Battery Drain Problem is Nokia Music

[pdskep]

I would guess there are a lot of phones being returned for poor battery life/getting warm due to app issues/OS bugs. This is something Nokia needs to fix ASAP if they want this platform to be successful and show its full potential, which is excellent battery performance.

Thanks for the effort, but I've tried for weeks doing the exact thing you are doing and can't come up with any consistent app offender. When I thought I found one it just turned out to be a coincidence. I still think it's an OS or firmware issue. I removed Drive many weeks ago and have never opened Nokia Music and I still see drains on occasions that I can not explain. I can always get them to stop by putting it in airplane mode for a little while and then turning it off. To be honest at least in my case I think it has something to do with the radio or data network. I've turned everything off but cell service and have still noticed a drain, but the second I put it in Airplane mode it stops. Although, this isn't always consistent. I'll remove Music anyway and report if it gets better. Most of the time I get good battery life though.

BTW, I disagree that 1.5% an hour is bad necessarily if you have not so good cell service it requires effort and battery to stay connected assuming it's idle and not checking email.

 

[realwarder]

Thanks for the effort, but I've tried for weeks doing the exact thing you are doing and can't come up with any consistent app offender. When I thought I found one it just turned out to be a coincidence. I still think it's an OS or firmware issue. I removed Drive many weeks ago and have never opened Nokia Music and I still see drains on occasions that I can not explain. I can always get them to stop by putting it in airplane mode for a little while and then turning it off. To be honest at least in my case I think it has something to do with the radio or data network. I've turned everything off but cell service and have still noticed a drain, but the second I put it in Airplane mode it stops. Although, this isn't always consistent. I'll remove Music anyway and report if it gets better. Most of the time I get good battery life though.

BTW, I disagree that 1.5% an hour is bad necessarily if you have not so good cell service it requires effort and battery to stay connected assuming it's idle and not checking email.

1) I never opened Nokia Music... never once during this experiment
2) It was repeatable. 3 times.

 

[pdskep]

1) I never opened Nokia Music... never once during this experiment
2) It was repeatable. 3 times.

Alright, I've uninstalled Nokia Music and I'll report back.

 

[D0gsballs]

I think it's also partly do to with signal strength. I noticed a big drop when I used my phone at lunch, but I was only composing a few emails and accessing Rowi and tweeting, but the signal was dire and the battery dropped a good 15% in the hour.

 

[helsten2]

I just read an interesting report about smart phone antennas. They are really poor - and even getting worse on newer phones.
This affects the coverage, and the phones ability to connect to a base station. The phone will also use more power because it will have to increase its signal strength.
You can find the report here (pdf).

 

[Mad MilkMan]

I'm pretty sure some people may have battery drain issues with apps that others don't, for example, all the apps people say are draining their battery isn't draining my battery. First app that affected my battery life was locksider, battery was lasting about half a day with light usage uninstalled and back to normal, then a couple of days ago I installed weatherflow and battery was lasting about half a day with light usage, uninstalled and back to normal. I think this is still an issue with how the right combo of things causes apps to continue to run or update or whatever. I think the best thing ALL WP8 users can do is (if its not already) enable the FEEDBACK option under settings. Quit being creepy, it doesn't track you and you wont need a tinfoil hat. In the last 7 days I have sent 1.57MB of ANONYMOUS info to Microsoft, if you don't enable that feedback how is Microsoft going to know why your phone is not up to par?

 

[realwarder]

I'm pretty sure some people may have battery drain issues with apps that others don't, for example, all the apps people say are draining their battery isn't draining my battery. First app that affected my battery life was locksider, battery was lasting about half a day with light usage uninstalled and back to normal, then a couple of days ago I installed weatherflow and battery was lasting about half a day with light usage, uninstalled and back to normal. I think this is still an issue with how the right combo of things causes apps to continue to run or update or whatever. I think the best thing ALL WP8 users can do is (if its not already) enable the FEEDBACK option under settings. Quit being creepy, it doesn't track you and you wont need a tinfoil hat. In the last 7 days I have sent 1.57MB of ANONYMOUS info to Microsoft, if you don't enable that feedback how is Microsoft going to know why your phone is not up to par?

While I agree in principle, how do we know that reports process usage and battery usage that would help?

The only thing I have seen that I know it reports is button presses on the keyboard as they use this data to improve the typing quality.

 

[JMBasquiat]

Glad you solved your problem, but 1.5%/h is not bad at all.

 

[realwarder]

Glad you solved your problem, but 1.5%/h is not bad at all.

It isn't, but the Nokia Drive bug looks atrocious.. run the app, go back to the menu and press the power button. Then loose 20% in an hour and have a hot phone.

