Extreme battery drain from Mobile Network

kmielke

I had a similar problem. My 9 Pro was 100% full. I always switch the device to airplane mode overnight. In the morning, the device was turned off and the battery was empty. The battery usage shows 99% for the launcher. Has anyone experienced this?

Kamika242

I have the same battery drain problem on my Pixel 10 Pro XL, some days are better, but more days are worse. Mainly I'm connected to Wifi, but mobile data consumption is always on top in battery stats with a screentime often less than 10 or 20 minutes after a day, I'm not a heavy user. Sometimes I have the feeling, I can see the battery indicator counting down like timer.
I use a physical Vodafone Germany sim-card, 4G only with VoLTE and VoWIFI, 2G deactivated, "mobile network always active" is disabled in developer options, mobile data are automatically turned of via Macrodroid, when connected to Wifi, "adaptive connection" is also set to off.
The devive gets warm in my pocket when I'm out and about (mostly hearing music from Spotify via Bluetooth 5.3 then), but the device often is also warm while lying idle beside me on the couch, like just in the moment and I'm home since 3 hours now.
Yes, I have 10 apps permanently running in the background with an exception from battery optimizing, but these apps only poorly apear in the battery stats, mobile network is on top, always.
I never had this problem on any other device, my last one before the Pixel was a now 6 years old, as far as possible degoogled (via ADB) Oppo Reno2 with the same apps, mostly from F-Droid or directly from GitHub via Obtainium, some from Aurora.
I tried every hint from the net like reseting the network connections, nothing worked permanently, only switching shortly to airplane mode and back after a network change helps, but every time you have to think about it and this can't be a permanent solution.
Before buying the Pixel, which is normally not in my preferred price range, I was reading all about Pixels and that they had heavily power consuming modems up to Pixel 9 series, but for Pixel 10 all the problems have been fixed, but apparently not. For the moment I'm very disappointed from the "Flag ship" Pixel 10 Pro XL and/or GrapheneOS, in relation to it's stamina.

Just did the airplane mode thing again, the device gets "cold" within 10 minutes and the battery indicator stopped to run like a countdown.

Finaly the question, is the device the problem or (an error in) GrapheneOS?

Novaliss

Kamika242 deactivated, "mobile network always active" is disabled in developer options

This will not make the device run cooler. Developer options should not be enabled on your main phone at all, it makes diagnosing and support from us a wasted thing.

Kamika242

Novaliss

With or without activated developer options, the problem stays the same. I disabled the mobile network option there because of several hints to do that while I was searching for the cause of the often massive battery consumption.

Anyway, it seems to be that a network change from mobile to wifi and the other way around causes the problem. After switching to airplane mode and back everything is fine, until the next network change.

Novaliss

Kamika242 Whith or without activated developer options, the problem stays the same

The thing is that this says very little about the issue. Since some of the developer options gracefully reverts when turning the whole panel off, but some of them don't. Some of them stays but reverts by restarting the device, but most won't. None of the options will warn you if a conflict with the normal OS will or has occurred. And having them enabled is a security risk.
You should factory reset your device and keep developer options turned OFF.

Johnnyloans

Kamika242

Perhaps you are experiencing this issue or something else causing the cell radio to consume power.

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/7416

Kamika242

Novaliss You should factory reset your device and keep developer options turned OFF.

The mobile network option was the only one which I changed in developer options, I switched it back to "on" now and deactivated the developer options.
A factory reset puts me off, my device is completely set up and I have read in many places, that a factory reset was useless for solving the problem.
The problem already existed long before turning on the developer options. The first day after setting up the new phone was horrible and I was already in the verge of sending the device back.
A brandnew device with a 5200mAh battery, which lasts not longer than my 6 years old Oppo with a 4000mAh battery under exactly the same conditions.

Novaliss

Kamika242 factory reset puts me off, my device is completely set up

I totally get it, but you see the problem from a support perspective? Introducing further moving chaotic factors into a problem that's already difficult, it just won't help in the bugchecking.😉

Kamika242

Novaliss

I can totally understand this.

I just went back from physiotherapy and I'm home for about half an hour now, my device isn't warm like in the past days after coming home, the battery indicator looks good, so far. Maybe disabling developer options was a good step in the right direction, I also set the mobile connection from "4G" to "4G only" (2G is disabled by myself, 3G is discontinued in Germany). I will watch the further behaviour in the next few days. I will do a factory reset, if the problem comes back, but I hope it doesn't.

Thanks to you an all the others for your efforts. 👍🏻

Novaliss

Kamika242 will watch the further behaviour in the next few days

Good luck. Hopefully no full reset is needed. 🫡

Kamika242

Novaliss

After all I've made a facrory reset yesterday, the fact that something hasn't been quite right from the very start - that is ever since GrapheneOS was installed - has been weighting on my mind and so I thought, everything could only be better.
So I made backups of my apps data like Signal, Threema, Foldersync and so on, but no system-backup, I didn't want to transfer any possible errors to the new system. The factory reset was made around 3pm with 70% battery, then I've set up everything new by hand, finished around 11pm with 20% battery, 8 hours with almost throughout screen on, a great duration.
Today I was out for grocery shopping with music via Bluetooth headphones on the way, no warm device, no huge battery consumption after network changes and also in general an absolutely acceptable battery drain, which I haven't had before.

The factory reset was the right decision and I'm very happy now!

Novaliss

Kamika242 This is lovely news! ☺️

Kamika242 Signal

A lot of users would swap this to Molly, and set it up with Unifiedpush using e.g. Sunup.
They both are available from the Accrescent appstore, which is available from your GrapheneOS App Store.

Among the advantages are better battery economics.

Grapi

Kamika242 and also in general an absolutely acceptable battery drain

How is it looking today? Is the battery drain still optimal?

Kamika242

Novaliss

A lot of users would swap this to Molly

I prefer the degoogled Signal fork of TwinHelix (thats why I wrote only "Signal", same icon and same visual appearance), I tried Molly for a long time and in my experiences the battery consumption is higher there.

For UnifiedPush I have read that notifications only will be delivered for a given time and a limited amount, if your device is off or you have no network for a longer time, notifications won't be delivered(?).

Seppetoni

I'm experiencing much better batterylife and mobile network is using much less battery. I switched to eSim with my provider and updated to the latest grapheneos version yesterday. It went from using 40% over night to only 5%!!

Kamika242

Grapi How is it looking today? Is the battery drain still optimal?

Yes and especially since beta *900, already wrote about it here:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/35409-grapheneos-version-2026050900-released/27

O101

imo graphene should attempt to impliment adaptive conectivity

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