Droid update killed battery life & gets too hot

narquam

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I'm sure everyone has the December update by now so I need to know if anyone else has this issue. My droid has two major problems since the update.

One is the battery life has declined significantly. I used to have sync, wifi, and GPS all running without much battery drain. I don't make a whole lot of calls so it could easily run two days before warning me to charge. With a lot of use it would at least last a day and a half. Now with the update the battery won't even last 24 hours. I take it off the charger in the morning and by the next morning when I wake up, it's dead.

My other problem is the phone getting very hot. I've had it for a while now and it never had any temperature fluctuation. Now since the update it gets very hot almost as hot as a laptop gets running at max like when playing multimedia or a game. It gets hot where the camera is around where, I assume, the GPS and receiver are.

I should also mention that display was always the top consumer of battery life. Now it's the Android System. Even if I kill tasks this happens.
 

640k

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what kind of charger are you using? are you plugging it into the wall or a PC? a hot battery could be a sign of a bad power supply or a bad battery.
 

JayMonster

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This is (I think) really simple. It is an application you installed, something that is constantly polling for a location. Those calls to "get location" is what is making your "System" seem so high.

Find the rouge app, and you will find you battery drain.
 

mynameiserich

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I use beautiful Widgets which always determines my location and locale which turns on GPS every 10 minutes to determine my location and I have no problem with my battery life. I would have verizon test your battery at the store or try a hard restore.
 
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narquam

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I am using the power adapter supplied in the box. I have had no problems until the update. I installed nothing new since the update. I have no market apps that run in the background doing things. I noticed the phone hot after it had been on battery for half the day. I pulled it out to use the browser and it just started getting very hot. The battery seems to drain just as fast when I am using apps as it does while not in use and the screen off. Somehow the android system is doing way too much while the phone is not in use.
 

640k

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try a factory reset and report back.
 

Retribution

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Some apps dont play nice with the new update, after the update my phone would occasionally crash and I had narrowed it down to a music player app I had installed un installed and all was good.

Though it can also be said some apps dont play nice with 2.0 as well, I download a chess app on my phone worked fine for a couple days, then I started having a similar problem your having, uninstalled it and the battery cooled down and the phone didnt feel like it was going to catch my pocket on fire.
 

rwg

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Battery life went to near-zero

Normally I unplug the droid when I wake up and have 1/2 battery when I plug it back in at bedtime. Today, around noon, the battery life went to critical and the battery was hot.

Plugging it in provides enough juice to keep the battery hot but does not increase the charge.

So, if this is a rouge app, what application is it?
 

rjm5151

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i never had the droid on the previous software. When i bought it i got the new update right away. When on my droid for 15-20 minutes it starts to get pretty hot and i have the battery status app that tells me my internal temp. Ive seen it get as high as 105-110.....I for whatever reason assumed this was normal. Also my battery usually doesn't get me through the day without using the car charger, etc.

Had some other issues too but never counted these in as problems....maybe they are?
 

rjm5151

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sorry if i hijacked the thread thought it was pretty relevant
 

IcyDroid

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This is (I think) really simple. It is an application you installed, something that is constantly polling for a location. Those calls to "get location" is what is making your "System" seem so high.

Find the rouge app, and you will find you battery drain.

I second this, one badly managed app can wreak havoc on the battery drain/temperature.

It is normal for the back to get somewhat hot if you are charging it and using it at the same time. For instance, one night I had it plugged in while in my bed and using Google Maps and it got a little hot. Probably because my hand was across the back of it.
 
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narquam

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Updates for you all. I managed to get the problem to go away by pulling out the battery for a few minutes. When re-inserted I found the battery level would quickly change. So it seemed like the phone was not reading the proper battery level so it would not allow the phone to charge above about 60%. Now it's working fine. I found that a few apps do cause major battery problems.

Another bit of info. I found an awesome app that will set a schedule to turn off your data and change settings at night. This is a huge battery saver. I will be posting a thread about this because it really does save battery. APNdroid will allow you to switch on and off your 3G/edge/gprs or just turn off mms and notifications. Timerific is a great program that allows you to set schedules for data, wifi, and other features of your phone. So you can basically turn off every feature of your phone from midnight to morning.
 

mfvargo

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Same problem, narrowed to gmail sync

I have experienced this same problem with shortened battery life and phone heating up. I was not able to pinpoint to that update, but sounds about right. I have narrowed it down to sync'ing. If I disable sync, the phone behaves as before (similar battery life as reported in the first post). When I enable sync and look at the gmail sync settings, I can see it sync'ing over and over again. It never stops (the little sync icon never goes away) unless I just disable sync altogether. Facebook seems to be sync'ing ok.

Not sure how to zap the gmail settings back to initial to start over.

Mike
 

DessoThumbs

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Mine has started to get hot lately and it seems like the battery charge doesn't last as long. The major change has been the additon of the original Moto Dock which I use every night. How do I tell if it's app(s) that are misbehaving?

Also, if I need to do a hard reset, how do I go about it and will I lose my vids/music/pics on my microSD card? One more Q, will it automatically reload all my aps? If it does then it'll probably go back to heating up.

As always,
TIA
 
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hookbill

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Mine has started to get hot lately. How do I tell which app(s) are misbehaving?
Also, if I need to do a hard reset, how do I go about it and will I lose my vids/music/pics on my microSD card? One more Q, will it automatically reload all my aps? If it does then it'll probably go back to heating up.

As always,
TIA

I think you really shouldn't worry about the heat. My battery got to 118 the other day and while that is high, Motorola states that 113 degrees is OK.

However if you insist on doing a hard reset:

1. Turn the Droid off. If it won’t turn off, take the battery out then place it back in.

2. Open the keyboard and press the X key while pressing and holding Power. The device will power on. Keep holding the buttons down until a yellow triangle appers.

3. Press the Camera and Volume Up buttons at the same time to get to the menu. (I had to press them several times).

4. Use the direction pad to the right of the keyboard to select the Format option.

You will have to reinstall your apps. Your paid apps will be in the downloads and you won't get charged again. All data will get wiped. I'm not sure what happens with your SD card.
 
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