Battery Standby and Usage are the same - Huge Battery Drain, No logical explanation

[erasat]

As the title explains I'm having this unusual (at least for me) issue where the battery standby and usage are the same, so it's never going standby. No factory resets or Setting as a new phone without installing any app or setting anything even helps.

This is the 4th phone in a row with the same problem. I had a 128GB iPhone 7+ Verizon Model back in October and it worked great for about 2 weeks that I had it, I decided to sell it and bought the Google Pixel XL until December 15th when I got another iPhone 7+, this time a 32GB T-Mobile version (A1784), it worked as expected for 2 weeks then suddenly on Dec. 28th when I got to my office the phone began draining the battery a lot faster than normal and when I checked the battery stats I noticed that the Battery Standby and Usage were increasing at the same rate, without even using the phone.

Confused about it, I even did a factory reset just before I left the office, so when I finally completed the restore process I was out of the office already. So it worked great again, as usual and the next day as soon as I crossed my Office's door the problem began, problem is that once it begins it doesn't stop. Fast Forwarding a week and trying everything possible (only thing that stops the drain is turning Airplane mode on, but then turning all the radios back on, one by one immediately starts the issue, every single one of them) Apple agreed to a replacement, and for my surprise and total disbelieve the replacement had the same issue since the first day it arrived.

Tired of this, I asked my daughter to use the new phone and let me use her iPhone 7 that was working great, and as soon as I enter my office it happened again. I got tired of this and thinking that the only phone that didn't have the issue while I used it here was the Verizon one, I decided to buy a 256GB Jet Black iPhone 7 + Verizon version also, and guess what? It does the same. I've done 4 factory resets with different options, restoring a backup, setting as a new phone and installing basic settings, setting and a new phone and not setting anything, and all of them just did the same. I even replaced my SIM card (it was basically new) with a new one because it was the only thing I hadn't tried, still the same.

So as you can see, I'm out of ideas here, the only thing sure is that so far it just happens when I'm here at work, so it must be related to signal/towers/bands, but I have about 10 other co-workers with T-mobile and iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 and none of them have the same issue I have so that's what driving me crazy.

One more thing, once I leave the office it goes back to normal, but this is totally unacceptable that I must be re-charging all day decreasing my battery life span by a lot for something that seems to be affecting just me on 4 different phones in the last 3 weeks.

Any other ideas or suggestions? Pleeeeeeease.

 

[erasat]

One more thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that the first time I realized that it had to be with Signal, the first thing it came to my mind was VoLTE, because of previous issues with previous Android phones, versions and the carrier. So I went and turn LTE off completely and it immediately stopped the issue.

I thought I found the culprit with the LTE and tried a couple of times to turn it off and on to see what it did and I was sure that I fixed it with the LTE until I turned it on again one more time (about the 3rd time I did it) and once I turned it back on the issue began and now to my surprise it hasn't worked again. No LTE option now fixed the issue.

Like I said in the title, this whole mess has no logical explanation, very weird stuff.

 

[fury]

Is there an app or line item that jumps out as using an inordinate percentage of the battery life? I listen to a lot of podcasts, so my podcast player being 33% of battery usage doesn't surprise me, but I wasn't expecting Mail to be 23%. Turns out I've got 8 accounts, fetch set to every hour, and push enabled for all those which support it. Some of those accounts I don't even need timely updates on, so I set them to manual.

 

[erasat]

Is there an app or line item that jumps out as using an inordinate percentage of the battery life? I listen to a lot of podcasts, so my podcast player being 33% of battery usage doesn't surprise me, but I wasn't expecting Mail to be 23%. Turns out I've got 8 accounts, fetch set to every hour, and push enabled for all those which support it. Some of those accounts I don't even need timely updates on, so I set them to manual.

There is no apps showing unexpxted usage, everything looks great. Remember that like I mentioned it does the same even after a factory reset and setting it as a new phone with no additional apps installed.

It's related to LTE band/ frequency of that I'm sure, why it affects just me on an office with a lot of other Tmobile iPhones 6, 6s and 7 thats the mystery.

Anyways, before I left the office today I did my final try and this time I just turned wifi and LTE Off then I turned Airplane mode on/off and left it 10 minutes without using it, this time, for the first time in weeks it stopped the issue, so I went back and turned wifi on again and checked 10 minutes later and there it appeared again.

So now I know for sure that is not just wifi as I can turn it off and it keeps doing it, the only way it has stopped is with wifi and LTE Off, any other combination simply doesn't work. As soon as I left the office I turned everything back on, wifi and LTE and it works just as expected. So on Monday when I get back to the office I'll check again first with everything off and if it does what it has done for the past weeks and begin with the issue, I'll turn LTE and Wifi off and see what happens. If it fixes it, then I can say that I finally found the culprit of all this mess.

