Re: New KitKat battery issues
cgage823
Contributor - Level 1

No going back

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
csvreno
Newbie

Ditto; Droid Razr Maxx HD used to finish the day with 50-60%, now low 30's. This update has almost ruined my device, along with making Bluetooth almost useless except on a 5 year old Plantronics 520 which works most of the time.

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
longhornfan23
Newbie

I have also been experiencing battery problems since upgrading to KitKat.  I actually received a warranty replacement phone not too long before the KitKat update and everything was great.  I've since done 3 factory resets, but to no avail.  As others have posted, it's different programs/functions causing the majority of the drain, but all are Android related (Android system/Android OS).  Some days I'm luck to get 6 hours on a full charge.  Any suggestions other than the ineffective factory reset?

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
sdrolz
Enthusiast - Level 3

I have seen degradation in my battery drain also.  Not as severe as some mentioned here, but clearly it has increased drain rate from what it was before.  I have researched this extensively and found what I believe to be A solution, if not THE solution to excessive battery drain: Wi-Fi Network Clean up.

My research has led me to many forums discussing Wake-locks and Wi-Fi being a major contributor to battery drain.  I did one simple step that had an immediate positive effect on my battery drain and effectively cut the drain rate in half.  Delete unneeded Wi-Fi networks.

Go into your Wi-Fi Settings, Choose 'Manage Networks' and take a look at all of the Wi-Fi networks listed.  You'll see every Wi-Fi network you have ever connected your phone to.  Start to delete or 'forget' all the networks that are not regular connections for you.  I had airport networks, airplane networks, public free wi-fi networks, Hotel Networks and other networks that I had connected to only one time.  I bet I deleted 20 networks I'll never cross paths with again.

Since I did this, my battery drain reduced from 2.8% per hour to 1.7% per hour.  Not quite half the drain rate, but a considerable improvement.

There is an apparent bug related to wi-fi that may have something to do with how the phone searches for known or previously connected networks.  Or maybe just that an excessive number of network options leaves the phone scanning for too many possible networks to connect to.

I used GSAM Battery Monitor, CPU Spy, Android Tuner Battery Manager and BetterBatteryStats apps to help find my solution.

My phone now goes into Deep sleep for about 75% of the time where before it was only deep sleeping at 55%.  Something was keeping it awake (wakelocks) and I believe that something was the wi-fi sniffer.

Other things to consider are the usual, clear the cache, try to identify a suspect app (often times after a major upgrade there may be a few apps that just don't play nice with the new upgrade.  Ditch them if you can figure out which ones they are).  And last but not least, do a back up and Factory Reset your phone.  Then add your apps back manually a few a day and watch for battery drain to increase.  Factory Data Reset is a pain, but you will be happy you did it.  Just remember to back up the contents of your phone before you do it because it will wipe you phone clean of all music, pictures, chats, screenshots, or anything else you have saved to your phone.

Good Luck.  I hope this helps.

sdrolz

Current phone: Droid Maxx

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
StevenPortland
Enthusiast - Level 2

I was really bad about my kit kat update this weekend.  I unplugged my Razr M at 6:00 AM on Saturday.  Only used the phone for 10 minutes and yet the battery was drained by noon.  Same thing happened on Sunday.

After lots of searching I found one posting that solved my problems.  No idea if this is the problem for other people.


Go into wifi-settings.  Then go through the list of networks that your phone has stored up and click on each one.  When the details screen pops up, click the "forget" button.  I deleted 20+ wifi profiles leaving only my home wifi and my work wifi in the list.

I also then went into the wi-fi advanced settings and checked on the box labeled "Avoid Poor Connections".   I'm not sure if this makes a difference or not.

The day after making these changes, I unplugged my phone at 5:30 AM and at 8:00 PM it still had battery power.  Today I unplugged it at 6:00 AM and haven't used it yet.  It is now nearly 2:00 PM and my battery is at 68%.

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
David_Palmer1
Enthusiast - Level 2

It's clear after reading most the posts on Verizon Wireless's community that Verizon is unwilling to admit that there is a problem with the 4.4.2 KitKat update and in turn that they are unwilling to fix it. Since I've had my Galaxy S3 it seems every Android update has brought it's own problems but at least previous to 4.4.2 KitKat my wife and I did have better battery life. I really do like the idea of Android but it seems to me like there is still to much problem with it and after reading other people's experience with Verizon support I think I'm about done with both. My contract it over now and as bad as I hate to say it, I think it's time for my wife and I to ditch Verizon and Android. It may be time to give iOS and AT&T  shot...

I'm lucky to be able to have my phone off charge for more than 2-3 hours not before I have to get it back on to a charger. The phone simply dies when the battery says 50% battery... Yeah, I've tried most all the supposed "Fixes" that we are able to do and NOTHING works. I even feel for the install Skype and uninstall..(oh, please..)

Maybe it is all just a trick Verizon pulls on us when our contract is near up so we'll just give in and sign up for 2 more years and buy another phone.

Personally, I sick of it. Two years ago I should have moved to AT&T. When we were shopping for our first smartphones, the people at our local Verizon store were absolutely AWFUL. The AT&T store people were very nice and helpful but at the time Verizon still had the better coverage. That is not so true anymore...

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

David.Palmer,

It pains me to hear that you're thinking of leaving Verizon Wireless. We certainly do value and appreciate your business.  We'd love to assist in anyway possible.  It sounds like you've attempted some troubleshooting on the device.  Have you tested in safe mode? Have you performed a factory reset on the device?  I've definitely seen a lot of devices experience improved battery life after these steps.

