Am I the only one with this issue? Yesterday, or the day before that, I updated my iPhone XR. One thing I've come to notice is that, since I updated it, the battery drains pretty fast. I'd say I'm an average user and I could go the entire day and it wouldn't reach 20%. Now, around 4PM, after being fully charged around 5AM, it's down to 50%. I just find it weird, knowing that I'm an average user, my average screentime is around 2 hours a day, so I don't know what's up.
***Sorry, posted too soon. Trying again***
I have been part of the group that has been impacted by severe battery drain of ~1% every 5-15 seconds since updating to iOS 12.1.4.
I tested the options mentioned in this thread, and have found that the issue seems to be related to app data download connections and/or downloading new data on the device (downloading an app from the app store, opening an app that needs to fetch new data, fetching new content by pulling/swiping down to refresh within an app, background app refresh, etc). I have confirmed that this issue occurs in both native apps such as Mail, App Store, Podcasts, as well as 3rd party apps.
Close all apps this did nothing, and the battery continues to drain. If not immediately, on the next background app refresh.
Power cycle (restart) device you can see evidence of some people's theory that there may be something going on with battery percentage calculation. After the battery appears to have severely drained, a power cycle will show the battery percentage back closer to what you would expect the usage to be prior to the draining event. A power cycle will likely still result in the device attempting to fetch new data, and more often than not will resume battery drain
Turn off Fetch New Data (Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Fetch New Data > toggle Push to off) + Power cycle device battery continues to drain
Turn off Background App Refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh > Off) + Power cycle device At first I thought this solved the issue while I was at work for a few hours in the morning, but when I started actively using my phone a bit more the battery drain started again
Delete Skype for Business + Power cycle device This is where I discovered that the issue is not isolated to only 3rd party apps doing things in the background and adversely interacting with 12.1.4... I tried this because some people indicated that they thought it may be related to Skype. I thought this worked for a while as well, until I opened my native iPhone Podcasts app and it started downloading new podcasts. I then watched my battery start draining at a rate of 1% every 5 seconds (I could hear a clock ticking beside me and timed it)
Turn off Bluetooth + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn off Wi-Fi + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn on Airplane Mode + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection oddly enough, this doesn't always seem to work in interrupting whatever process is trying to download new data, and in some of my testing the battery would continue to drain.
Turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode) + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection this has been the only solution that I have been able to use to consistently and reliably keep my battery from draining. If the device is plugged in and charging, it will turn Low Power Mode off once it reaches a certain percentage (89%? 90%?) so you'll need to turn it on again once you unplug
Switch to a different device with <iOS 12.1.4 I have a spare backup iPhone 6S which is still on iOS 12. Apple will not allow me to restore from backup without updating to iOS 12.1.4 so I did not complete this test
Factory reset + restore at this point I did not have the time nor the patience to attempt this, but I did see that it did not resolve the issue for another user
Again, it seems like the only way to reliably stop the battery drain is to break or interrupt whatever connection is trying fetch new data by turning on Low Power Mode. I do have a lot of apps on my phone that I use regularly, which I'm assuming is the reason I may be impacted more than others since there is a lot of background activity happening with each additional app.
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tl;dr the battery seems to drain significantly when downloading new data or making a connection to fetch new data (unclear which it is, specifically), and the only workaround that reliably helps is to turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode)
***Sorry, posted too soon. Trying again***
I have been part of the group that has been impacted by severe battery drain of ~1% every 5-15 seconds since updating to iOS 12.1.4.
I tested the options mentioned in this thread, and have found that the issue seems to be related to app data download connections and/or downloading new data on the device (downloading an app from the app store, opening an app that needs to fetch new data, fetching new content by pulling/swiping down to refresh within an app, background app refresh, etc). I have confirmed that this issue occurs in both native apps such as Mail, App Store, Podcasts, as well as 3rd party apps.
Close all apps this did nothing, and the battery continues to drain. If not immediately, on the next background app refresh.
