Extreme battery drain from Mobile Network

kropotkin

I've isolated the cause of my problem. I have two SIMS, one UK (physical) and one Swedish (e-SIM). The UK SIM was the issue in Sweden. Deactivating it completely solved the problem.

The UK SIM was accessing the Telia network.

I have had the same dual-SIM setup for a year, so I don't know why it only became a problem in the last two weeks.

Elysium

On a Pixel 8 and seemingly have the same suspicion about mobile data. Using 4G only. I tried force cancel Vanadium as I suspected it to run in background a lot, but it doesn't seem to be the reason. I sometimes browse the internet, while loading, and the battery % either doesn't change or just like +1-5% over 30min-1h. Also I think the predictions for normal loading times are off now. It can display it takes 15min to charge to 80% (full) - but it takes considerable longer while not in use.
Airplane mode noticeably makes the phone cooler again too and makes charging faster.

A different issue I noticed is that hotspot doesn't turn off when a secondary profile is active - even though the hotspot is supposed to go inactive automatically after some time. When switching back to main profile it seems to stay that way. And display 0 devices connected.

MartekJanuszaj

Same for me. I am traveling in germany and left mobile data on at night. Woke up to 30% battery drain. Travelling by bus during the day without using the phone has something like 50% drain on idle. Way more than in my home county. Notably though, this only happens with my travel esim. I think this is because I have seen it connect to several providers and switch between them (so O2 and Vodafone). In the czech republic I also got slighly worse numbers and in Austria almost conparable drain to my home counrtry. In the czech republic I DID update to the android 16 release (don't remember which number)

nchrtd

Any news on this? I'm on P9P and the battery drains much too fast. Mobile network looks to be the culprit. If I put my phone in flight mode over night, there's hardly any drain.
Does seem like a Google-issue and not specific to GrapheneOS, just to be clear on that.

Toiletterider

Same problem here!

4G only, standard sim, in Norway
Pixel 8a

Stewart

I'm experiencing an issue with rapid battery drain on my Pixel 7a running GrapheneOS. My phone is set up with two profiles:

Main Profile: No applications installed, 4G always active.

Secondary Profile: All my applications are installed here, with 4G or Wi-Fi always active (depending on availability).

I'm wondering if keeping 4G active on the main profile (to provide internet to the secondary profile) could be related to this excessive drain. My phone's battery depletes very quickly, to the point where I sometimes need to recharge it multiple times a day.

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing this issue? Any suggestions for diagnosing or optimising battery usage in this kind of setup?

Shrunk836

Having the same issue on P9P. The battery drain is massive. What I figured is, if I charge the phone too 100% (have usually the optimized charging o 80%) the phone doesn't discharge as fast. It's losing 5% in like 15mins at home having YouTube or scrolling pages .. when I have it at 100% charged it doesn't drop 1% in that time.

Second, while in mobile or whenever I check my battery usage it's the mobile network 50%+.. it's dropping 20% in 10 minutes while listening YouTube with locked phone. But it doesn't matter it also drops 5-10+% while on idle per hour. It's frustrating, since I love GOS but charging twice a day is a bummer. Would love to have a fix for that...

I don't even know how to "debug" it.. installing app per app and hoping for good? Sad that there is no real battery usage statistic to figure out who's the culprit.... If the battery usage starts are correct it's for sure mobile network.. while in 4G only mode.

Eagle_Owl

Shrunk836 I don't even know how to "debug" it.. installing app per app and hoping for good? Sad that there is no real battery usage statistic to figure out who's the culprit.... If the battery usage stats are correct it's for sure mobile network.. while in 4G only mode.

And there is only one serious battery monitor app: BatteryBot (Pro) by Darshan Computing
(Pro version supports the logging feature).

Unfortunately, the app has not been maintained since 2018, but it is fully developed and practically perfect.
What's worse is that the only usable version 12.0.0 can only be obtained via F-Droid.

