macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

Halliday, The installer has historically moved, not deleted, incompatible software into a directory during the upgrade. However, I don't think it has moved OS drivers etc. I think it would be interesting to have the installer put a document on the desktop with a listing of identified 'old' or incompatible drivers found during the update/upgrade process. I know this probably makes it too dweeby for the common user but would lead someone trying to track down issues with a possible starting point.

HP3B wrote:

Halliday, The installer has historically moved, not deleted, incompatible software into a directory during the upgrade. …

I don’t know whether that was ever done for any software except for the point when 32-bit software were no longer supported: that was easily identifiable.

Software that is, somehow, incompatible, internally, will be quite difficult to identify.

Most of the third-party issues we are running into, in the upgrade to Big Sur, are with software that “runs”, but, since the operating environment changed, so much, the software gets “confused”, and runs “amuck” (spinning its “wheels”, doing nothing useful).

I have this problem as well. In about 15 minutes, my 2018 Macbook Pro battery goes from 100% to 53% with not much running (before even opening a browser). I think it might have something to do with the process ampdiscoverydevice (not sure I have this 100% correct as I have already killed the process). It has something to do with automatically syncing with my iphone when it is in range. When I see my phone syncing in Finder, I try to stop it (eject it) and it refuses to respond. I go to the Activity Monitor and try to end the process (which shows 98% CPU usage for hours on end) and it will not end unless I force stop it.

Trying to delve into my settings right now to determine how to turn off that auto sync function to see if that is my culprit.

This battery issue is very frustrating. Looking forward to hearing about a fix. Anyone else have the problem with phone syncing that I'm having?

I think this may have been the trick for me. I have been on my computer for about 30 minutes today. I have the following programs running concurrently: MS Excel, Chrome, Quickbooks, Apple Mail, Adobe Acrobat, Pages and Numbers. My battery shows 98% charge. Yesterday, my battery dropped to 53% after 15 minutes (with similar programs running).

I would love to know if this fix can be replicated. Anyone else try this?

I’m glad you found something that seems to work for you, timvatlanta, at least for now.

However, based upon the experiences of others, this, like so may others, is far from a universal “fix”.

Like a couple of other issues, from others I’ve seen, I would be very interested in knowing far more about what is actually going on; particularly, what interactions are associated with this behavior.

However, you need not feel any pressure to pursue such any further than you want to.

I use MS word, MS excel, safari, whatsapp on web app throughout the day. And the battery drains massively. I also use adobe acrobat regularly thought not everyday. That’s all. Nothing else gets used on a daily basis on my MacBook Pro. And the battery still drains. None of this used to drain my battery before BIG SUR

I believe, Stoyanski89, that you’ll find some comments, earlier in this Discussion, that testify they have seen little if any change with the 11.1 update to Bg Sur.

In that same vicinity, you’ll find that I expected that there would be no change in this issue associated with that update.

The reason that update has little, if any, affect on this issue is that there is nothing for Apple to “fix”, for this issue: this issue seems to be an interaction with third-party software. Fix the third-party software, and you fix the issue.

The simplest proof of this is that clean installs never have this issue.

Unfortunately, but understandably, many, even with the most difficult to solve versions of this issue, are not willing to go through a clean install, let alone the steps, thereafter, to better narrow down the errant interactions.

However, the simplest first steps in alleviating this issue is to make sure all your software is up-to-date. The hardest part is that you may well have old utilities, kernel and system extensions, and such, that you may well have even forgotten you have.

There are testimonies that say that even a clean install doesn’t help as big SUR slows the machine either ways.

Having said that after I upgraded to 11.1, my system Home Screen did show up all those third party apps that needed an upgrade to qualify for Big SUR ecosystem. These apps appeared blurred with a sort of across mark over them to identify them. Nearly a dozen apps on my MacBook Pro I forgot I had installed them ages ago, got caught. So I removed each and every one of them.

Even then my machine is slow. And battery runs out within 3 hours.

I will gladly do anything to help track this down. I don’t know if this is a fix or not. Just seemed to make a difference but I’m definitely not confident this is the culprit or if the problem will go away for sure.

this is a huge problem so if there is info I can provide, let me know. Even if it means looking into a system config in a backup.

There was a huge Update to all of the MSOffice Apps that I found came out right after Big Sur released. I installed it and it made a significant improvement in my MacBook Pro battery life. Did you update MSOFFICE and Acrobat??? This might help you if you haven't yet done so. Also I had to get rid of Chrome and Chrome helper to get even more improvement on battery life.

I’m very glad to hear of your willingness, timvatlanta!

Unfortunately, right now, I’m not certain what to ask you to try or check.

I wish I could reproduce the issue, myself. I tend to be an intuitive type of troubleshooter: I see then do, seemingly with little conscious thought.

If I, or someone else, can think of something, we’ll give it a try.

Kayezad wrote:

There are testimonies that say that even a clean install doesn’t help as big SUR slows the machine either ways.

I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen any such, related to this «battery drain issue»; at least, not in any cases where there were not verifiable hardware issues.

