What is killing my battery?

[joefuf]

Hey guys,

I have a Droid 3 running Steel Droid 5.6 which is an ICS ROM. It has been a lot better than the Liberty 3 Gingerbread ROM that I used to have in terms of functionality and battery life - until recently.

Yesterday, I tried to replace my stock SMS Messaging app with a 3rd Paty one. I chose Go SMS Pro. Since I made that my go-to app, I have had a major hit to battery life.

I noticed you guys like Better Battery Stats, so I downloaded that for you guys to see. In a matter of less than an hour, I lost over 50% of battery life.

Screenshots here: Photo Album - Imgur

I can see that my phone is ALWAYS awake, and I think that's the problem.

I used to have LiteFlow to alert me for texts and stuff, so I uninstalled that. Then I noticed that it was still happening. I checked BBS and that says that there is a service for Go SMS Pro running.

Can anyone provide some insight?

 

[leeshor]

I would say you need to get another SMS app, for starters. I would also check to see how frequently you are checking (syncing) mail as it too is eating up the battery.

 

[joefuf]

I would say you need to get another SMS app, for starters. I would also check to see how frequently you are checking (syncing) mail as it too is eating up the battery.

Is Go SMS Pro notorious for this issue? Or is my phone/ROM just not playing well with this app?

is Handcent okay? I will try and use that one tomorrow.

I have all 3 of my accounts on the E-Mail app set to Inbox check frequency: Never
is there something else I should do for the email app?

 

[leeshor]

Is Go SMS Pro notorious for this issue? Or is my phone/ROM just not playing well with this app?

That would be my guess. If your accounts are set to never sync, either you are using your mail a LOT or some other settings needs to be checked.

Of those accounts, how many are POP/IMAP

Honestly, the SMS app looks like the biggest problem, One thing at a time. lol

 

[joefuf]

That would be my guess. If your accounts are set to never sync, either you are using your mail a LOT or some other settings needs to be checked.

Of those accounts, how many are POP/IMAP

Honestly, the SMS app looks like the biggest problem, One thing at a time. lol

I honestly never open the Email app. Rarely, if ever. I usually grab my email from my iPad because it's easier for me to organize my folders, etc. I was really surprised when I found that to be draining my battery at all.

i have 3 accounts. One is my university email, but that is an Exchange account. The other two are Aol and GMail accounts. I stopped using the GMail app when I couldn't figure out how to remove those stupid tabs from the updated app. Maybe I should try removing the GMail one and seeing if that fixes something, since this problem only became unbearable recently.

i'm uninstalling apps left and right in any attempt to quell the issue.

i'm surprised Go SMS could really be the issue for no reason. Maybe I'll try to reach out to them. I did like the look and feel of that app.

Any others that you would recommend trying?

 

[leeshor]

I'm, not saying there is no reason for Go SMS to be doing that as I don't use that app. It is possibly a setting issue. That mail is a real puzzle. It does seem to be Exchange at fault somewhere.

 

[joefuf]

I'm, not saying there is no reason for Go SMS to be doing that as I don't use that app. It is possibly a setting issue. That mail is a real puzzle. It does seem to be Exchange at fault somewhere.

Okay. I'll email/message the devs to see if they have any solutions. Google wasn't any help initially.

I just went into Accounts & Sync and unsynced everything except my main Google account. I'll see if that helps too.

 

[AECRADIO]

Are you using VZW sync as well
Verizon's sync appears to sync at odd hours and often, at least for me.
Every time I turn on WiFi, sync started, and since I never signed in, it still attempts to access this app regardless.
I also disable all social networking apps, such as farcebook to make certain they are not doing things I disapprove of, and maintain only a single Email account that is also not updated at any time I use the phone, or access 3G alone. WiFi is ALWAYS set to OFF, and I rarely access anything over any public network. I had to freeze all VZW apps in Titanium Backup to stop having my battery drained by rogue apps I missed deleting or freezing, and so far, this has been quite successful.
All our active phones are set up identically, so we know what is, and what is not running, even the lone D2 is going two days on a single charge, and if I lightly use my DX, I can squeeze three days from a charge with the standard battery, even though we do have spares, we rarely need them.

If you have data managers, look into what is draining your battery, and if you have this menu:

You should be able to restrict how data is accessed/used by your phone.
But then, you can also select these options if your phone is similar:

And finally.....

Not sure how these affect your usage, but they help us control what we receive, and when/how.

This is a pic of my lone D2, on VZW. still working hard!