Extreme battery drain from Mobile Network

dregrinfuces

With 2025041100, I now have to charge my phone before going to bed. Otherwise, instead of waking up with the battery at 60-70%, I wake up to the phone off with the battery dead.

DeletedUser343

Maybe a GOS DEV can chime in on this?

other8026

Not a GrapheneOS developer, but just came here to say that I haven't noticed any change at all, and I also have a 9th generation Pixel. Looking at the release that has been mentioned by other people here, I don't see anything on GrapheneOS's side that would cause more battery drain from mobile network use. The issue would likely be from upstream.

Also important to note that without logs showing what the problem is, or without knowing more about how to reproduce the issue, the developers may not be able to troubleshoot or even fix the problem.

I'd start by resetting mobile network settings from the owner profile in Settings > System > Reset options. If that doesn't help, try changing some things in your settings to see if changing any particular setting can fix the issue. It would be helpful if people can report back here if they find something that helps.

ryrona

I am not certain I am experiencing the same issues as others, because I am not seeing the same extreme battery drain, yet still unreasonable battery drain. And I am on Pixel 7a. And I switched from Wifi to 4G beginning of April, before that I had my phone in airplane mode almost all the time. So I don't have a reference from before beginning of April.

But I have tried a few things. I tried enabling 4G+5G mode instead of 4G only mode. It did not make much of a difference. Morning, battery dropped by 20% during 2 hours of light usage. And after half a day 50% of battery had been drained, despite little usage beyond those two hours in the morning. So maybe 5G mode is even draining more battery than 4G mode, but I am not certain about that.

I faintly recall someone a few months ago using RF measuring equipment had noticed the 4G/5G modem no longer stops sending data when phone screen is off, like they said it used to. I am not certain I remember this correct, but this could suggest a firmware update to the baseband modem has caused it to send some traffic to cellular towers constantly, even if not needed.

I have double checked, and the amount of used data as registered by my cellular provider matches my actual data usage, and is reasonable. So it does not seem data packets are the reason. At least not data packets that counts towards the monthly data limit.

I also noticed unreasonable battery consumption when Wifi hotspot is enabled, and my phone getting worryingly hot, way hotter than when charging, even if not connected to charging, just running Wifi hotspot. The connected computer is sending a few small packets somewhat frequently, amounting to a few megabytes per hour at most. Could hint towards huge power consumption overhead per sent data packet, maybe because of unnecessary processing being done? Phone is notably cooler when display is off and not running any Wifi hotspot, than otherwise, even if it still drains some battery. But there is probably notably fewer data packets exchanged then too.

I will try resetting cellular settings next, and see if that helps. If not, I am going to try disabling data traffic and just have telephony and SMS activated, and see if that helps.

ryrona

ryrona I faintly recall someone a few months ago using RF measuring equipment had noticed the 4G/5G modem no longer stops sending data when phone screen is off, like they said it used to.

Oh, found it:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/20740-phone-is-obviously-continuously-sending-data/

ryrona

ryrona I will try resetting cellular settings next, and see if that helps.

FYI, I tried this, and it didn't help. I also tried disabling my VPN, in case it is padding traffic that is causing it, but that did not help either. I also didn't unlock my private space, and that didn't help either, so it is no app in there at least that is causing it.

In a few days I will get Wifi here, so can try if it really is the cellular modem that is causing the battery consumption. I suspect this, and will not look further if Wifi helps. If that doesn't help, I will try disabling apps, even if no app shows up in Battery consumption as suspicious.

jackFang

Experienced massive battery drain only once around 1-2 months ago with my P9, after realising this, I did reboot and force closed all unused apps and it was OK then. Used wifi and mobile data interchangeably

ryrona

Another thread where high battery usage is being reported starting this month:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/21905-2025041100-complete-battery-drain-twice/

Stewart

I have the same problem of extreme battery discharge on my Pixel 7a, I can't even last half a day, I have to recharge it 1-2 times a day despite my low use of it

I did a factory reset about 2 weeks ago and the problem persists, it's very annoying on a daily basis.

