macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

Welcome, jay1singh982, to Apple Support Communities!

Unfortunately, first level technical support—practically anywhere—are, typically, entry level positions, with minimal training (little of which involves technical matters). So, they, often, have little, if any, knowledge of what has already been reported. (You’d be lucky if you contacted one that even knew how to access the issue reporting system, let alone could look up unfamiliar issues.)

As has been shared, many times, here, the best way to provide Apple with feedback is via Product Feedback - Apple.

Welcome, ElevatiAnn, to Apple Support Communities!

Unfortunately, first level technical support—practically anywhere—are, typically, entry level positions, with minimal training (little of which involves technical matters). So, they, often, have little, if any, knowledge of what has already been reported. (You’d be lucky if you contacted one that even knew how to access the issue reporting system, let alone could look up unfamiliar issues.)

As has been shared, many times, here, the best way to provide Apple with feedback is via Product Feedback - Apple.

Madurakdzs wrote:

… I guess they don't like criticism here even it might help to improve the product ..

It’s not so much about «criticism», but Feedback will not be received by Apple, through this forum.

If you wish to provide Feedback to Apple, please use their designated Feedback mechanisms: Product Feedback - Apple.

ok

sometimes it is a good idea to replace the battery - I just did this with my MBPr 2009: a new Hesker battery, baby's running smooth.

But, you should always ask yourself: what's going on? Did you install new software? Maybe create a TEST user: a new user accoubnt, just to see if your issue is really related to the battery, might just be user-related - or something with your configuration.

Also: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204054

fred_logan:

Earlier («Jul 30, 2021 2:36 AM in response to Halliday»), you wrote «Catalina is working fine, "normal" battery drain.»

Now you appear to be saying that the «Catalina downgrade didn't work».

This, latter, would suggest a hardware issue, which may or may not be the Battery.

Are you trying to run Big Sur, or Catalina, now?

If you are running Catalina, and all your software is compatible with Catalina, and you are still having trouble, then you have a hardware issue that may not be specific to the Battery.

If you are running Big Sur, then what happens when you «downgrade» back to Catalina?

paomug67 wrote:

From my experience 100% YES !!

…

I had same and not solved big problem with Big Sure and a Mcb Pro Intel.

Yesterday I made a normal install of Monterey and: PROBLEM SOLVED !!!

It was months that I haven't seen more than 7 hour of battery !!

And I hade the same third part software as before ...

You were lucky.

That’s all I can say.

I don’t expect any such to be the general case.

paomug67 wrote:

From my experience 100% YES !!

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/02c5fb2d-d6ab-404a-bec5-de2290afcd5f

I had same and not solved big problem with Big Sure and a Mcb Pro Intel.

Yesterday I made a normal install of Monterey and: PROBLEM SOLVED !!!

It was months that I haven't seen more than 7 hour of battery !!

And I hade the same third part software as before ...

Congrats! My brand new battery (15 cycles) is still draining too fast...

Hi Guys, so, my last post was kinda pessimistic, but as time went on I think I got rid of the problem. Here is what I experienced:

• I did update to Big Sur in 11.11.20, since than I experienced a semi hard battery drain, almost double as fast as before... 10% erased in 20-30 Min. depending on usage
• After that I tried pretty much everything non-chrome-related suggested here in this post, last resort, I did erase all my data and put Big Sur fresh in my MacBook Pro 13" 2016 16/512
• After the reinstall I didn't got rid of the problem... I still had quite a significant higher batter drain than before
• I let the MacOS do its Job plugged in and plugged out for a couple of days, meaning, I dindt let it fall it sleep mode expect at night
• Today, 21.11. and 10 days after updating to Big Sur, I think the drain is gone........................................it just disappeared. Its now discharging at an ave of 5-8 Watts with normal usage. it stands for the basically know 1h = 10% battery drain ratio. Heres a protocol:

After a full charge

18:21h

100%

18:41h

99%

18:44h

98%

18:48h

97%

18:51h

96%

18:55h

95%

19:00h

94%

19:07h

93%

19:13h

92%

19:17h

91%

19:21

91%

19:23h

91%

19:32h

89%

19:45h

86%

19:49h

86%

19:52h

85%

19:59h

84%

Welcome, aubeone and @All, to Apple Support Communities!