If you're unhappy with Android in general we'd be happy to go over your options for an Apple device.  Please let us know if there's anything that we can do to assist at this point.

TrevorC_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
David_Palmer1
Enthusiast - Level 2

I believe I have tried about every troubleshooting idea I could except a factory reset. Yes, I have tried the safe mode and even let the battery drain in safe mode and recharged and nothing has helped. I have not done a factory reset for two reasons. 1. I'm not sure how to confidentially back up my info from my phone (contacts, texts, photos, ect...) and 2. Most people that have tried that have already says it does not help them. I depend far to much on the info in my phone to simply delete it with a factory reset. I'm not even sure I wish to attempt a hard reset because of that.

I have multiple computers I could back up to if I knew how (Mac, Win XP, Win 7, Win8.1 and Linux), point me in the right direction with good instructions... But I'm still leery of a factory reset because of other people's experience of it not helping  and so there, you've wasted more time on a phone that should be working anyway.

Just for the fun of it I decided to stop by my local Verizon store & my local AT&T store. It's funny, all our local Verizon store wants to do is strongly push everyone that walks through the door to the Galaxy S5 now. They talked down every other phone we mentioned to them, I kid you not, they basically say every other phone I might be interested in is not worth having (Ok, not in those exact words but I get the message 😉 ). According to them the Galaxy S5 is the best and only phone in the world now. They were doing the same with the S3's when we got ours. Our local AT&T store was once again awesome with their customer service! They were willing to take us around and explain each phone we showed interest in, never once talking down one phone over another, only showing/explaining each phone. Wow! Why can't the Verizon Stores be like that?!?!?

But the main point being, "Why can't Verizon simply send an update to stop this nonsense that KitKat 4.4.2 has caused? Isn't 4.4.4 out already? Does it address and fix the battery problems that so many people are complaining about since the Verizon updated us to 4.4.2? My phone was fine until right after that update. And from what I see other's saying, their's was working fine or at least better before the update too.

Galaxy S3

Battery drains in a few hours and when it hits anywhere from 30% to 50% battery remaining the phone shuts off like the battery is completely dead... That did not happen before 4.4.2 at all. Oh and this isn't just one phone, both our S3's do the exact same thing!

Oh, and the latest wonderful feature of my Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3...? Now when I get a text message from my wife I never know what it is going to come from! Her phone number? Her phone's text email (#########@vtext.com? Her phone's multimedia email ##########@vzpix.com? What's that one about?!?! Well, looking back in my texts now I guess it's been a while since I actually got one from her number. And mine send texts to her the same way. This has got to be some setting that has been reset in our phones but who know where/how/why?? So far not happened with any other texts I get from others, just her's and mine...

My local Verizon Wireless store..

2049 S HIGHWAY 27,

Somerset, KY 42501

(606) 677-0337

They were so bad last time we were upgrading phones we left and just simply went through Walmart and I do not like going to Walmart at all. (Yeah, I know, I'm starting to sound like a cranky old ______, but I'm not really, I'm just want my phone to work correctly.

When I see your reply "It pains me to hear that you're thinking of leaving Verizon Wireless. We certainly do value and appreciate your business.  We'd love to assist in anyway possible." I am sorry but it feels like sarcasm. If any of us mattered to Verizon, they would fix the problem instead of suggesting "troubleshooting" that does noting but wastes our time and frustrates us even more or seeing the suggestions that people should just go ahead and upgrade to the latest and greatest phone out there or buy multiple batteries and an external charger and just swap out batteries when you need to... No, they were working fine before, it is not my battery, it is not my phone, it is an update that you couldn't  ignore and you can't go back from.

While I've tried to go back a proof-read this message I am almost sure I have made some typo or grammar mistake, let me apologize in advance for that mistake.

Thank you for sticking with me this long!

David Palmer

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
Jakeman1
Master - Level 1

Chrissybee.  Give this a try as I have seen it work a few times.

First off the issue is in the build that Samsung did for KitKat. They had some flaws that were either not caught or not big enough to warrant changing.  That said, once you update your OS you usually cannot go back to the previous version unless the manufacturer allows it.  In the case of Samsung, you can bring your phone into a Best Buy store and go to the Samsung booth inside.  These are independently run by Samsung.  Talk to the Samsung Rep there and advise that after the KitKat update you are having all kinds of issues on your phone and ask them to put it back to the previous version.  Provided the rep still has the previous version on their computer, they can Factory Flash the OS and put the last version back on your phone.  This is not one of the processes that voids your warranty or anything else, it is simply Samsung updating the OS to an OS that works correctly on your phone.

Now as I said, I have seen this done 4 or 5 times, so I know it can be done

0 Likes
Re: New KitKat battery issues
David_Palmer1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Off charger for 2 hours. Not been used but to answer one call that lasted 3/4 of a minute, I turned the screen off immediately after disconnecting from call and the phone has just been sitting on the table every since. This was 10 minutes ago, I just now checked the phone and it's now down to 82%. So that's 10 minutes later after just taking a screen shot, bluetooth transfer to my computer and turning the screen back off. If I actually used the phone it would be shutting itself off in about another 45 minutes.

Verizon support, I just wanted to show what we are dealing with. frustrating to say the least.

Screenshot_2014-10-11-09-10-51.png

0 Likes