macOS Big Sur battery drain issue

@Halliday you still don't get it - what you inserted into my quote "properly built" is irrelevant - the main task of a "properly" built OS' responsibility is to guard hardware and other resources from taking over no matter where and what - that's the goal and responsibility to drive the hardware and other resources associated and not let any old or new software surpass ..

the forum would majorly benefit if you would not continuously repeat your private opinion if private at all!?

paomug67 wrote:

Me too I can't believe it ! Halliday you have an Intel Mac mini without battery and you try to teach all over the world without any experience of "Big Sur battery drain issue" . It's an awkward situation. …

No first person experience, partly because I always perform my due diligence—as all users should—of making sure my software is fully compatible before upgrading.

Not having personal experience with the particular hardware is, likewise, not a valid reasoning for rejecting the help I am trying to provide.

There have been myriad others running the various MacBooks that Apple lists as being compatible with Big Sur, that, likewise, performed their due diligence of making sure their software was truly compatible before upgrading.

Additionally, there have been many that have been experiencing the «battery drain issue», and other related issues, that have successfully conquered the issues by either finding and upgrading or eliminating the errant software, or by performing a truly clean install of Big Sur, as I have previously defined it.

… I hope Apple fix it, with or without third parts software, upgrading, downgrading, major upgrading, ecc. ecc. . People who don't use Battery device shouldn't write in a forum titled " Big Sur battery drain issue".

Unless and until there is any demonstration that there is any issue between a truly clean install of Big Sur (as previously defined) on Apple hardware they have listed as compatible—so long as said hardware is working properly—there is nothing for Apple to «fix».

(I know there are oh so many, here, and elsewhere, that want to blame Apple, and/or sit back waiting for Apple to «fix it», rather than taking responsibility, themselves. Oh well.)

Pablo25 wrote:

@Halliday: Well, generally, it is of course possible that some old incompatible software is the reason. I did not do a clean install of Big Sur because I never had to do it during the last Major upgrades. …

You were fortunate.

Unfortunately, incompatible software can exhibit itself in myriad ways.

Probably the way you have typically experienced such has been software crashes, of software that simply doesn’t run.

These are the most obvious, and, hence, easiest to recognize and correct.

In the case of Big Sur, the issue seems to, most commonly, exhibit itself with background processes and system/kernel extensions!

These won’t even show up within Activity Monitor, unless the user changes the Views from the default of “My Processes” to “All Processes”.

… If old Software really is the reason, then I can't see it in Activity Monitor.

Looking at the CPU time since the last start, only 3-5 processes have been using significant CPU time:

No. 1: WindowServer (3:05:08)

No. 2: Firefox (2:44:12). Remark: I installed it as a replacement for Safari because I thought Safari was the culprit

No. 3: kernel_task (2:04:58)

No. 4: install_d (0:20:41)

No. 5: syspolicyd (0:11:03)

…

It looks like you have changed your View to “All Processes”.

Since Safari comes included with the Operating System (OS), Safari cannot be a culprit, here. (It also doesn’t take Energy unless you are running it.)

WindowServer only runs the windowing operations in behalf of you Graphical User Interface (GUI) applications.

It, normally, doesn’t use much CPU or GPU, unless you have Apps that are doing a great deal of work on your display. (It does include work for windows that are covered up or collapsed.)

kernel_task will use a lot of CPU when running system/kernel extensions: especially when running less than compatible extensions! This can be one of the biggest “red flags”, on many people’s systems.

install_d and syspolicyd shouldn’t run much, under normal conditions.

… Of course, there are many other processes, but non of them have been using a significant amount of CPU time (all < 0:07:00, which is less than 3% of the time consumed by WindowServer).

In summary, this does not look unusual to me. Unfortunately, I don't have any old Catalina figures of WindowServer and kernel_task for comparisson.

An important thing to remember about Battery (or any power) use on computers is that modern computers use very little energy unless they are doing work: CPU, GPU, display (particularly the backlight, these days), storage, memory, communications (networking, including Wi-Fi, BlueTooth, etc.).

So, if your computer is draining its Battery, it must be doing some work, unless there is a hardware issue (such as a short-circuit, such as an internal short in the battery).

@Halliday: Two comments.

Cite your evidence, be it people on this forum that have gotten back to Catalina battery life or elsewhere.

I would submit people don't reply because you come across as condescending and close minded to other points of view.

7493432401 wrote:

@Halliday you still don't get it - what you inserted into my quote "properly built" is irrelevant - the main task of a "properly" built OS' responsibility is to guard hardware and other resources from taking over no matter where and what - that's the goal and responsibility to drive the hardware and other resources associated and not let any old or new software surpass .. …

The «"properly built"» part I «inserted into [your] quote» refers to «”properly built”» applications.

(I was, of course, already assuming that you were referring to «a "properly" built OS[Operating System]».

Hence, my addition is a most relevant clarification.

After all—as has been well established (even if you wish to ignore such)—the issues people are having are with software that was not «properly built for the OS in question».

You can easily find the success stories, if you look, NJJackinVA.