I have no way of knowing whether the Operating System (OS) “took out” your battery.

However, especially for future reference, this is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:

• Unless a computer has a hardware fault (such as a short-circuit, including an internal short in a battery), there is no way for a computer to use a great deal of energy without running programs being the cause! (CPU or GPU intensive processes, usually.) Of course, we all hope your computer’s hardware is and keeps running well!
• Big Sur is a major Operating System (OS) upgrade. It is not a mere update! In fact, Apple considers it to be such a major upgrade that they actually increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!
• With any major OS upgrade, there are a number of “housekeeping” processes that run in the background (you won’t see them in Activity Monitor unless you change the View from the default of “My Processes” to “All Processes”): these are indexing all the files on your Data drive, analyzing and indexing all your photos/videos/music/books/etc., and any number of other “housekeeping” tasks to get the system ready for your daily use and convenience. (The results help make your system more responsive to your needs.) These will “settle down” when they have completed their “housekeeping” to the point that they are “caught up” with your files and such. (After that, just as with the previous OSs, they simply work as needed to keep up with what you change and add.)
• There are third party programs, utilities, extensions, etc., that simply may not be ready for such a major OS upgrade: they can get “confused”, and can “run amuck”, on your system, until you upgrade these third party programs! Please be aware of this potential issue. (With such a major OS upgrade, I’m, frankly, quite surprised we aren’t seeing more issues in this incompatible software category!)

You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)

The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.

Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.

(Unfortunately, if your computer has hardware faults, Activity Monitor is not the best tool for recognizing such issues.)

I had the same problem with my 2019 16" MacBookPro: after upgrading Catalina to Big Sur the battery discharge time dropped from nearly 8 hours to just about an hour. Checking the Activity Monitor revealed that one of the processes was using 125% of CPU time (I have no idea what this number could mean as it showed that CPU was used 25% more than its designed capacity). It was not clear what the process was as it only contained letters in the name, something like cebd, but I do not remember the name of the process exactly. Upon calling Apple support and quoting the process name I received a response that this could be related to iCloud. Thus, the advice was:

1. Open System Preferences and click Apple ID.
2. Click Overview and then Sign Out at the bottom of the window. You might be asked to enter your Apple ID and Password to complete the operation.
3. Close System Preferences, then reopen them and repeat the above steps, but now sign into iCloud following the prompts and agreeing to do what the prompts ask you to do.

As a result the process taking 125% of CPU disappeared from my Activity Monitor and the battery life now is back to what it was prior to upgrade to Big Sur. I apologise if I missed some details in the above as I did not record them at the time, but the above should give an idea of a possible solution.

Hi @kayezad & all -

My latest update: after extensive troubleshooting (for 2 weeks) with no tangible results, I physically went to an Apple store. They confirmed that there are no hardware issues (or ANY issues) on my 2018 MPB. They wiped my disk and downgraded me to High Sierra - the only option is to downgrade to the OS that came with the machine when you bought it or install the current OS (Big Sur). I updated back to Catalina when I got home. Here's what I've noticed:

• Major overheating issues with Big Sur - resolved.
• Glitch when I shut down whereby flashes of color would splash across my screen - resolved.
• Battery life: I'm still evaluating but the first try = 3h40 minutes, which is less than pre-Big Sur but more than I got while on Big Sur (barely 2 hours).
• Despite wiping the disk, I still hear the chime upon boot-up (not a big deal - I like it!).
• Despite wiping the disk, I saw two accounts upon boot-up - one was my regular account and the other was a test account that I created ages ago and deleted before the Big Sur upgrade. Not a huge deal - I deleted it again, but found it odd that it showed up.
• MBP wouldn't shut down yesterday so I had to force it - but could be an isolated incident.

Obviously, there's no one size fits all solution but none of my troubleshooting helped, it wasn't an issue with reindexing nor was I experiencing crazy CPU spikes where one particular app was the culprit.

I agree that if Big Sur is only optimized for new machines, then they shouldn't list prior Macs as being compatible with it. Most users who upgraded likely did so because the release notes stated Big Sur was compatible with earlier machines. However, I too saw developer notes where it was noted that there were battery drain issues (obviously not before I upgraded!).

