Battery drain problem since update 2025091000

ZenoZenith

Hi!

Since the 2025091000 update, I’ve been having a major issue with the battery on my Pixel 8a. I haven’t changed my configuration or installed any new apps. Previously, my phone would lose about 5–10% battery overnight, but since the update it’s been draining 50–60%.

Thanks in advance!

GrapheneOS

ZenoZenith It's unlikely that it has to do with that OS update but rather is likely from app changes or network changes.

freezet

ZenoZenith i would say that if your phone loses a lot percent while turned off or in airplane mode , something could be wrong with the battery. Google puts in worse batterys then in budget phones , if its older then a year, it starts to degrade fast, for me this feels a lot like planned obsolescence

freezet

ZenoZenith if you have the same graph as this i bet its because of the cheap battery
https://imgur.com/a/l9ST7Mh
I did not really use the phone that day but the graph just goes straight down

Sagichnicht

What apps/functions use the most power? I have problems on my p6a too, and I think it might be related to Spotify or apps that play audio while being in the background in general.

ZenoZenith

Sagichnicht On my phone, the three apps that consume the most battery are always the same:
Signal, Mullvad, and Syncthing-Fork (which only runs during the day, I turn the app off at night).

avaluedcustomer

I think something is different since then.

I turned my Pixel 8 off yesterday after it was fully charged at 100% (including the little symbol that the limit was activated).

I turned it on again after about 10 hours, and it showed 96% battery.
I know there is some loss even when it's off, but 6% seems awfully lot.

ZenoZenith

avaluedcustomer I’ve also noticed — if that’s what you’re referring to — that the 80% battery limit doesn’t seem to work very well anymore since the update.

Oggyo

avaluedcustomer

And how can this problem be related to the title "update 2025091000"?
When the phone is turned off, the software is off, too.

GrapheneOS

ZenoZenith If you're using Signal with their WebSocket push, that uses a lot of power. Switch to Molly with UnifiedPush via a MollySocket server. There's at least one public one.

avaluedcustomer

ZenoZenith
No, it's not about the 80% limit.

It's about the fact that the battery charge level fell from 100% to 94% while being turned off (had the charging been limited, it probably would have fallen from 80% to 75% or something similar).

Although I am aware that batteries lose a small amount of charge even if not in use, I find 6% in about 10 hours way too high.

TranceSeven

ZenoZenith Among one of the topics here on this battery limit issue, there was a potential fix, which seems to have worked for me. Turn off the optimization, reboot the phone, then enable the optimization again. Since I've done that, charging stops at 80% again.

avaluedcustomer

Oggyo

Because it never showed this behavior until I updated to 2025091000

Up until then, it was never more than 1% or 2% while the phone was turned off.

Sagichnicht

Oggyo Might have scrambled the battery data, so the 6% loss isn't real

Oggyo

avaluedcustomer

The forum is full of statements "since the last update..."

Most likely, your battery is degrading, and it will keep accelerating after power-intensive operations, e.g., applying a software update. Do not be surprised that it will be worse after the next update.

Curious to know how many cycles your battery has.

avaluedcustomer

Oggyo Curious to know how many cycles your battery has.

141 cycles, built June 2023

Oggyo

avaluedcustomer

Seems pretty good. Still, I suspect your battery self-discharge rate is too high or it can't properly hold the charge. That still leads me to a hardware (battery) problem.

Please note - the booting process (you said, you turned off your phone) is also power-intensive. It is normal for the battery to lose 1-2% before settling all the starting apps.

I have nothing else to add.

maximus87

Honestly, I am tired of people dismissing the battery concerns in almost every single discussion. My phone is becoming basically unusable due to fast battery discharing caused probably by the network modem. And at this point, I think I will need another phone for when I need a reliable one while going out even to work.

GrapheneOS

maximus87 You've set up your device in a way that it uses a lot of power. You can choose to fix or you can wrongly blame it on GrapheneOS and keep having the issue.

A large subset of Pixel 6a devices are known to have faulty batteries which are a fire hazard. These are detected and throttled by the current kernel driver. If you have a Pixel 6a, then you need to get the battery replaced if it's part of the large subset impacted by this.

Velocity9490

I thought I was hallucinating, but I have the same issue on my Pixel 6a. Sure, it's at almost 500 cycles, but the battery life was still relatively good. Very recently I noticed that it had drastically deteriorated. I don't use any apps with standalone WebSocket-based push notifications. I have UnifiedPush set up via the Sunup distributor, and I use it for Molly, Moshidon, Element X, and a few other apps. Furthermore, I don't use FCM (I have Play Services installed but didn't grant them network access), and I disable background usage access for most of my apps. I also have 5G completely disabled (since it uses more battery in my experience) and use airplane mode when I'm at home or connected to Wifi somewhere else.

GrapheneOS

Velocity9490 If you have a Pixel 6a with one of the batteries detected as faulty, you need to replace the battery. Take the free battery replacement or cash/credit offered to Pixel 6a users with the subset of batteries which were faulty. You're either going to need to replace the battery or upgrade to a newer device. It's not something that GrapheneOS can solve for you. Seems you may be unaware of this.

Gricking

Hi all, I'm experiencing a significant battery drain issue with my Pixel 8. The battery depletes rapidly even when no apps are running in the background. All my apps are set to restricted battery usage, and I don't use my phone heavily. For example, yesterday I charged my phone to 90% at 7:00 AM, but by 11:00 AM, it had dropped to 20%. Additionally, the battery optimization feature isn't working as expected, my phone often charges to 100% instead of stopping at 80%. This night I have lost 30% of battery without having nothing in background.

Kiba

My mom, who doesn't use her phone very much, has also been having this problem recently with her Pixel 7a running GOS.

Before, she would go to bed with between 30 and 50% battery at the end of the day.
Now she has to recharge during the day or it runs out of power.

I recently replaced Signal with Molly for her. I reverted back, but there was no change.

She had a physical SIM card, which I replaced with an eSIM.
But I don't really see why the eSIM would consume so much power...

I also tried resetting the network settings, but without success.

I don't know if it's a GOS update that's causing this, but in any case, something has changed with her too.

GrapheneOS

Kiba Molly will only save power if you aren't using Firebase Cloud Messaging for push and you replace the inefficient WebSocket push fallback with Molly's UnifiedPush support. Signal/Molly with WebSocket push instead of FCM or UnifiedPush is known to drain a lot of battery, which is not a GrapheneOS issue. It's your choice to use an inefficient configuration. You may have other things set up inefficiently too. eSIM is not going to be causing a significant difference in power consumption compared to a SIM, but a poor mobile network connection will drain power.

TranceSeven

I don't want to diverge from the current thread, but just want to correct my previous post (TranceSeven) where I stated that the fix for charging over the 80% limit appeared to work for me, as actually it has not resolved the issue. I disabled the limited, rebooted, then enabled the limit. The next charge was limited to 80% but the subsequent charges have gone over. I'm not a heavy user so only charge every 3-4 days therefore it's taken a little while to notice then verify this. I also shutdown the phone overnight, so perhaps this has a bearing on it.