Facebook and the browser use a ton of ram I have a stock app on my phone called application manager and I can stop apps that are using my ram
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA App

[Q] How do you find out which app is causing a WAKE LOCK?

How do you find out which app is causing a WAKE LOCK?

same question. If someone knows, please enlighten us.
Thanks

There are a few apps that are available in the market to single it down if it's not obvious like facebook
Better battery stats is one off my head, you can single it down by seeing what's using battery usually by going to settings > battery and seeing what's at the top... If it's not display then you've got a wake lock usually.
.. unless you're doing standby battery tests
sent from my googletron

The best way to check if you even have any wakelocks is to check the battery graph under settings and see if your phone's awake time is greater than it's screen time (I attached an example of my phone's graph while asleep a few nights ago)
If it's like mine you obviously have some wake locks...and to find out what services are waking up your phone, already recommended Better Battery Stats shows you what woke your phone via partial and kernel wakelocks...partial wake locks are what you're really looking for since kernel wake locks are obviously at the kernel level and if you're using a halfway decent one it shouldn't really be a problem
From here you just need to track down what services are initiating the partial wake locks (the service name is listed) and either turn it off or uninstall the associated app
EDIT: The Galaxy Nexus (for me at least) has been causing issues with wakelocks at least on 4.0.3 (see my stats attachment) but it's looking like a core OS thing and since 4.0.3 hasn't even been pushed out OTA yet it would make sense that they're ironing a few things out. Though I still am trying to troubleshoot what the services are specifically
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Better battery stats allows you to see partial wakelocks
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

joshnichols189 said:
Better battery stats allows you to see partial wakelocks
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent while thinking about my Galaxy Nexus

Help regarding battery life

Hi all I just got my galaxy note 2 yesterday but the battery life is bugging me.... I feel that it is not normal.. every 5 minutes or less the battery percentage drops by % 1 even if I am not opening any apps and I have GPS, mobile data and other unnecessary things turned off and just using Wi-Fi with power saving turned ON.. I even didn't used it that much yet, no videos or apps that consume a lot of CPU and I always make sure that I kill apps after using them, currently I am just surfing the web with chrome and it is still inconsistent sometimes it drops after 10 minutes and sometimes after 3 minutes, I also turn everything off except for power saving when I go to sleep but after waking up I noticed that it dropped by % 4 .. sorry for the long post guys but I am very worried and I just want to check if this is normal and if it's not I can get the battery or the whole device replaced since I have a 2 year warranty. I also attached some screenshots if you need to judge from them.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

Have you updated your Note to 4.1.2?
I recently updated to 4.1.2 and my battery life has suffered.
Hopefully a new update will fix this.
Judging by what others have written, you should get between 6 to 7,5 hours with the screen on. I plugged mine in yesterday efter 1 day and 12 hours. This includes 8 hours om sleep and 6 hours at work -no time to use the phone at work. I did not make note of the screen on time.
As i write the phone has been on battery for 8,5 hours and the screen on for 1,5 hours. The battery is at 54%
Hope this helps.

Thanks for replying
But my device is still on 4.1.1 and haven't touched the software update option and still .. I am not getting that spectacular battery life everybody is reporting which bugs me since I love my note 2.. even while I am typing now the battery percentage has dropped by % 3
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

It's that a task killer icon in the top left corner? If so, you might first want to try if your batterylife improves after uninstalling that!
Also find the app called better battery stats on play store. I recommend you buy it and install it. EDIT: there is a free version of it on xda too... Then charge your phone to full and use it normally. When the battery starts to get low again, open the battery stats app and look for "partial wakelocks since unplugged"
There you might find the cause of your problems. Post the screenshot of the partial wakelocks screen here if you need help interpreting it!

There is a free XDA-edition of BetterBatteryStats as well.
I got similar battery life as Dmwitz reported, no idea how some people get 3 or 4 days or 7,8 h of screen-on time out of their device.

I have the same problem as you
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

That icon in your notification bar... Is that a task killer? If so, then that's your likely problem.
When you use task killers, apps that restart themselves or their services will constantly be starting up again, leading to more battery drain. Let android handle your running apps and only manually kill apps that are frozen or highly problematic (uninstall those problematic apps if you can).

Thanks for your suggestions guys I uninstalled the task killer and will try the battery app now, I will let you know once I try it
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

Are the native battery stats accurate?

Hey guys,
I wanted to know if the native stock Battery stats (under settings) considered accurate.
I suspect that a certain app drains my battery, though I cannot see it under the Battery stats menu.
Is there any chance an app drains a lot of battery and it's still won't appear under this menu?
Thanks
Tom.

I use it only for total uptime and screen on time. Other is near useless. It always show similar stat whenever you battery draining fast or not.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

Not in the slightest when it comes to which app is using what. Get BMP from the play store to check wakelocks and such.

I too only use it for the total uptime and screen time. For specific app usage I use Betterbatterystats and android tuner, both paid.