Battery draining 4s after iOS 9.1 update

Launch iTunes on your computer. Go to its Preferences settings, Devices page. Check "Prevent...from syncing automatically." Connect the phone to iTunes on your computer. Back it up. Then restore it and set it up as a NEW phone, do not restore your backup, and do not sync it. Your battery problem will be solved. Then restore the backup you made. If the problem comes back there's corrupt data in your backup.

@Lawrence Finch: Nicolas and me did exactly that and the battery problem was NOT solved. Where does your indestructible confidence in Apple come from?

Edit: Or did you only talk to clausum? Because his problem really seems to be another problem – mine started directly after the update and not after a few days.

Mine problem was solved by reboots and reset (not wipe) and nothing more.

What kind of reset? Holding standby- and home-button for 10s? And you did it several times and eventually it worked?

Yes, power+home reset.

I did it only once, but I rebooted phone 2-3 times per day. After reset and couple of reboots problem has gone.

thanks lawrence for your ideas!

unfortunately, it didn't work. i backed up the phone as described, but even as a blank new iphone (not jet restored from backup) the battery draining continued. the just resetted iphone lost ~20% battery in 1h standby, so i still assume it's an iOS 9.1 bug - as far as everything worked perfect till last week with battery uptime for ~ 18h with normal daytime use.

hopefully, iOS 9.2 will bring the fix.

if not, the 5c will be a useless brick.

@Clausum: If the problem didn't occur immediately after the update it rather sounds like a broken battery. Maybe you should test it in an apple store?

Clausum wrote:

thanks lawrence for your ideas!

unfortunately, it didn't work. i backed up the phone as described, but even as a blank new iphone (not jet restored from backup) the battery draining continued. the just resetted iphone lost ~20% battery in 1h standby, so i still assume it's an iOS 9.1 bug - as far as everything worked perfect till last week with battery uptime for ~ 18h with normal daytime use.

hopefully, iOS 9.2 will bring the fix.

if not, the 5c will be a useless brick.

When you set it up as new did you log in to iCloud? If you did then it was not a blank new iPhone, as it synced to everything that iCloud manages. It syncs your contacts, calendars, email, notes, Reminders, Safari bookmarks, Safari cache, News, wallet, keychain, photos and iCloud drive. One of these is causing the battery drain. Go to Settings/iCloud and turn them all off. The problem will probably go away. Turn them on one at a time to find the one that is causing the problem.

yeah, blank new iphone. drainage occured anyway.

but: i figured out this: while the phone is in offline mode, absolutely no battery drainage! over night (slept 8h), battery came down from 100% to 94% - that is perfectly fine. so somethin happens while iOS 9.1 is online.

again: this week, 9.2 is supposed to come out, and i keep my fingers crossed.

thanks everybody for your help.

IOS 9.2 beta didn't help. Went to the apple store today. Battery all fine. Apple kindly replaced the phone. Happy customer again 🙂

I have seen the same problem since upgrading to 9.1

My usage of the phone didn't change that day, but all of a sudden I find my phone battery barely lasting the day - when previously it would last 24 hours easily.

The means there must be something different about IOS 9.1 and therefore it must be something that Apple should investigate, instead of unleashing their army of willing soothsayers that like to blame the users.

I don't expect to have to go through and change all my settings after an update to avoid this battery problem. I can't change the brightness of the screen or I won't be able to read anything. And why should iCloud keychain have any effect on battery life? Only if Apple screwed up on that.

Yesterday I did a reset, and then I swiped up on every app that was in background mode, and left the phone on the side. Still the battery drained faster than it used to. So it's not Facebook or anything else - it's something in the basic IOS that is draining the battery.

I looked at the release notes for IOS 9.1 and there is nothing in there that points to something that I should have done to avoid this problem.

So I expect Apple to address this issue.

In the meantime I have discovered another problem with my iPhone: I tried to turn it off over night because of the high battery drain, but it didn't work. Immediately after turning it off it always turns itself on again automatically. A search in the internet has shown that some other users have this problem too – together with a high loss in battery life and unconnected to any software update. For some of them it helped just to clean the dock connector with a toothbrush – for me it didn't. But I'll try to replace the dock connector and the battery – maybe it's not linked to the update after all and it was a big coincidence in my case...

I haven't yet done extensive troubleshoting, but all 4 iOS devices in my household are showing the same sort of issue reported by the original poster. That's 2 iPhone 6es, an iPad mini 2 and an iPad mini 3. I have a much harder time believing it's a device-specific issue when it happens to *all* of them.

Last update:

I have restored my iPhone as a new phone and created a new iCloud account. Problem still occurs. So I phoned to Apple, and all diagnostics were fine (especially, battery is fine). They have no solution for my problem (but my device is about 5 years old).

Maybe if the majority of concerned people try to call the assistance and perform a check which shows off their device is fine, the problem will be corrected faster. At least not ignored. Please be patient: it took nearly 1H for me.

Keep in mind that Apple is sometime slow to assume the problem is from their own: graphic cards on MBP, screen ghost, Antennagate, yellow spot on Apple Watches screens...

Replacing of dock connector (and battery) solved my problem – now everything's fine again and the battery lasts 3 days. Usage time >>> standby time.