 

[fury]

Hmm. There aren't a whole lot of variables left to test. It could very well be your specific spot in the building is particularly poor for radio reception and causes the phone to crank up the power to try to get through. If you can, try to sit near a big window for a while and see how that affects the drain.

 

[erasat]

First of all what I thought it was and worked on Friday (Turning Wifi and LTE off) hasn't worked today, I mean even before I arrived to the office I turned off the Wifi and just left LTE on to see how long it will take to begin with the issue, and this time, exactly 30 minutes after I arrived it began with the same issue. So having the Wifi off already I just proceeded to turn LTE off and for my surprise, it still doing it, even after 3 on/off tries of both Wifi and LTE the phone keeps doing the same.

This is very frustrating, I've already try leaving my phone on one of my co-worker's desktop as he has other iPhone 7 with T-Mobile and his phone doesn't give any problems and mine just keep doing the same. I asked him to leave his phone on my office, one sit besides the other for 1 hour and the same, his phone behaves perfectly and mine does the same.

Remember that this is a new phone, a total different model (7+ Verizon A1661 Unlocked 256GB model) vs my 2 previous 7+ 32GB T-Mobile A1784 phones, plus my daugther's perfectly working iPhone 7 32GB T-Mobile, the 4 of them works perfect outside my office, but once I step in here, this nonsense begins. After 4 phones, SIM card, trying different spots in the office and doing the exact same thing that fixed the issue on Friday and not today, I'm officially pissed with this phones. Why is it affecting only me? it sure sounds like an app when things like that happens, but it makes no sense when it happens only here at work and even with the factory Clean phone with no apps or settings.

I'm not calling Apple again, for what? if I know that it can't be that 4 different phones are bad, and more when those same phones work great everywhere else. Very, very bad experience.

 

[erasat]

I finally found the culprit of this issue and it's even more unbelievable than I thought.

My Laptop...

Everything now makes sense, as I only have the issue in my office, 4 different iPhones with different SIM cards, Factory Resets and phone without any app or setting and still was doing the same, and suddenly now, almost 4 weeks of trial and errors and doing all kind of troubleshooting possible and simply by chance I found the issue.

Today, I arrived to my office but because I was stuck on anew project that required me being out of my work space I didn't even turn my laptop on. Being used already to have the issue I just left my phone laying over my desktop and when I got back to it 2 hours later I found for the first time in almost a month that the Battery Standby and Usage were showing the normal readings, amazed by it, I simply left it there for more than an hour and half and again, when I got back to it, Standby showed 1.5 hours more and the Usage had been increased by just 2 minutes.

SO, I then turn my laptop on and checked my emails and other stuff on it and 15 minutes later I checked my phone and it was already showing the issue and the battery had decreased 2%. So I checked the battery stats and there it was, Battery Standby and Battery Usage had increased at sync. I immediately realized that the only thing I had done different was turning on my laptop so I proceeded to turn it off again, left my phone at the same place for about 30 minutes and when I got back, the standby time increased by 30 minutes and the Usage stayed the same. I have done a couple more on/off sequences and all of them have verified this.

Now, the big question, what in this world can be causing that by turning on my 6 months old Samsung ATIV book 9 (latest Samsung Laptop Flagship) it can cause something like this and just in iPhones? I have tried using a Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and none of them have any issues, and as soon as I use the iPhone 7 all this nonsense happens. I have turned off Wifi and Bluetooth on the Laptop but nothing works, the only way to prevent the issue is by turning it off completely or I assume that by putting the laptop in Airplane Mode, but that is as good as just turning it off.

 

[erasat]

Final findings...

Knowing now that it was my laptop that was causing the issue and trying to know what could have I done around Dec.27 (the day that the issue began after weeks of working fine) I remembered that I installed iCloud Desktop App for Windows PC and a couple of Apple and Itunes software updates, Itunes was immediately discarded so the only other one was iCloud.

Thinking that having iCloud with my AppleID running all the time on the laptop was a possible explanation as to what exactly may be affecting just my phone, I proceeded to uninstall it and then reboot the Laptop and guess what? it finally stopped, now I can have my laptop on and my iPhone (after 4 of them) is finally behaving normal while at work. I'll check tomorrow to see if it was a permanent solution or not but I'm very positive that I finally figured it out.

If you know of people with similar issues, pass this information...

 

[Larry Cook1]

Glad you figured it out. You must have thought you were in The Twilight Zone.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Sometimes that happens with the installation of a fresh new iOS version, but a reboot or an overnight charge usually fixes the problem.

 

[erasat]

Glad you figured it out. You must have thought you were in The Twilight Zone.

Yeah man, really unbelievable, and then finally figuring it out and knowing that it was an App installed on the laptop...simply incredible.