Welcome, ElevatiAnn and @All, to Apple Support Communities!

This is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:

• Unless a computer has a hardware fault (such as a short-circuit, including an internal short in a battery), there is no way for a computer to use a great deal of energy without running programs being the cause! (CPU or GPU intensive processes, usually.) Of course, we all hope your computer’s hardware is and keeps running well!
• Big Sur is a major Operating System (OS) upgrade. It is not a mere update! In fact, Apple considers it to be such a major upgrade that they actually increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!
• With any major OS upgrade, there are a number of “housekeeping” processes that run in the background (you won’t see them in Activity Monitor unless you change the View from the default of “My Processes” to “All Processes”): these are indexing all the files on your Data drive, analyzing and indexing all your photos/videos/music/books/etc., and any number of other “housekeeping” tasks to get the system ready for your daily use and convenience. (The results help make your system more responsive to your needs.) These will “settle down” when they have completed their “housekeeping” to the point that they are “caught up” with your files and such. (After that, just as with the previous OSs, they simply work as needed to keep up with what you change and add.)
• There are third party programs, utilities, extensions, etc., that simply may not be ready for such a major OS upgrade: they can get “confused”, and can “run amuck”, on your system, until you upgrade these third party programs! Please be aware of this potential issue. (With such a major OS upgrade, I’m, frankly, quite surprised we aren’t seeing more issues in this incompatible software category!)

You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)

The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.

Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.

Welcome, Kayezad, to Apple Support Communities!

All three of those («CalanderAgent and sharingD and sugdestD») processes are background processes.

(Incidentally, the background processes that end in a “d” [almost invariably, a lowercase “d”] are called “daemons”, in UNIX parlance. A daemon is “a helpful little spirit”.)

The CalendarAgent is the backend of the Calendar App. This could simply be “housekeeping”, in trying to index your calendars to be ready for your needs, such as reminders, searches, etc.

However, if it has been doing this for days, or longer, there’s probably something wrong, probably with one or more of your calendars.

Remember that many of your calendars are associated with your email accounts.

(Some people, usually on iPhones, get conned into installing malicious “rouge” calendars, that, mostly, “flood” the user with scary messages about “viruses” and being “hacked”.)

People have, at times, had trouble with the CalendarAgent taking up 100% CPU on many previous versions of macOS. I did a quick Google search, and such were the major “hits”.

Making sure your various calendars are good and “clean” is the universal fix, here.

sharingd is a sharing daemon that enables AirDrop, Handoff, Instant Hotspot, Shared Computers, and Remote Disc in the Finder.

It has, likewise, been implicated in cases of high CPU usage in previous macOSs.

As you can see from the list of functions that sharingd can be involved in, there could be multiple causes for high CPU usage.

Again, if such CPU usage doesn’t “settle down” in a day or two, you may want to take a look at what file sharing processes you have on your system, particularly third-party.

The suggestd daemon receives content from Spotlight, Mail, Messages and various other apps in order to power various features. Those features include Found in Apps, Proactive QuickType, and Keyboard/Siri/News Personalization.

This one, likewise, has been implicated in high CPU use in previous macOSs.

This is the primary indexer for your future searches, of various kinds. Depending upon how many files you have, this can take days to “catch up”. Once it is caught up, it will only run as you change or add files.

So. The good news is:

1. These are standard processes on macOS.
2. These should “settle down”, under normal situations.

These have all been involved in high CPU and other computer resource usage even in much older versions of macOS. So, this is nothing unique to Big Sur.

The bad news is:

1. Since these processes can interface with third-party systems, problematic third-party systems can cause them trouble.
2. Since these processes are involved with many files and/or systems, it is not trivial to find the issue as that may be causing any misbehaviors.

Fortunately, since these background processes have been involved with past instances of high CPU and other computer resource use in previous macOSs, there is a good body of information that can be found on the Internet that may be of help.

I do, however, wish I had more definitive news for you. 😔

SzyslakMoe and @All:

The issues y’all are experiencing has nothing, whatsoever, to do with M1 based Macs: Big Sur, on both M1 and Intel platforms, share source-code, but are separately optimized.