Power cycle (restart) device you can see evidence of some people's theory that there may be something going on with battery percentage calculation. After the battery appears to have severely drained, a power cycle will show the battery percentage back closer to what you would expect the usage to be prior to the draining event. A power cycle will likely still result in the device attempting to fetch new data, and more often than not will resume battery drain
Turn off Fetch New Data (Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Fetch New Data > toggle Push to off) + Power cycle device battery continues to drain
Turn off Background App Refresh (Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Background App Refresh > Off) + Power cycle device At first I thought this solved the issue while I was at work for a few hours in the morning, but when I started actively using my phone a bit more the battery drain started again
Delete Skype for Business + Power cycle device This is where I discovered that the issue is not isolated to only 3rd party apps doing things in the background and adversely interacting with 12.1.4... I tried this because some people indicated that they thought it may be related to Skype. I thought this worked for a while as well, until I opened my native iPhone Podcasts app and it started downloading new podcasts. I then watched my battery start draining at a rate of 1% every 5 seconds (I could hear a clock ticking beside me and timed it)
Turn off Bluetooth + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn off Wi-Fi + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection battery continues to drain
Turn on Airplane Mode + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection oddly enough, this doesn't always seem to work in interrupting whatever process is trying to download new data, and in some of my testing the battery would continue to drain.
Turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode) + open an app and pull down to initiate data fetch/download connection this has been the only solution that I have been able to use to consistently and reliably keep my battery from draining. If the device is plugged in and charging, it will turn Low Power Mode off once it reaches a certain percentage (89%? 90%?) so you'll need to turn it on again once you unplug
Switch to a different device with <iOS 12.1.4 I have a spare backup iPhone 6S which is still on iOS 12. Apple will not allow me to restore from backup without updating to iOS 12.1.4 so I did not complete this test
Factory reset + restore at this point I did not have the time nor the patience to attempt this, but I did see that it did not resolve the issue for another user
Again, it seems like the only way to reliably stop the battery drain is to break or interrupt whatever connection is trying fetch new data by turning on Low Power Mode. I do have a lot of apps on my phone that I use regularly, which I'm assuming is the reason I may be impacted more than others since there is a lot of background activity happening with each additional app.
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tl;dr the battery seems to drain significantly when downloading new data or making a connection to fetch new data (unclear which it is, specifically), and the only workaround that reliably helps is to turn on Low Power Mode (Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode)
No, you are in denial, and not willing to troubleshoot. For the past almost eleven years every time an iOS update has been released a few phones have an issue with battery drain. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 4 dozen or so updates. You can check yourself if you want by looking through historical posts, or take my word for it as I have been answering them for those years.
The title of this thread is "iOS 12.1.4 Battery Drain". Take that same title and insert any other version (e.g, "iOS 3.1 Battery Drain", "iOS 10.1.3 Battery Drain", etc) and you will find posts like this thread. Here's one for 12.1.2, for example https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250032514. Did you have a problem with that one? The ones who posted were convinced it was a problem with the version, as you are with 12.1.4. Actually, this thread is much shorter than most of them. There is a problem, but it is not the version itself that is the cause. It is something, usually an app, that did not respond well to the update. Unfortunately, it could be any app on the phone, which is why different users who took the time to troubleshoot and posted their results found different solutions. And they DID find solutions. If it was 12.1.4 itself none of their solutions would work.
My motivation is to help users who have the problem resolve it. But if you are absolutely certain that it must be the version then your mind is made up and I can't convince you with facts or help you.
Here's what you should be doing to troubleshoot the problem:
Most likely one of these will resolve it, but if not restore to factory settings and don't install anything or enable email for a day. That will resolve the problem. You can then restore your backup, and see if the problem comes back. It probably won't, but if it does you have data corruption or a corrupt app on your phone.
“As a last-minute idea, one of the people helping me suggested that I try one last thing - do a factory reset through iTunes rather than through the phone settings. The reason for this is that a factory reset through the phone settings will only remove the data from your phone but does not replace the OS, while resetting through iTunes does replace the OS. He recommended that I set up my device as new ....”
I and others have advocated that fix for page after page in this thread.
Use the Settings app to see what is using your battery the most. Once you know that you can take the appropriate steps to reduce battery usage.
Settings app > Scroll down to Battery > wait a few seconds until the Battery usage appears. Below the graph of battery usage will be a list of apps and the percentage of battery they are using.
There is no time that any smartphone is doing nothing, unless it is completely powered off. You had one or more apps doing something during those 13 hours. Settings/Battery will tell you which apps, and if you tap on one the display will switch to show how many hours the app was doing something and whether it was background or live.
Testing with a iPhone 6S. No battery drain issues with iOS 12.1.3 and battery lasts normally with base apps for a full day.
With iOS 12.1.4 firmware battery drain is intensified and instead of lasting a full day it fully drains within 2 hours. Temporary remedy is putting the device in low power mode manually.
With iOS 12.2 Public Beta 2 firmware It is back to a full day for battery drain and does not exhibit the battery drain issue noted in 12.1.4.
