Q: 5.0.1 update--even worse battery life

My battery life was just fine until the last update, same as everyone's else. So I tried your steps last night. Now it's 9:40 a.m here in Brazil and I still have 99% of my battery left! I turned off location services, made a few calls and used the wifi for a while. So far, so good. Thanks a lot!

Hi DazColl,

When you say you did a "Full Reset" do you mean you wiped the phone or did a power cycle?

Thanks.

Hi Dan,

The 'full reset' I mention is the same as detailed on page 86 of this disscussion by davidch - step 1 & 2a/2b:

Reset all settings (settings app-> general-> reset)

This resets your network settings, wallpaper, default ring tone and a few other things, but all your data, messages, apps, app data, etc will still be there - you don't loose anything very important (if you have VPN settings it's worth noting down the configuration before you reset as these will be lost as well).

When the phone restarts it's a bit worrying as you seem to go through the whole 'setup as a new iPhone' process, but don't worry - as I say, all your data is saved.

Hope that helps.

Daz

Thanks Daz.  I am going to try that right now.  I unplugged my phone from the charger this morning @ 7:00am and it is now 8:05 and I am already down to 84% Battery.  I haven't even used it this morning!!!  This is crazy!!

No Luck :-(  My battery is still draining Rapidly (about 1% every 2 mins.)  I don't know what else to do.

I have figured out that if I put the phone in Airplane mode my battery is fine...but the phone is then useless to me.

I've also noticed that the phone is a lot warmer than it used to be.  It used to be cool to the touch but now it is warm/hot to the touch whenever I pick it up.

Also, in 3 hours, the Phone has used 50% of the battery just sitting there doing nothing.  I have made (1) 2 minute phone call today so far.

Hi Dan,

I can only sympathise with you - mine was draining 20%+ an hour (dead within 5 hours) and felt warm to the touch doing next to nothing.

I know there are many 'solutions' out there and the 'delete email - reset - redo email' method worked for me.

Have you done a full restore using iTunes? (Hold down shift and select restore and point to .ipsw file on your PC). It's a pain and takes ages to then restore all your apps/settings, but this along with the email reset solution is what seemed to help me.

I really hope you find a fix (or apple sort this crap out).

Daz

Hey Daz,

Yea right now I just shut off my iPhone and then put it into Recovery mode.  I've passed the OS re-install portion and now I'm on the restore from backup phase...mine is a 32Gig and it's almost full so it's gonna take a while

This has got to be an App in combination with iOS 5.0.1 issue. My iPhone 4 was running fine and normally (as in similar behavior to all previous iPhones/os's) until this past weekend when some App updates were installed. Unfortunately I can't remember what they were.

Now my battery consumption is appalling rendering the phone essentially useless. I did the complete restore last night and see little or no difference.

Why isn't there an app that shows/kills renegade processes? iStat used to until Apple made them castrate it to its present state.

So I have finished "rebuilding" my phone and to no success.  The battery still declines at a 1% per 2 minute rate.

I think I may have isolated the issue to my Work Exchange account.  I've noticed that when I view that Inbox it is in a "Checking E-Mail" loop and the spinner continuously spins next to the clock.

I turned off Push on that particular Exchange account (i have 3 total) and voila!  Battery is no longer declining!

Only time will tell however.

Hi Dan,

I noticed that when I added my main exchange account it sucked about 20% of my battery in the first hour or so while it was re-syncing with the exchange, but after the wheel had stopped spinning the battery was at about 77% and it's been fine ever since.

My exchange account is quite large (close to a 2TB pst file on my work pc) and I have my account set up to no limit on the iphone so I expected this (thought it would take a lot longer to sync to be honest).

So I have no doubt that the issue that causes the battery to drain so quickly (20%+ per hour) is linked to an exchange email setting on the phone somewhere.

Glad you found your troublesome account and now have a useable phone again - I hope this thread helps others who are experiencing the same issues.

Cheers,

Daz

Hey Daz,

Yea my PST is not that large (right at 1GB)  It's strange though I have other user's here that I have configured for Exchange with iPhone 4 and 4S's with iOS 5 and they are not having the issue I am having (at least that anyone has reported).  I even did maintenance on our Exchange server last night and the issue still persists.

As soon as I turn push back on for my Work Exchange account it gets stuck in a "Checking for E-Mail" loop.  It will "Check for email" every 2 seconds.  But, when I turn fetch on, the problem goes away and my battery life is excellent again.

What I can't figure out is why it worked fine for almost a year and then all of a sudden without reason now I have this issue.

Same thing here Dan.

Did a set up as new, restored, problem persisted.

i removed the iCloud account, turned off push, and no wifi iTunes sync. restarted the phone same problems.

I powered down, removed the SIM, powered on. Display indicated no SIM. I went into Airplane Mode, reinserted the SIM and exited Airplane Mode.

After a half hour still at 100%, turned on location services, no drain, turned ln BT, no exceptional drain, turned on Push for my Exchange account, high drain returns even though box was synced prior. after a half hour I lost ~13%. Turned off push and back to normal.

So in my case Push appears to be the problem.

Also when I did my restore attached to iTunes it claimed to have downloaded the most current build but I noted that it is still build ending in 5 not 6 of iOS 5.0.1.

That seemed a bit odd.

Not having push is a bother but not the end of the world if a fix is imminent.

Hi Bob,

I Agree.  The problem is with configuring Exchange with Push (at least on my phone anyway.)  I am just at a stand still as to why it is happening.

I am running Exchange 2K3 SP2 with all the latest updates.  Never had an issue until 4 days ago and I've had my iPhone 4 since the day it came out on Verizon.  I actually have a brand new iPhone 4 now because I thought (and so did Verizon) I had a defective battery in my other one.

At this point I am convinced it is a Bug in the iOS code unless I can be proven otherwise.  I hope the next update will resolve this issue as I don't seem to be the only having it.  Does anyone know when the next updae will be?  I've seen mixed reviews on whether it will be another patch (5.0.2) or another revision all together (5.1.0)

As you stated Not having Push isn't the end of the world, but it is definately an inconvenience.

-Dan

I'm geussing it's some of the new software the iPhone's running. You might want to turn off some new features the update comes with, like iCloud and other stuff. I'm waiting for the new iPhone, which is expected to come June 2012.