macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

Hi ANON02. I upgraded my MacOS Big Sur to 11.1 yesterday evening. it must have taken me close to five hours, despite showing "10 minutes remaining" for hours. And no, there has been no benefit. Turned on my fully charged MacBook pro today morning at 8 am and battery drained out by 11 am. Just three hours.

As I have been stressing on this from the start. Before Big Sur came into my life, I had High Sierra. Battery used to last for close to nine hours. Infact in the update of 11.1, Apple didn't mention about battery usage. So I doubt if they would even acknowledge the problem.

If you are still experiencing the High Energy use, Kayezad, then, like I wrote to Anon02, I wouldn’t expect Big Sur 11.1 to “fix” anything.

You still need to follow the procedures that have been shared, such as I alluded to in my latest answer to Anon02.

(If you have automatic updates turned on for all your third-party software, you may see improvements, with time, without having to do anything specific, but it won’t be due to a Big Sur update.)

After running 11.0.1 for 30 days, updating all my 3rd party apps, uninstalling Chrome, setting up iCloud, disabling Voice Control and booting into Safe Mode, my battery finally stopped the excessive draining and returned to the 4.5 to 5 hours I was getting under Catalina.

I have a Mid 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro with a battery at 78% of capacity.

I just installed 11.1. It took about an hour with no hiccups. It turns out there was a new major update of Microsoft Office which I installed after installing 11.1. After disconnecting my power cable, there was no noticeable decrease in battery life. I am

still getting the 4.5 to 5 hours on the battery on 11.1 as I had on Catalina.

So it looks like 11.1 does not affect battery life if you've done the things like I described above. If you've been on Big Sur less than 3 weeks and haven't updated 3rd party apps, then you should expect to see the excessive battery drain continue under 11.1.

However, during the first 3 weeks after first installing 11.0.1 and before I did all the things I described above, my battery life had dropped to less than 2 hours and I was in the same boat with a host of other users reporting excessive battery drain after installing Big Sur 11.0.1.

I have done exactly the same. I upgraded a month ago and then downgraded to Catalina after three days. Apple operators I had spoken to were aware of what was being said on this thread. I just came back on here to see if any improvements have been made but I guess I'll stay off Big Drain for another while.

Adding to this. I was experiencing the Battery Drain issue as well as having to "weirdness" with lots and lots of EFI processes building up. My system would become most unresponsive each morning and needed to be restarted to restore functionality. I reviewed the 'Crash' and 'System' logs in Console.app and found that Xcode Simulators were causing numerous 'faults' and crashes. I uninstalled Xcode and removed any Xcode remnants. I also had a few old 3rd party kexts that I removed. My system is now much more responsive and my Battery Life has been extended to about 4 hours on a 2020 16" fully loaded MBP.

Thank you, HP3B.

Was your Xcode fully up to date?

I have had no trouble with Xcode on Big Sur. However, my Xcode updated soon after upgrading to Big Sur.

In fact, I just checked, and my Xcode updated, again, yesterday: “Various enhancements and bug fixes.”

The EFI processes have nothing to do with the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) system, on your Mac, but a third-party graphics (related) system. (I don’t remember the details. I saw more details in someone’s EtreCheck report.)

Xcode in itself was not the issue but he Simulator processes that run as part of the Xcode system itself. Once I removed Xcode and all of the extraneous items associated with it the processes were 'stopped'. I haven't attempted a reload of Xcode as I don't require it on this MBP at this time...

I think the EFI processes are from the EFI Fiery printer drivers we use for our high end printing processor. I will attempt to remove the drivers or see if there isn't an update and see what transpires.

I have a 2018, 13" MacBook Pro 2.3 ghz 8GB. Still running Catalina, everything's great. Tempted to update to Big Sur but second guessing after reading this thread, especially since I do a lot of design work and music production. Is it safe to say I should hold off until there's a Big Sur bug fix update?

«EFI Fiery printer drivers» sounds about right, HP3B.

I wasn’t trying to suggest you needed to reinstall Xcode.

I knew it would have to be background processes (that’s what is involved in everyone’s «battery drain issue»).

Aren’t the Simulators part of Xcode (though they may be a separate install)? (I haven’t been using any of the simulators, so far.)

Welcome, mon_2425, to Apple Support Communities!

There are always «bug fix update[s]» with all Operating Systems (OSs). There always will be, for the foreseeable future.

We already have the 11.1 update.

However, since the only “bug”, in this «battery drain issue», is with third-party software that was not ready for this major OS upgrade (not a mere update), the only “fix” is to make sure the third-party software you want to run is truly ready! And that you get rid of any third-party software you don’t need (at least, any that aren’t ready, yet).

Really, no one should install an OS upgrade without making sure their software is fully compatible.

(Updates are always supposed to be compatible.

Upgrades are where incompatible changes are made!)

Actually, the EFI Processes were being created by a 3rd party software for viewing MRI Scan images. I have remove it and is remnants. I am going thru slowly removing old drivers etc to see what or when the performance and issues stop.

After removing the EFI and other incompatible drivers my system has returned to operating in a normal manner, battery life is a bit above 3 hours, but I am not very conservative when it comes to battery friendly settings. Further, I am not sure if this is a result of being a developer and loading beta OS software but I did notice that apparently the OS installer or Migration functions do not remove incompatible or specifically 32-bit kexts and drivers (not compatible with 64-bit Big Sur). This might be a by-product of incomplete installers associated with the beta releases and then when updating to the release versions instead of running a 'new' install script the installer might be running an 'update' script that doesn't include or bypasses a step for moving old drivers. Regardless, I think this is why users that are doing clean installs are having better luck with Big Sur installations and users migrating from Catalina or earlier versions of Big Sure are experiencing more issues. I am happily running with much better performance and clean logs. I haven't heard a fan all day. I used Activity Monitor, Console and etreCheck from the MacAppStore to assist with identifying the errant drivers and kexts... then Terminal to remove the errant files.

I’m very glad things are looking better, HP3B!

(Incidentally, I’ve never noticed a macOS upgrade deleting any users’ software, regardless how incompatible! I suppose such is considered to be the users’ responsibility.

However, it would seem to be a good enhancement request: for a utility to allow the user to easily find incompatible software, so they can take appropriate action, according to their desires.)

I had the same problem and when I checked the battery preferences, it's the google chrome helper that was the culprit even tho I already uninstalled the google chrome app itself. So what I did is I recovered the chrome app from the trash bin and followed the instructions on the internet on how to disable the google chrome helper.

I’m glad you found your culprit, _vixcer_!

The fact that it can be so different for so many users, and their machine, is what makes this issue so difficult.

That’s why the best help, for the majority of users, is in terms of helping y’all to identify your own culprits.