Galaxy S4 battery draining after NG6 update

[anotherhaus]

This is an unmitigated DISASTER. Verizon forced me into this NG6 update and now my battery went from 70+% to 6% in just over FOUR HOURS. It is hot to the touch - has been all day, and Verizon will tell me some crap about my phone being "defective" and I should bring it in for service when it was perfectly fine just before the update.VERIZON: the NG6 update caused this, it is your fault, and you need to fix this.

[ferno1188]

I did a test last night; my G4 was at 100% battery, I turned off the Verizon Support and Protection/uninstalled the program, and left my phone unplugged and on all night (wi-fi remained enabled). When I woke up this morning (the phone was on battery power for approximately 9 hours) the battery was at 93%. I am hoping by disabling and uninstalling Support and Protection the battery drain issue might be mitigated. I am going to keep the phone on battery today (I re-charged it to 100% again this morning) and use it as I normally would to see how quickly the battery drains. Will post an update tonight/tomorrow.

Good luck everyone.

[anotherhaus]

I did a full reset - again - and hopefully that will help. The phone is still getting very hot at times but it does appear to cool off in between now and then. I tried disabling Verizon Support and Protection last night and it made no difference in my case...but I hope that helps others.

The frustrating thing about this is that I read about issues with this update, so I did a hard reset before and after the update thinking that would help to flash a "fresh out of the box" (NG5) phone, and I still had issues. If the extra hard reset fixes it I'll know later today.

[ttvick]

I have the same issue with my s4.  I uninstalled Verizon Support and Protection when i first got the phone about a year ago.  And I checked after seeing your post, it has not been re-installed.  I doubt that Verizon Support and Protection is the problem.  I have got my phone to where (it says) the screen is using the most battery power.  Still dead in about 4 hours.

VERIZON NEEDS TO FIX THIS NOW!!!

[anotherhaus]

Yep - still experiencing battery drain and a phone so hot I can't hold it near the top. I'm basically tethered to a charger and not putting this device down on anything that could be marred by the heat (and I can't carry it in my pocket without turning it off). I can leave it on a cool surface (glass or metal) and it seems to be OK, but the second I carry it or put it in my pocket the rear top (near the camera) gets too hot to touch.

[Jruiz29]

Hi,

I have the same problem and I run Verizon assisstant and after that my phone is not restart any more and don't getting hot any more. Still drain but not to fast like before.

I hope this can help a litter.

Juan

[ferno1188]

ttvick,

That's really interesting. As I said in my prior post, I would re-post the next day. Well, I went through a full day with the phone off the charger AND left it off overnight last night. Woke up this morning and my battery life is still at 49%. A reminder - I do have an extended battery and would typically last me 1.5-2 days before I needed to re-charge it. I would say it is still draining a bit faster than before, but nothing near like it was 3 days ago. I wonder what the true cause of the issue is. Either way, Verizon needs to figure it out and give us all a stable update!

[anotherhaus]

Day 3 of Verizon's mess...hard reset, wiped app cache yesterday - getting tired of doing this, Verizon...to NO effect. Phone off charger at about 7am today, 10am I'm at 65% battery left. Android services taking the lion's share. I noticed KNOX was first in the list of items under "Android Services" - I don't know if that means anything. I have never used KNOX.

I have an Exchange account - does anyone else with this battery issue use Exchange?

[jrd123]

Same problem. Battery on my S4 is draining about 3 times as fast since the update.  The battery life used to be one my favorite things about this phone.  Hopefully the more people report it, the faster it will get fixed.

[anotherhaus]

When I turn off master sync, the battery life seems to return to normal. I wonder if this update does something to email/exchange syncing that is causing a loop, running the processor all the time and draining the battery.

Leaving sync off isn't a long term (or even short term) solution, but I am noticing the battery graph stays flat when sync is off and drops like a stone whenever sync is on.

You can test this by pulling down the notifications bar, click the little notification squares icon in the far upper right, and tap "sync" to turn it off. See if that changes anything with battery life. Note that while sync is off you won't receive email (and possibly other important items) automatically, so this is only for troubleshooting.