What's with the sudden battery drain with Jelly Bean 4.1.1?

Question

A couple of days ago I upgraded my Galaxy S3 from Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean 4.1.1 via Samsung Kies. Trouble is, ever since the upgrade, my battery life has dropped to unbelievable levels. It's basically shit now. Prior to the upgrade, my phone could sit for 6-7 hours as I slept with nothing running and use just 4 - 5%. I could also last a full work day on a single charge (i.e. with about 95% battery, my phone would make it from 6 am to about 6pm). Post-upgrade, the phone uses more than 15% of the energy stored on the battery and I can't even make the entire day. Its like being on blackberry.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could fix this issue? Otherwise I'd like to be told how I can downgrade to ICS because these battery issues are starting to annoy me.

ps: my usage patterns haven't changed. I basically use my phone the same way I did prior to the upgrade.

Answer 1

this usually occurs if u do an upgrade without wiping the application data (cache) (equivalent to temporary files in windows) on the phone. some application will build their data (temp files) based on the 4.0.4 system and framework, hence when u  upgraded to 4.1.1 they might be problems between the app and the new system, hence the battery drain and a bunch of other glitches that you might come across.

My suggestion would be to get an application (e.g Titanium Backup) to backup all your apps, contacts, account settings ..etc. put the backup on PC and do a factory reset then restore the apps excluding the data, then build a new cache for the new system from there!

Comments

You only have to wipe the dalvik cache if you're performing an 'advanced' upgrade (eg via ClockworkMod). OEM upgrades wipe & rebuild the cache by default, that is exactly what the phone will be doing when it says "Optimizing app 3 of 56" during an upgrade.

Answer 2

Quote "Its like being on blackberry ". Lol mayb u have e problem in terms of keeping your fones batteries . Try not to install many apps

Answer 3

Make sure the sync option is turned off and powersave on, l almost had the same problem without an upgrade on note 2 lte. Also turn down the perfomance cpu settings if it has it.

 Otherwise here are more suggestions l think will work;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2040806

Comments

I've tried your suggestions but alas, it hasn't helped much. I basically lose 10% every hour during waking hours even though I'm not a heavy user. I guess I'll have to try a factory reset even though its extremely inconveniencing.

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Hopefully an update will come soon which will sort that out. I hav a note one which updated itself and faced a very similar situation like yours. I tried everything besides resetting it and nothing worked.

Then it got sn update which sorted out everything. If it didnt do that, l would hav run back to nokialand bt instead l went and get a second note

I heard jelly beab 4.2 is out, hopefully it will come soon enough to get you out of woods.

Answer 4

Use the battery monitor settings to figure out what is using the most of the power.(Screen, Android OS, or a particular app). If it's the screen, decreasing brightness and shortening timeout will help.

Comments

That is very trick to workout. Look it this way, l have put all the best setup to preserve battery, and it can last me at least 16hrs of my everyday usage.

Then yesterday l installed skype. What a battery hungry monster app. I started losing around 4% battery every hour.

When you look at the battery usage its saying the screen is the highest, followed by OS then skype, bt how come!

What is actually happening is that skype is preventing the OS from going into deep sleep hence its higher usage. It also prevents screen from auto switch off unless done manually.

Bt when you look at battery usage, skype is very innocent.

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This is in relative terms

Answer 5

Or you can Manually flash the latest Firmaware 4.1.2 via Odin from here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1646610

Answer 6

Its a problem with the software! I'm sure it has bugs and it needs to be fixed! Either yu re install but not via samsung kies!! I thin this forum myt be useful for all android problems. I downloaded my custom sofyware from one of these forums and my phone is operating normally http://forum.xda-developers.com/

Answer 7

There is a known problem with the media scan at every reboot eating up lots of energy.  The only known workaround is to reboot before going to bed and then charge such that the flawed scan is done when the device is plugged in.

Answer 8

experienced the same problem with my S3 but it was corrected wen i upgraded to version 4.1.2. I can help u with th upgrade process. 07********

Answer 9

had the very same problem after upgrading. i fixed it without going thru the complicated fixes. go to your battery monitor, check whats chewing more than 60% of your battery. its most likely the screen or media. if its the screen reduce the number of home screens, put on auto brightness and reduce the time it auto switches. if its media, unsync all your accounts,samsung hub,google+,chat etc. open the task bar and clear your ram. my s3 was undownloading bloatware like fifa2012,golf games. and you wont see the downloads on your download program. i uninstalled it. also uncheck the auto update of the OS itself on settings, about device.