Heavy idle drain on Smartphone

[hellokitty[hk]]

I have a Mi2S and I'm running the latest stock ROM 4.4.23.
Ever since the 4.4.11 update I've had poor idle battery life.

Before that when I look at my battery usage, as long as I have good signal and the screen is off, the battery level graph is flat.
Now, almost always when my phone is idle, no matter what there is some heavy drain, it was approximately 25% over 12 hours.

I've tried all the MI2S updates since then and they are all having this issue. I have not installed any new apps or changed anything on my current ones.

Attached are some wakelock detector screenshots.

Sometimes 小米服務 has many wake alerts, but sometimes it does not. Weather app is disabled, and autosync is disabled too. Occasionally 小米服務 does not have many wake alerts but that doesn't seem to reduce idle power draw, and I think it had this many wakes before as well.

Also the 3h wakelock app is the music player; the idle drain happened when the music player was off.

Thanks for reading.

 

[DelJo63]

Word on the street is to disable

• PUSH notification
• and ALL location services

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

I will try that but I didn't have this problem before, and I had push notifications and location services on.

Before the only time I had issues with idle drain was when I had skype running (uninstalled now, along with google chat, just to check) or when I had no signal.

 

[St1ckM4n]

25% over 12 hours isn't bad, by the way.

I'd head on over to XDA and have them look at it in detail.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Okay, was considering that.
25% over 12 hours is several times worse than before :|.

 

[St1ckM4n]

I can't find your phone model on gsmarea. 12hrs and 25% is okay for android phone with data and push turned on.

It's also hard to tell what your wakelocks are exactly, and I'm no expert on em. XDA recommended. Good luck.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

It is this one:
http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_2s-5397.php

Previously it was about 5% for 12 hours, with wifi, data, notifications etc. on, so something definitely happened.

I posted a thread on XDA, waiting on that.
In the meantime, I've flashed an older update that I had , but it doesn't seem to have improved. I'm pretty sure that ROM had good battery life previously.

Right now I'm letting it idle on airplane mode to see if it's constantly searching because of a weak signal or something like that.

 

[DelJo63]

Airplane mode is designed to disable ALL WiFi - - for FAA regulations and to extend battery life. Use it all the time as a default until I need Google Maps or some such

 

[learninmypc]

May I butt in with a question? What are Push notifications? I've seen it (them) mentioned on my iPhone 4 but have no clue.

 

[DelJo63]

First, PULL is when the application asks, "is there anything for me?"

PUSH is when the service (say FB) sends a notification to the user and the user is doing something else. The mobile is actively listening (just like a webserver) awaiting these notifications so it can give the notice asap - - thus draining the battery due to the active connection to the cell tower or wifi service.

 

[learninmypc]

@jobeard, thank you.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Does anyone happen to know if the google hangouts chat app is a push or pull?

I've noticed that not only is it fairly light, it's updated in realtime when I chat, new messages are received instantly, and doesn't cause any idle drain or take a lot of data, all of which Skype fails to do.

Pretty disappointed in Skype really, sometimes it takes a long time to refresh and get up to date chats, and sometimes I have to manually open up Skype start typing into the conversation to see chats that were sent up to half an hour ago.

In addition, whenever I'm logged in, I have noticeably higher standby drain.
TL;DR: Skype sux.

 

[St1ckM4n]

Hangouts is push.

Do you have Google Now turned on? If yes, it's possible you updated the app and it's now chewing battery to cover the new features.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Hangouts is push? Well it's never decreased my battery life that I know if, it's still drains about .5% per hour even if I am actively receiving google hangouts chats, which is a normal amount of my phone it seems.

Well I've made some progress.
I spent a night in airplane mode, and that fixed it, I lost about 3% over the course of the entire night (~12 hours).

I'm going to spend another night in airplane mode, but with wifi to see if it's my mobile network signal or the wifi connection. It could still be that there's an application that's constantly trying to access the internet and causing drain... or it might be a problem with my phone searching for a signal or something.

Errr, I think I do have google now turned off, that's the OK google voice recognition service right?

 

[Rabbit01]

Is your phone rooted? Avast! Mobile Security has a firewall feature that only works on rooted devices. This might take some time, but I was thinking maybe use this feature to block internet access for apps you think might be causing your problem. Or block several apps at a time and narrow it down.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

MIUI has root access by default, and it has it's own data restriction app, which you just reminded me about.

Still trying to figure out exactly what is causing the drain...

 

[St1ckM4n]

Errr, I think I do have google now turned off, that's the OK google voice recognition service right?

Not sure if it's on MIUI. It's the stuff say pushes out saying "your football team scores" or "you parked here" "distance to work xxx mins" "movie sessions currently playing.
That uses location and push data a damn lot.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Okay I spent about 5 hours each on airplane mode, WiFi off, then airplanr mode with WiFi on, its definitely WiFi somehow.

 

[Rabbit01]

On my S4, stock ROM v4.3, if I go into System Settings > Data Usage, I can see the breakdown by Mobile and Wi-fi. Not sure if this feature is installed by the carrier or build into Android. Do you have something similar on your phone?

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

Yeah, biggest one is like yours, Android OS.
Within that, aside from the browser, google services framework, and something called uniplay services? I can't uninstall uniplay it must be part of my system but I did turn off allow background data on both.
After that it's google play, and google hangouts at 2mb so I'll leave it at that and see how it goes...

How does your file explorer use so much data? Why does it even use data in the first place, all adds??

 

[Rabbit01]

Don't have uniplay. Looks like it might be something that turns your phone into a game controller. There's an app by that name in Google Play.

As for ES File Explorer, data usage is from me transferring files (pics/vids/etc.) from my phone to the desktop via wi-fi.

 

[hellokitty[hk]]

I saw that it but it's definitely not that, I didn't install it, plus, it's a service.
Anyway will see. I wonder what changed to make it so that wifi is causing drain.
Could the wifi itself be causing it? I just moved away from school so the wifi is worse.