iOS 13.5.1 battery drain

Right.... after 3 weeks of really not enjoying the apple experience (still love my 2019 MacBook Pro and Apple Watch 5), I have almost lost my flipping mind with very poor battery life (when using any app, standby ok-ish) and massive battery drain from 55% to 35% in 10 minutes as well as my phone will not charge past 93% with battery optimisation turned off and plugged in overnight. If you want me to share screenshots I will.

I have done ALL troubleshooting steps including RESTORE, RESET (multiple times), setup iPhone as new, restored from iCloud backup etc. etc. even tried to calibrate battery twice.

I took my phone to iStore and they are replacing my 3-month old iPhone 11 Pro, they agree, something is very wrong since I upgraded to iOS 13.5.1 from 13.4.1.

I'm definitely agreeing with all the comments, something has gone very wrong on some users phones, not everyone's. Mates of mine are running on 13.5.1 with no issues.

Just thought I would share my horrible experience and I'm looking forward to my replacement which will take 5-10 business days. I have been on iPhone 4, 5, 6s, 7 Plus, X and now the 11 Pro, I have never experienced something like this before with an Apple product.

[Edited by Moderator]

Today I had some spare time. I liked to follow the last clue of peter_watt I didn't tried so far.

My iPad, stil on iOS 13.5, has the same issues as many people have and as I have on my iPhone Xs.

I don't use my iPad that much, so I can try some things on that appliance.

First of all, I did a DFU restore, but I didn't set back an iCloud backup-copy.

With a "virgin" iPad, just install one app what's always running in the background: Buienalarm.

I came to look one hour after opening Buitenalarm and yes, again: 60% used in background when it's not supposed to do so.

Another story: I've told the whole story to my wife, with the target not to upgrade her iPhone 8.

She didn't know iPadOS and iOS are practically the same. Her 1/2 year old iPad 2019 is upgraded to iOS 13.5.1. She uses completely different apps as I do, but the same issue on her iPad too.

Also hardware faults on my iPad and my wife's too? I don't think this problem can be solved :-(

Just updated my iPhone XR to 13.5.1 last night and it ran super hot in standby mode all day today even after an additional reboot and the battery was almost dead in a matter of hours even with no apps open and limited usage. I can’t make heads or tails of the battery analysis under settings but it says the photos app was open for 1 minute in the background but used 26% battery! I hope this is addressed soon before it possibly causes damage.

I've seen this naughty behavior from two non-Apple apps, The Weather Channel and ESPN. Most recently, in Settings>Battery, the activity showed ESPN with 1 minute of Screen Time and 19 hours of Background Activity. The only solution that I found was to delete the app. In the case of Weather Channel, I reloaded it and it did the same thing after a few days.

Neal

"...My background is disabled for all the apps but I noticed that some bypass it

..."

I think that happens sinve 13.5. My Polar Flow app bypasses the setting to the extent that there is no background setting.

The bluetooth connectivity with the watch on current iOS has deteriorated to the point that the app has been deleted and I sync with the Mac instead.

I tried to switch off dark mode and on the iPhone seems to work and there is no battery use during charging like it happened before.

Thanks for the suggestion shabanonda .

The iPad seems to behave a little better but I still need to force restart it if I want to charge it .

What's upsetting are all the apps working in the background even if it's been disabled

Hopefully they will fix it , going to leave a feedback https://www.apple.com/feedback

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities.

I want to make sure you reach the right team for help with your iPhone. I recommend that you contact Apple Support directly. Depending on your region, you may be able to reach them here: Contact Apple Support

"...What do you mean by a “bad update over the air”?..."

Thr OTA 13.5.1 update was a security patch of, if I remember, under 50MB

Patching is more prone to errors than updating using the full 3.5GB update via a computer.

However both are usually very reliable and self verified but if OTA causes a problem it is worth trying a computer.

I too have rapid battery drain on Ipad air 2 since update. Additionally, my memory filled up, normally sits at 18GB went to capacity of 30gb. specifically the “other” catagory occupied 15gb. did a full reset and restore using itunes which solved the memory problem, so far. but I cannot make it thru lunch without needing a charge. I will reach out to apple too, but hopefully they will correct the problem.

Agree. I turned dark mode off too as a test and only remedy so far. It worked, back is not getting hot anymore. Warm only, which is obviously normal. However still battery draining is too fast, it only accelerates when last 25 % left. Might be another issue, who knows. Lousy performance anyways.

that graphic is interesting

The red part is where the OS enters low power mode and shuts off a number of functions.

In that state the usage levels off even though the SportsEngine app still shows off-screen activity.

Makes little sense unless the background activity is not all visible as bars

remember the bars show minutes per hour not power watts. The app presumably was active but low power mode prevented actual activity.

Discuss.

"...With all due respect, it would be next to impossible to get a “bad” update to install...."

Agreed. The verification process should stop it.

However treating it as though it had, the remedy of reinstalling a full OS often fixes it.

Same way installing MacOS combo update can resolve many "bad" macOS updates.

That's no cure for me. Tried it already in the beginning of 13.5.

The apps who constantly stay active in background, stops that behavior when forced shut down.

After doing al the tips mentioned on this forum, and force shutdown all the apps before I go to bed, I can last again two days on one battery charge.

One day, in day two of the charge, out of the blue, apps who never did it before start to run in the background.

Nothing solved this: energy save setting, restart, nothing. Back on the charger and charge the phone everyday is the only solution.

There're signals that 13.6 will be released very soon now. So we'll wait until then. It took already too much of my time to solve this issue. And it's workable now, but the complete final solution is just possible by a good software update I believe.

Somewhere in the last 25 pages you were recommended several options that have helped many people.

A battery with 80% health on your main phone needs replacing by Apple or an Apple authorised repairer

Also see this thread and this one.

Seems like Apple Music on iOS is unable to download local copies of music tracks, perhaps due to some permissions or DRM issue on the server. This puts the phone in an infinite loop, always trying to download this music, burning up the battery.

This bug hit me all of a sudden yesterday, battery went from full to empty in 5 hours with little to no use, every time I tried to use it the phone (SE 2020) got super hot. Battery health reported 100% yesterday, today it reports 99%, phone went from 100% to 71% from 6:30 to 8:30 with little use and didn't increase even on the charger. Deleted the Music app, put it in low power mode & airplane mode, rebooted. Now it is charging up again, turned airplane mode and low power mode off with big enough gaps that it still shows it is still charging up.

Apple ate 1% of my battery life with a bug that they haven't fixed since it was reported a month ago!