DeletedUser494

Im experiencing the same over the last month (?). Using Pixel 9 Pro Fold, full battery drain during the night, from Mobile Network. I don't use WiFi, only Cellular.

GrapheneOS

Sacrosanct DeletedUser494 A poor cellular connection will consume far more battery. You should start by resetting cellular settings via Settings > System > Reset. You can try disabling 5G by setting the cellular mode to 4G (meaning 4G and below) or 4G only to see if it's related to 5G.

Sacrosanct

GrapheneOS

I do not ever experience anything else than a full or next-to-full signal bar. And I mean ever - unless I am travelling, which might account for a few days these last months. The area I operate in has excellent coverage.

I have not used 5G since some time last year, when I learned how 4G is more secure than 5G.

I have tried numerous Mobile Network resets, clearing APNs and restarting. I even delved into some Android forums where someone with a similar issue did some change in Developer Options that fixed it for him.
That did not work either.

I did however switch from cellular to Wifi for a few days while I was in an Airbnb, and I did see some improvement in battery usage.

Unfortunately, because of an insecure home network on a modem that I don't administrate - I'm limited to using cellular due to security concerns.

I nevertheless appreciate the answers from you all, and hope someone might appear and shed some knowledge or assistance, as I can't POSSIBLY believe it's normal that by only using cellular for internet, it's the cause of 61% battery drain (today) of a fairly new Pixel 9.

ryrona

ryrona In a few days I will get Wifi here, so can try if it really is the cellular modem that is causing the battery consumption. I suspect this, and will not look further if Wifi helps.

My battery consumption issue was resolved by using Wifi instead of 4G. Battery time almost doubled, back to having to charge every second day, instead of every day.

I think it is very unreasonable 4G would stand for half of all battery consumption on the device. I even measured, and I have perfect 4G reception here. Weak 5G reception, but that doesn't matter as I had 5G disabled. Either way, I will not look any further, as I have a solution that works for me.

naibed

Here are my battery stats: https://i.imgur.com/EOeQz4i.png

Unlike others, I use Wifi most of the time. For the screenshot, I've been in the house since 10:30 last night, so w/ the wifi connection the mobile cnxn has still somehow accounts for 45% of the battery drain which is 4x as much as the display...

tV0gr

I experienced a bit a of a battery drain a few times over the last month, my theory/suspicion is that the battery was reported as full but wasn't fully charged. Letting it on charge for longer seems to resolve the issue most if not every times.

I am not saying that it should be disregarded or overlooked, It's possible that my battery consumption increased due to cellular activity, maybe 5-15% at most. If that's caused by security hardening then I would see it as a cost of doing business. AFAIK cellular network are still a prime target and I suspect that my cellular provider is adjusting more dynamically than they did in the past.

Lama2

I have exactly the same problem on a pixel 9 and a pixel 8a. For example, I lose a lot of battery at night while connected to wifi and the stats page says that mobile data is responsible for the battery drop. Sometimes it says it's the GPS rather than the mobile data, but it's safe to say I have a stable connection which shouldn't be the source of the problem. It doesn't seem to be linked to the new developments on position by network because it's not activated on my 8a. It's probably an AOSP bug but I haven't found anything on the forums so the probability that it's linked to GrapheneOs is non-zero. Pixel 9 is brand new with a clean install.
(https://i.ibb.co/xKPkR0t0/batterie.png)

It's also important to note that I've never experienced such a battery problem since I started using grapheneos,(2-3y) and I don't think I've changed anything. I think there's clearly a bug - it's not a question of use or poor network quality.

Oggyo

Lama2 I lose a lot of battery at night while connected to wifi and the stats page says that mobile data is responsible for the battery drop.

Is there any difference if you manually turn off the mobile data but leave anything else as before?

Lama2

I'll try tonight. If there are logs to provide let me know the procedure to retrieve them.

Lama2

Wifi only and mobile data deactivated, there's the same loss of around 10% overnight.
https://i.ibb.co/mrJ7jdDD/signal-2025-05-02-092904.png

Eagle_Owl

ryrona
Same here with my Pixel 9 Pro XL.