If there are any true cases where an actual, truly clean install of Big Sur have not successfully solved the «Big Sur battery drain issue», then the most helpful thing such people can do is prove their case to Apple. (They need not prove it to me, though I would certainly want to know about any such cases, so I can learn from such.)

Then, and only then, will Apple have the case evidence that can allow them to address such cases (as they did with those few MacBook Pro models that had Battery Charging issues).

yep - it is obvious Big Sur is ['malware"] for older Macs with older batteries and even many users not even researching online or here might just run to a store and by a new 'computer' told by the sales rep or 'genius' the computer is old and people believe they need a new one .. many benefits not to fix the major glitch MHO ..

Welcome, paomug67, to Apple Support Communities!

Why would it surprise (let alone «shock») anyone that someone may try to help their fellow users, even if they, themselves, do not have the same issue or the same hardware?

Especially with this issue leading to not only «battery drain», but high power consumption, high temperatures, high fan speed/noise, poor application performance, etc. (There are, indeed, Discussions that refer to these other, completely related issues.)

Madurakdzs wrote:

yep - it is obvious Big Sur is ['malware"] for older Macs with older batteries and even many users not even researching online or here might just run to a store and by a new 'computer' told by the sales rep or 'genius' the computer is old and people believe they need a new one .. many benefits not to fix the major glitch MHO ..

This is an irresponsible (even libelous) claim, even though you end it with «MHO» (presumably stipulating “My[as in your] Humble Opinion”).

It is not only not «obvious», but it is demonstrably untrue!

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

you are exposing yourself here due to no arguments against my main statement that an OS has to protect from all what has been stated here as malicious .. again no third party or other process should be able to take over resources ..

(Tannenbaum, Torwalds etc. )

@Halliday: Again, if they are so numerous then cite them.

As I stated in an earlier post, the only improvements I've seen is with the minor updates to Big Sur. I have updated 3rd party apps, removed apps, disabled background processes, etc.; but at the end of the day the only significant improvements to battery life occurred when I applied the dot releases to the Big Sur. From the date it was released my battery life has improved considerable, albeit not to Catalina levels but certainly much better than the initial Big Sur release.

Madurakdzs wrote:

you are exposing yourself here due to no arguments against my main statement that an OS has to protect from all what has been stated here as malicious .. again no third party or other process should be able to take over resources ..

(Tannenbaum, Torwalds etc. )

Even though the software that is using a great deal of your CPU resources, and, thus, causing the «battery drain», such is not «able to take over resources» (emphasis added), in any real sense: it is not preventing any other software from receiving a portion of said resource.

The use of CPU resources is still re-allocatable, by the Operating System (OS), in the very same way it always is, under a multitasking OS.

It’s simply that the errant software is acting as if it “needs” the high CPU resources, even though, under its normal operation, it has no such need.

Unfortunately, unless we require all software to declare some sort of CPU “need”, that the OS can use to identify such errant software, there is no way for the OS to determine that such software is, indeed, being errant.

Do you know of any modern multitasking OS that has such a mechanism, at the multitasked, higher level?

Besides, such would need to be codified in terms of some CPU independent unit of “work”, per some clock speed independent unit of “time”, that could be applied with diverse systems.

Then, how could any programmer determine what such a threshold should be, when system and program loads can vary quite widely?

(We do have such limitations, and mechanisms to thwart abuse, for kernel level tasks, including drivers. However, such is not true for multitasked, higher level processes.)

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

NJJackinVA wrote:

@Halliday: Again, if they are so numerous then cite them.

As I stated in an earlier post, the only improvements I've seen is with the minor updates to Big Sur. I have updated 3rd party apps, removed apps, disabled background processes, etc.; but at the end of the day the only significant improvements to battery life occurred when I applied the dot releases to the Big Sur. From the date it was released my battery life has improved considerable, albeit not to Catalina levels but certainly much better than the initial Big Sur release.

Then your updates of «3rd party apps» was, apparently, not deep enough: the erroneous issue have been seen at the background software level, not, typically, with the Applications at the user interface level.

(Updating and even removal of Apps need not terminate the background support processes. Such may only change after logout/login or even reboot.

Of course, Operating System [OS] updates almost invariably involve reboots, so any background processes will, then, be replaced with whatever newer versions are available.)

Your experience is atypical, compared to those that either actively searched out and removed or updated errant software, or those that actually performed a truly clean install of Big Sur.

In fact, the typical result has been to get back «to Catalina levels» of «battery life», if not better.

(Others that performed a truly clean install of Big Sur, but then restored all their old software, typically got back to the same problem as before; though there have been a few lucky individuals that didn’t come back to the same issues.)

Welcome, kabukcu, to Apple Support Communities!

Yes, Google Chrome Helper has caused many people at least some of this issue.

I have seen many that installed a new version of Google Chrome that still solved the issue for them.

However, there are many others that have this «battery drain issue» for whom neither Google Chrome Helper, nor other Google software, was an issue.

That’s what makes this issue so difficult: the causes seem to be about as varied as users’ collections of pre-Big Sur software.

careful you might get censored here and/or blacklisted - they just changed my login name apparently I was disclosing private information there but I just used a string of concatenated numbers all base 7 .. - also some previous posts have been deleted - I guess they don't like criticism here even it might help to improve the product ..