Big Sur battery drain

Well, Andrey Threat, com.apple.Safari.History is certainly not a universal culprit!

In my case, it is running at 0.0 % CPU, with 0.53 CPU Time. (I did reboot about an hour and a half ago, for certain testing purposes. Having nothing to do with any Big Sur misbehaviors.)

It may be active, in your case, due to something in your Safari History.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what that might be.

Have you tried clearing your Safari History?

Welcome, P B Matthews, to Apple Support Communities!

Please read my recommendations.

The «iCloud safari sync» seems to be a minority issue.

Please follow my recommendations to find out what is actually going on, on your system.

Clean installs of Big Sur have no such problems. (Such has been verified as a fix.)

Simply having «had no problems with installing [Big Sur]», P B Matthews, does not guarantee that there are no issues: especially incompatibilities with third-party software.

While there will be updates to Big Sur—as there always are, for all Operating Systems (OSs)—there need be no updates for Big Sur for these particular issues. (There are issues on M1 based machines, for multiple monitors. There seems to be an issue with 2013–2014 MacBooks that was sufficiently severe that Apple disabled the ability to install Big Sur on such, for now.)

As I wrote, this particular issue is simply to be expected, and, unless you have incompatible third-part software, or a triggered hardware failure (as some of the 2013–2014 MacBooks seem to have had), it will “settle down” before too long.

The rest of my long comment (the one with the “bullet” list) is about how you can check your own system to see what is going on, including finding errant third-party software.

Same here. With a 2017 13" MacBook Pro with 4 Thunderbolt ports, when using screen mirroring, the Mac gets really hot, and the battery is drained after about 2 hours. I am concerned about the safety of this, and I did not have this problem before updating to Big Sur. Is there any setting that can be changed to help? I found several settings had to be changed from the default for Airplay by screen mirroring to work with a 13" screen already. For example, until I changed some settings, screen sharing options did not appear in the menu bar. And as soon as I clicked on "screen mirroring" in the drop down box, all open windows and, the drop down box and, most importantly, the cursor were shown in greatly reduced sizes, making it nearly impossible to find the cursor. Plus, the drop down box and (now that I added it) the screen mirroring in the menu bar do not even have the option to exit screen mirroring. You have to click on "display preferences" to open another box that gives you the option to turn off Airplay Display. As a default, this is not acceptable. The only way I could stop Airplay and get a screen I could actually work with was to shut the lid on the laptop and wait for that to exit Airplay. Only then could I even find the settings I needed to change. And having no way to turn off Airplay without clicking on 2 or 3 things to find it? Not good. This new OS is not ready for release. Sorry. But battery draining in 2 hours and no user friendly way to turn off Airplay? Not good.

My MacBook Air 2017 gave me 8-10 hours of battery life with no extended screen and at least 15 applications (at minimum) operating simultaneously. Even with Catalina it gave me a very decent back up... but no sooner I got the Big Sur update... my machine has turned into a power guzzler! I didn't to a Time Machine back up and can't go back to the previous version. I am terribly disappointed that Apple would release an OS with such obvious issues!!

I do hope they fix this very, very soon!!! I can't be roaming around with my power cord all the time!

Please pass the word to turn everything off, as in everything, shut it down, closed, connect to recharge the battery to full.

Leave it closed and wait 24 hours if possible, 12 to 16 hours should be enough for full battery and for codes to work in the background. Leave manicuring and personalizing alone until OSBS is running properly. I have noticed things working in the background that are not my doing, yet are to the benefit of my MacBook Pro retina 2019. I reopened a couple of hours ago to see what would happen if I opened and read my FB, and Yahoo news, checked mail ( it is all Apple Support Community ). Apple is obviously doing their thing. Mine is holding strong while plugged in. Next is the unplug and shut down for 6 hours minimum to let the background code do it’s job, for things I have done to do their repairs. Slowly start using the essentials only, do not run anything other than essential, Music is not essential, .FB is not essential. do only in small batches. Wait for background to tinker around and fixes take place. I was ready to go haywire until I calmed down and studied what had to be done.