Short version Apple screwed the pooch on the 12.1.4 update. If you have access to download the 12.1.3 update from various sites to roll back you can do that or sign up for the public betas with your Apple ID and update to the latest public betas.
I'll add my experience with 12.1.4, in the spirit of helping others:
Going through this thread, I noticed that user Lan Man described very similar behavior. Now, it may be that the link with wifi is coincidental and the issue is not with wifi per se but that I unwittingly disabled an app that was e.g. permanently calling home after the upgrade due to some incompatibility. I guess I could find out by going through the apps one by one and enabling mobile data for them or by biting the bullet and adding them one by one after a factory restore. For the moment, I am not doing any of the kind ... I will just wait for either the iOS or the offending app to come up with an update that fixes this. If we are still here in 6 months, I may change my mind, because I would like my phone back :-D.
In the meantime, maybe this helps somebody.
Please wait 48 h, this might happen because of update and it needs time to adjust with phone settings. If you continue having this problem, try to optimize settings on your phone https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/
Well the same advice applies .
Use itunes to restore iphone as a new device. No restore. No apps added. If it still drains its a busted phone or battery.
If on the other hand it then runs normally it will be a long process of adding your most essential apps til you find the culprit.
So digging in further, using the Instruments app, it looks as if the kernel is the major consumer of CPU in the problem I'm seeing. The error console is overflowing with location service messages:
default 15:33:00.742790 -0700 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent {"msg":"CLLocationManager", "event":"activity", "_cmd":"heading", "self":"0x10309c020"}
There were also a lot of cache errors, too, though they did slow down after a bit:
container_create_or_lookup_user_managed_assets_path: error = (container_error_t)71
Regarding the first clue, turning location services off (and, incidentally, turning off wifi, which is also used by location services) cut the CPU usage way down. Turning them back on again appeared to be okay, too, though CPU usage did rise somewhat again. I'm going to guess (with only this evidence, sadly) that there's a bug in the OS that is causing the location service to repeatedly loop. I have seen problems with it lately; I have had to take the iPad outside to get a lock from GPS, whereas this was never necessary in prior versions of iOS.
Hey Joey,
Do you also use an Apple watch.
Yesterday I was connected With an Apple support team and they were analysing my iPhone’s battery.
My battery health shows Maximum capacity of 75% and the support team told me that you need to replace your battery.
I also asked them that If the battery drain issue is due to the Apple Watch that I have paired with the iPhone 6s running ios 12.1.4 , However they told me that my iphone battery needs to be replaced as the issue is not due to the pairing of apple watch.
Then I thought of unpairing my Apple Watch with my iPhone and that actually worked .My battery life is as good as it was before.
I feel very embarrassed on the way apple support team works . They should be knowing what is causing the issue and not simply telling me to replace the battery.
Now i dont Know what to do with the Apple Watch.
Every update since I can remember on Apple Android and Playbook forums, users have blamed the latest update for battery drain. It’s some sort of tradition.
If nobody wants to post a screen shot of battery usage from settings there is little anyone can advise except wait 2 days for the search indexing to finish and if you still believe your device has a problem either restore from backup or restore as new and the fresh copy of iOS will be fine.
From a previous problem about a year ago with Google Maps, I did a complete reset of my phone and it fixed the problem. I also now try to keep about .75GB of free space on my phone.
To solve my battery issue after the 12.1.4 upgrade, I did another complete reset of the phone on Sunday feb 17. As of the writing, so far so good.
Note: before resetting the phone, make sure you do a backup of the device. I did one to my computer as well as one right after to iCloud.
I've been watching this feed with great interest since I updated my iPhone 7 plus on Friday 15th Feb and almost immediately my battery was decreasing at an alarming rate. I listened to 5 minutes of a podcast and it had dropped 20%. Also when using safari, in addition to draining very quickly, my phone became very warm to the touch. I did a reboot, checked background activity etc. and no change. Finally this morning as I couldn't continue with my phone like this, I did a full restore and backup recovery.
So far, it seems to be back to normal for me at least. Browsing, listening to podcasts and had 3 reasonable length calls so far in the last hour and the battery is still showing as 94%. It's also not getting warm either.
I replied in this thread about a week or so ago that I performed a Factory Reset, after backing up first, then restoring the backup after the reset.
I am happy to report that my phone seems like it is back to normal. For me, with my usual use, I will drain the battery from 100% down to 40-45% during the day, from about 6:00am until 10:00pm.
I'm going to call Apple and repeat this against my case number.
iOS 12.1.4 battery drain
