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Apps running in the background and draining battery

Anyone else experiencing apps running in the background and draining battery even though background app refresh is turned off. iOS 13.5. I have completed a full restore as well as deleting/reinstalling the apps. Only way to stop the background activity is to force close the apps. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thx

iPhone 6s

Posted on May 27, 2020 3:18 PM

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Posted on Aug 11, 2020 10:03 AM

Same problem! I have an iPhone 7S running 13.6. Problem started about a month ago. Might have been concurrent with recent iOS update, but I was not tracking the timing. Phone got super hot and battery drained in about an hour. Determined Mail was running non-stop. All background refresh is off, all fetch is off, I finally deleted the Mail app entirely. That solved the problem for about a week. Battery lasted 2 days without charging. Now iPhone is red hot and drained 25% in a half hour this morning. Pandora seems to be the culprit (background activity) - but the app is closed and confirmed Background Refresh is off. I've used Pandora almost every day since this battery drain issue arose, and it has not been a factor until today. I'll try a complete Reset and Restore next. Not optimistic - seems to be an iOS problem.

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Aug 11, 2020 10:03 AM in response to SeaAir

Same problem! I have an iPhone 7S running 13.6. Problem started about a month ago. Might have been concurrent with recent iOS update, but I was not tracking the timing. Phone got super hot and battery drained in about an hour. Determined Mail was running non-stop. All background refresh is off, all fetch is off, I finally deleted the Mail app entirely. That solved the problem for about a week. Battery lasted 2 days without charging. Now iPhone is red hot and drained 25% in a half hour this morning. Pandora seems to be the culprit (background activity) - but the app is closed and confirmed Background Refresh is off. I've used Pandora almost every day since this battery drain issue arose, and it has not been a factor until today. I'll try a complete Reset and Restore next. Not optimistic - seems to be an iOS problem.

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May 27, 2020 6:35 PM in response to bazilh

This is the battery roller coaster that I am dealing with. Notice the amount of 'Screen Off' time and The Weather app background activity is way out of whack. This is after a full restore too. I most certainly have Background App Refresh activity 'off'.

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Jun 2, 2020 5:45 PM in response to bazilh

I'm experiencing the same issue. Turning off background app refresh does not solve the problem.


It's only been going on for maybe the last month or so, and only seems to affect certain apps, so I expect it's something in a recent iOS software update.

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Jun 2, 2020 6:49 PM in response to deggie

Nope. Happens with at least 4 apps that I know of, including the native Mail app. And yes, auto-fetch is off. The other problem apps haven't been updated in months and as I mentioned the issue has only been occurring for a month or so.

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Jun 2, 2020 7:08 PM in response to branman

Yes, the rogue background app activity (with app refresh off) definitely started for me with iOS 13.5. I updated to 13.5.1 last night and now the native Mail app is running in the background (this was not happening with 13.5, all mail set to Fetch). So this issue appears to be progressing to other apps with this most recent update.

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Apps running in the background and draining battery

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