Good luck. Be patient. Leave your Mac alone. Wait for it to fully recharge and background code to do the work. Do not tinker. Do not run virus programs, Do NOT open any banking sites or sensitive materials. Wait and be patient. I have already seen good things happening on my laptop. NOW, I am leaving my desktop iMac alone. Not even looking at it for fear of strange juju happening. I forgot to unplug my back up drives, so praying thinking waiting to meditate in order to avoid opening up my desktop. Patience. Good luck, you all! Remember : : BE PATIENT and LEAVE IT ALONE.

Andrey Threat:

Since others, including myself, have experienced no issue with com.apple.Safari.History, the problem cannot be the software, itself, but must be something else that the software interacts with.

Safari’s syncing over iCloud may or may not use that process. I’m not certain either way.

When you wrote «As soon as I turn it on», what was the “it” to which you were referring? Safari? «safari iCloud sync», whether Safari is running or not?

If the latter, then it may not be your local Safari History, but something about what is being synced over iCloud. This could involve your other Safari versions, or something else.

Do you have anything besides other versions of Safari that are being synced with Safari?

(It seems like even older versions of macOS have received Safari updates, relatively recently, though I’m not sure how universal that was.)

It’s certainly up to you whether you clear your Safari History, or not.

Stanley22 wrote:

Hi all,

I have the MPB 2020 with Intel, having the same issue even with latest Big Sure and keeping system connected with power for 48 hour, same it was directly after the big sure release date.

i tried resetting all SMC, all other short names Pxxxx, nothing helped.

Window server in activity monitor with one opened window consumed about 20 percent of CPU, Safari about 13 percent.

any suggestions how to get back battery drive? Is there any way for to re-start housekeeping, so I can solve it forever?

thanks

Have you tried setting the View, in Activity Monitor, to show All Processes?

The CPU usage you list («Window server … with one opened window consumed about 20 percent of CPU, Safari about 13 percent») is far from sufficient to account for a problem. (Their CPU use is close to normal, though WindowServer is a bit high.)

Have you been having trouble ever since upgrading (yes, upgrading, not a mere update) to Bug Sur? Or only more recently?

If you still have incompatible third-party software using your computer’s resources, mmabood, there is no “fix” that Apple can provide (short of preventing all third-party software from running—but no one wants that, I’m sure).

It’s not Apple’s responsibility to “police” the software you choose to run on your computer.

We, your fellow users, can help you clean up your system, if you wish.

Welcome, Alex-xs, to Apple Support Communities!

Have you read the comment marked “Solved”, in this Discussion?

That gives recommended methods for finding the software that is using too much of your computer’s resources (probably primarily in CPU use).

Here's a screenshot: From last night and again this morning, you can see the battery drain from 100% to red within 2 hours or so. Last night, I was watching a symphony performance on Airplay and this morning another video streaming through Airplay, same trajectory both times, and it caught me by surprise that my battery almost went dead during the performance. I'm looking at "Battery" in System Preferences but don't see any setting changes that would help with this.

Exactly ! I never had to charge my MBA 2017 13" after a full day of use, but now, after an hour of use, I'm already a half mark down in the power bar. Apple must fix this issue, else what's the use of pushing an half baked update.

Hi, I have exactly the same model with the same specs as yours. I have tried all the possible fixes found on the internet but none of them work, even booting into safe mode. Could you please let me know what they say in the apple store? Thanks

I’ve got iCloud safari sync switched off and I left for work this morning after a reboot at 90% battery life and nothing app wise up and running and the screen shut. On returning from work It was down to 28%.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before only since installing Big Sur.......it’s doing something weird.

I’m most pleased, even relieved, to hear that things are working far more reasonably for you, now, pvmikev1!

(Yes. I did try to express that, apparently, not all background processes are “instrumented” for Energy use. So, using the Energy tab, in Activity Monitor, will be, likely, incomplete, even using an “All Processes” View. However, CPU will still work to see processes that are working your CPUs hard.)