This is what is well known, by those of us that are “old timers”:

• Unless a computer has a hardware fault (such as a short-circuit, including an internal short in a battery), there is no way for a computer to use a great deal of energy without running programs being the cause! (CPU or GPU intensive processes, usually.) Of course, we all hope your computer’s hardware is and keeps running well!
• Big Sur is a major Operating System (OS) upgrade. It is not a mere update! In fact, Apple considers it to be such a major upgrade that they actually increased the major version number, from 10 to 11, for the first time since 2001!
• With any major OS upgrade, there are a number of “housekeeping” processes that run in the background (you won’t see them in Activity Monitor unless you change the View from the default of “My Processes” to “All Processes”): these are indexing all the files on your Data drive, analyzing and indexing all your photos/videos/music/books/etc., and any number of other “housekeeping” tasks to get the system ready for your daily use and convenience. (The results help make your system more responsive to your needs.) These will “settle down” when they have completed their “housekeeping” to the point that they are “caught up” with your files and such. (After that, just as with the previous OSs, they simply work as needed to keep up with what you change and add.) This has been seen on most, if not all previous OS upgrades!
• There are third party programs, utilities, extensions, etc., that simply may not be ready for such a major OS upgrade: they can get “confused”, and can “run amuck”, on your system, until you upgrade these third party programs! Please be aware of this potential issue. (With such a major OS upgrade, I’m, frankly, quite surprised we aren’t seeing more issues in this incompatible software category!)

You can run Activity Monitor, with the View set to All Processes to see what is running on your system, and how much CPU or GPU or Energy they are using. (Note: it appears that not all background processes have been “instrumented” for Energy use. So, the listing of All Processes using significant Energy is likely incomplete. However, since the majority of Energy use is generally due to CPU and GPU use, these will show up under the CPU tab, in Activity Monitor. That being said, though, the total Energy Impact is not dependent upon having all programs “instrumented” for Energy use.)

The Activity Monitor is a good tool for seeing what is going on “under the hood” of your computer.

Any time you wonder what might be going on, on you computer, that might be affecting its responsiveness, Energy use, Heating, etc.; the Activity Monitor can, usually, help you get an idea of what is going on.

(Unfortunately, if your computer has hardware faults—we hope not!—Activity Monitor is not the best tool for recognizing such issues.)

You don’t need to search any farther than the Apple Support Communities, pvmikev1, to find quite similar “complaints” and “issues” about previous upgrades (not just updates).

Just because you, personally, haven’t experienced such, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

(I’ve never experienced such, myself, but, fortunately, I, like many others, understand what is going on.)

Since the problem occurs with «software that [y’all were] running under [a previous version of macOS, such as] Catalina», your protestation that «[you] don't have any software that [you weren’t] running under Catalina» is more of an indictment than anything close to an absolution.

Here’s the sure-fire solution:

1. Backup everything you want to keep! A full backup!
2. A truly clean install of Big Sur: absolutely nothing carried over from your previous Operating System (OS). You will find that your system “settles down” almost immediately! You’ll see that you have at least as good battery life (time to discharge) as you ever did. (Really, if not, then your battery has a problem, or, possibly, you may have other hardware issues: we hope not, but this is a possibility which is included within the “old timers” experience.)
3. Then, once you have found your system to be good with the new OS, you migrate over your data—only your data—absolutely no software! Yet! This will start the various “housekeeping” background processes! Your Energy usage will go back up, while these processes prepare your system and data for your everyday use. Depending upon how much data you “suddenly” “dumped” upon the OS’ “plate”, so to speak, this may take a few days to “settle down”.
   1. There may be issues with certain settings, which may require synchronization with data on iCloud and on other devices (such as synchronization between Safari on multiple devices, for instance). Even this should “settle down”, in time, depending upon how much data and how fast your Internet connection is.
4. Once the system has “caught up” with your data; now you can try to restore your programs, Apps, utilities, and other diverse software. This is the most likely place where y’all will find issues, due to old software, that ran “just fine” on the older OS, but are simply not ready for the new OS.

If you run into problems at stage 4, you’ll have to upgrade your software.

Note: Generally, one should always check software compatibility before any major OS upgrade!

After all, not all software even has upgraded versions that are compatible with such a major OS upgrade. (I know many major developers that, while they plan on having compatible versions, have yet to release such new, compatible versions.)