How does this stuff leave the developers?

(I think it's a really neat app other than that!)

 

[loukkis]

And... I believe if my experiment holds out and reproduces exactly, reinstalling Nokia Music now from the store will likely show 0 usage. So either the store version is different with this bug fixed, or a second install fixes something broken during the initial device setup.

Guess what, Nokia has already addressed those issues, many days or weeks ago. Updated versions of Nokia Music and Nokia Drive have been available in the store for some time. Why just not update those? If your computers hard drive crashes and you have month old backup you can't restore last weeks data from there you know... Oh and your analysis does not tell us which versions you have on those apps, you really should include that info too.

 

[realwarder]

Guess what, Nokia has already addressed those issues, many days or weeks ago. Updated versions of Nokia Music and Nokia Drive have been available in the store for some time. Why just not update those? If your computers hard drive crashes and you have month old backup you can't restore last weeks data from there you know... Oh and your analysis does not tell us which versions you have on those apps, you really should include that info too.

Please can you tell me where the version number for apps are shown. I don't see it in the Nokia Music app, but maybe there is a list of apps and versions somewhere like every other OS?

Nokia Drive was the latest installed from the store. And when I reinstall Nokia Music, it is the latest from the store. From boot, it was the pre-installed version.

So far (after reinstalling Nokia Music) it looks like the Nokia Music bug only occurs before you run it. I.e. install but don't run. Once the store version is run, it no longer uses up the battery.

 

[D0gsballs]

I've got Nokia music and drive installed, but they've not been launched since the last reboot of my phone.

Checked my battery usage for the day and for an hour or so it stayed on 100% (it was being used - playing music) then it bombed around 6-7% per hour on average in standby and about 30% when being used for no more than 20 minutes.

I'm going to drain the battery and charge it 100% and leave it over night, see what it does.

 

[loukkis]

Please can you tell me where the version number for apps are shown. I don't see it in the Nokia Music app, but maybe there is a list of apps and versions somewhere like every other OS?

You can open the Music app, go to settings -> about, in Drive you can find it in about section. My Nokia Music is version 3.6.99.508 and Drive is 2.1.0.1451

 

[Rodetri]

Well I had the same issues you guys been having. After reading endless threads about this problem. I did 3 things.
1-full recharge + 2 hours
2-Uninstalled Nokia Music and turned "My Location" (GPS) off
3-Soft reset
This was last evening. Since then I've been using my home Wi-Fi only.
Voila!!



Gotta add that i also havent been using bluetooth,nfc,live tiles etc. Only 3 email accounts. Two of them checking email every 2 hours and the other automatically as they come.Also used Whatsapp,Facebook using the "me" tile and Xbox Live.
I'll report tomorrow or the day after with LTE on instead of wi-fi

edited to add: i'm starting to think it has something to do with the gps and all the apps that ask for your location. That constant struggle of finding the phone seems like a huge battery drainer.

 

[realwarder]

You can open the Music app, go to settings -> about, in Drive you can find it in about section. My Nokia Music is version 3.6.99.508 and Drive is 2.1.0.1451

Was using 3.6.99.508 Music from the store.

Going to stop this now anyway... continue to try and enjoy the phone. I only started looking into this because my iPhone never used to drain and yet the new 920 did and does big time - it could have been a hardware fault. Clearly it's simply software issues, so over time I'd hope Microsoft/App writers iron these wrinkles out. And given the number of people complaining and how easy it is to drain the battery, hopefully they can fix things quicker rather than later.

 

[S Rodrigo]

You are right. I read this at about 10am this morning and had about 95% battery left, now it is 3 hours later and I've only dropped 2% compared to the 5% I normally would have lost in that time. Hope they fix it because I like Nokia music's offline music.

I've also notices the music and video app destroying my battery while watching a movie. At the gym I entered airplane mode, had screen at high brightness, drained 25% of the battery in about 25 minutes. 1% a minute while in airplane mode and watching a movie doesn't even let you get through a whole movie while on a flight...big time disappointment.

 

[jammerltu]

I uninstalled Nokia Music and was surprised that the phone actually lasted throughout the day, 60% left after 12 hours (10 standby and 2 of very heavy usage while on the train).
Charging the phone overnight to see how much it drains till the morning.

 

[S Rodrigo]

Anyone else notice that the time is inaccurate on the postings?

 

[S Rodrigo]

I am still at 93% an hour later, and now my battery says 10 days left, which although is prob inaccurate, is more than the 1 day it had been showing around this time of day all week. Haven't changed usage at all and have only uninstalled nokia music.

 

[jdhooghe]

Nokia music uses GPS too for local gigs. I wonder since this app doesn't close supposedly that it keeps pinging the gps?