The latest original version from Darshan Computing is v10.0.4 (https://github.com/darshan-/Battery-Indicator-Pro/releases) and does not yet take into account the high-resolution displays of modern smartphones.
Someone from F-Droid had probably optimised the display control among other things and therefore released a version 12.0.0.
I have been running this on every Android smartphone for years, which means I have the battery under control.

next_victory

Shrunk836
I also experience excessive battery drain on the Pixel 9 Pro. The "Mobile network" system always ranks first place in the battery usage menu. It is responsible for between 50%-90% of the battery usage. I do not have empirical data, but the "Mobile network" usage was always below 50% before the Android 16 update.

For me it appears to be independent of the SoC.

Asparagus

I also experience unacceptable battery drop, a drop of 50% of my battery overnight (it dropped from 50% to 0% and shut down 2 hours before I wake up, so it could possibly drop more than 50% if the phone was charged more). I'm on P8P and this happened after the update before the last update. It had been like this for a week, so every morning when I wake up my phone is dead when I used to be able to use it for 2 days after each charge. Mobile network is responsible for 90% of the battery consumption. I tried turning off mobile data at night and it solved the extreme battery consumption problem. I don't know what is going on. I'm using Tello at USA which is relying on the T-Mobile network.

waterelefant

Has anyone found a solution?
I can only get half a day out of my Pixel 9 Pro XL. At certain times, it also gets hot for no reason. I reset all apps and reset Graphene OS, but there was no improvement.

To rule out a hardware defect, I tested going back to the official Android 16, and now I can easily get through the day. It doesn't get hot anymore either. But really want to use graphene os.

de0u

waterelefant Because this experience is so uncommon, t's probably due to some specific apps or app configuration on your device.

You might check the battery usage displays to see if anything stands out.

GrapheneOS

waterelefant You set up things up on GrapheneOS in a way that drained power such as using Signal with WebSocket push instead of FCM or Molly's UnifiedPush support. Using the same apps does not imply setting it up the same way.

waterelefant

Nothing unusual under battery usage. After the reset, I tried it without any additional apps and got the same result.

n3t_admin

waterelefant try disabling VoWiFi and VoLTE, as well as go from 5G to 4G and see if these changes make a difference.

waterelefant

n3t_admin
I am still in the official build. I will flash it again tomorrow and then test it. I have been using Graphene for years now and have never had any problems. It only started since I came back from vacation two weeks ago.

n3t_admin

waterelefant It only started since I came back from vacation two weeks ago.

Yeah, this sounds like something broke after roaming. Might as well be something stuck in activation on the carrier side, which causes the battery drain. If my steps don't show any difference, I would honestly take it up to the carrier, since they are the only people able to troubleshoot such cases.

v1ct0r

#metoo

v1ct0r

In the end I noticed that Google Play Services was running almost non-stop in the background. Upon inspection of the log I noticed : NearbyDiscovery … BleRecoveryHelper … enableBLE and FastPairScanner … BluetoothAdapter: isLeEnabled(): OFF spamming the log and strongly suggesting a stuck Nearby/Fast Pair job causing wakeups.

Nearby devices permission was denied for Google Play Services but Bluetooth and Wifi scanning were activated. After disabling both Google Play Services started napping most of the time.

My Phone is at about 50% after an entire day on and about 3h of display on. On previous days, my phone was about dead at the end of a day of use. I hope this helps some here.

Sideofsmalandsrulle

Same here, works fine on Wi‑Fi, but it drains the battery like hell on a mobile network. I use Comviq in Sweden.

Pixel 8 pro.

MiniSota

I have this issue as well. T-Mobile US, Pixel 8 Pro.

MiniSota

MiniSota I went back to stock for a couple of days and battery life is significantly better. I'm using the same apps and settings that I had on Graphene and mobile network is only at 3%. The battery almost lasts two days on stock whereas I was struggling to get 1 day on Graphene.

mortuary_jab

Noticing this more over past day or so on P7P. Approx ₂₀% higher usage with mobile network.

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