Can you share any of these «testimonies»?

I would be quite interested in seeing what the situation was.

Having said that after I upgraded to 11.1, my system Home Screen did show up all those third party apps that needed an upgrade to qualify for Big SUR ecosystem. These apps appeared blurred with a sort of across mark over them to identify them. Nearly a dozen apps on my MacBook Pro I forgot I had installed them ages ago, got caught. So I removed each and every one of them.

Even then my machine is slow. And battery runs out within 3 hours.

It’s nice that it showed some of the software that needed updates or upgrades.

These sound like just those that updates or upgrades were found, for.

Unfortunately, there can be much more that you cannot even see that «[you] forgot {you] had installed … ages ago».

That’s simply the way it is, with many users, and their varied use cases, etc.

(Incidentally, a slow system and battery running out quickly are, generally, intimately related: they are two symptoms of a single cause.)

I honestly don't know what you're on about..

I have a 2017 Macbook pro 13". After updating to Big Sur I've had a "service recommended" indication regarding my battery.

And of course, the worst part is that my battery performance actually just went to ****.

I have had ZERO problems with my power consumption before. Never had to worry about using my mac without connecting it to a power source.

I have *completely* clean-installed (bootable USB drive, disk wipe, and everything) Big Sur, and still, the problem persists.

I've even wiped everything again and clean-installed Catalina this time. Under "system report" my battery's condition says "Normal".

And still, on normal use my battery drains in 2 hours, and worse, the computer shuts down when reaching low power (approx. 20%) without even a warning.

The fact of the matter is that everything was working perfectly well before the update, and now I basically have a desktop instead of a laptop.

I know this has nothing to do with you, it's just frustrating, because I believe many of the Apple owners here bought their Apple products, at least in part, because of their supposed reliability.

It's getting worse I think. In my last cycle of charging, my macbook pro lasted for just over two hours. Imagine, till last month and before I upgrade to Big Sur, it used to last for around 8 hours.

This 'clean install' excuse is a very poor one. Even if we assume it's genuine, then Apple should have said so explicitly. It did not. On the contrary, it offered it as the software to download in the APP STORE, and displayed prominently, thereby nudging customers to upgrade. I only downloaded it as I was instructed that way. If my machine gets terribly slow after this, then nobody can blame us by saying we ought to have done a clean install. Let Apple say it on its own.

I am convinced that this is Apple's way of getting us to migrate to newer machines. For me, this is a huge learning. Never ever upgrade MacOS on MacBook pro. The only silver lining is this otherwise dark cloud is that atleats this has happened to me after four years of using. But this thread has people who purchased MacBooks as recent as couple of years back. and one i think said MacBook 2020!!!

Hi all,

I haven't posted an update in a while so here's the latest. I won't get into all of the details again but to recap:

- Installed Big Sur when it came out: severe battery drain (+/- 2 hours). Note: The only third-party applications that I use are Affinity Photo and BitDefender. Both were updated for Big Sur prior to my upgrade. 

- I did EXTENSIVE troubleshooting for 2 weeks with no viable results. I confirmed WITH APPLE that there were NO hardware issues and NO CPU issues. 

- I decided to ask Apple to wipe my disk - they reinstalled High Sierra. I then updated back to Catalina which gave me one more hour of battery life, and a bunch of new issues. I suspected these were due to the disk wipe not being done properly and confirmed this with a senior advisor at Apple. 

- During my call, the senior advisor revalidated that there were no issues with the CPU processes. He suggested that I reduce my screen brightness (I do like it at 100%) and that I try disabling the BitDefender extensions in Safari to see how my battery would fare. 

- Keep in mind that the testing I did was in Catalina: I allowed the MBP to auto-adjust the brightness. I disabled all 3 BD extensions and enabled them one at a time after each battery drain. The first test was run with none of the extensions enabled. The average lifespan of the battery was 7 hours. The only exception was when I enabled the 3rd BD 'icon' extension - I got about 6 hours of battery life. I believe my culprit is the screen brightness because right now, that's what makes the most sense. Why did the issue start all of a sudden? Can't say for sure...

Yesterday, I had another call with a senior advisor to resolve my bad disk wipe issues (this time, I did it myself) and do a clean install:

- He walked me through the full disk wipe (via internet recovery). For some reason, my MBP was only letting me download Catalina instead of Big Sur, so I did that and then immediately downloaded Big Sur. The advisor said this wasn't an issue on my end.

- At this time, I haven't reinstalled BD or Affinity yet, but will be doing that later today. I plan to test the same way I did on Catalina to see how the battery fares in Big Sur.

- Yesterday's battery life (post Big Sur upgrade) = 5 hours, which is 2-3 hours less than Catalina. But, it's better than my first Big Sur install. 

- Right now, I've been off the adaptor since 4:45 a.m. and am currently at 6 hours of battery life. I've got 29% left which will give me another half hour or so. Note: I did notice the battery dropped more quickly while I had my external HD plugged in.

- Thus far, I haven't noticed any overheating but TBD.

I don't know if these details will be helpful to any of you but figured I would pass them along.