Newsroom Update

Apple is introducing a new Apple Watch Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop, matching watch face, and dynamic iOS and iPadOS wallpapers as a way to champion global movements to protect and advance equality for LGBTQ+ communities. Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

IPad Air Battery Drain After 9.2.1 Update :(

SInce updating to 9.2.-, my trusty iPad Air's battery life seems to be screwed.

I think I was on IOS 8 or something before, when Bookmarks were still on the right, instead of being now on the left, as they used to be with my very first iPad. Whatever, the battery drain is ridiculous now.

I've searched for solutions, and have done the hard restart thing (power button and home button,mApple logo, restart, etc) more times than I can count, and have applied all the battery saving tips I can find ((changing email to manual fetch instead of push, switching off motion, turning off auto updates, app refresh, etc) to no avail 😟

What's bothering me the most is that even when it's plugged in and charging, if I'm using it, the battery is still visibly draining.

Reluctant to to a computer backup and a whole reset from scratch, last resort, obvs.

So does anyone here have the answer? Or are we supposed to wait for Apple to orovide another fix to sort it out?

Any advice or suggestions gratefully received, I don't want to risk rolling back to IOS 9 or 9.1 either - from what I've seen online, there were just as many battery drain issues with those, too.

Come on, Apple! This just isn't good enough! My iPad has lost 3% just writing this! Whilst plugged in!

According to the battery useage thing in settings, 85% of it is down to Safari. My Safari useage hasn't changed at all.

CAn't find a really appropriate place that Apple are giving me an option to post this to, so sticking it under the Safari option as all else has nothing to do with my bsttery issue, there wasn't anything remotely applicable under "software update" - that was about Windows! If anyone can tell me a better place to put this, I'd be grateful. Newbie on this forum :/

Thanks for reading,

Angel153

iPad Air, iOS 9.2.1, Battery Drain Even When Plugged In

Posted on Jan 23, 2016 12:53 PM

25 replies

Feb 4, 2016 10:43 AM in response to angel_153

Latest updated has created some issue. My battery went to 2% in less than 48 hours on standby. I'm below 25% by noon with typical use. Never a problem before 9.2.1, so you know a bug was introduced. Safari is the main drain, according to the preference pane. Will file a bug with Apple and hope for a fix.

Feb 4, 2016 6:25 PM in response to angel_153

Hi Angel153,

Thanks for responding and I've been sick the past week and have not logged onto my laptop. I've tried the battery reset as you suggested above and it hasn't worked for me. I followed your instructions explicitly, and turned on the iPad last night, and after an hour, it was down to 89% again. I've even deleted all apps except for two from the device, but to no avail. I'm going to try it again, but not feeling too confident that it will work. I will post back in a couple of days and let you know.

Thanks again!!

Cheers,

Meremaide101

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 5, 2016 2:29 AM in response to Meremaide101

Hi Meremaide,

Hope yr feeling better now, being sick is no fun.

If the battery reset didn't fix it, it may be something else. I think you should speak to a Senior iOS Advisor asap. Numbers etc on web site, they'll call u if u give them a number to call. They call whenever u want them to. I went for the Now option, Lol.

Is yr battery draining while it's plugged in and charging? That's what mine was doing - very alarming.

Good luck with it, let us knw how u get on. Sounds like yr battery has been more badly affected - how old is it, and how was it be having before the 9.2.1 update?

Angel153 X

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 5, 2016 2:48 AM in response to David J. Downs

Hi David,

It's not a bug, per se, or else EVERYONE with the update would be having the same problem, and it's only affecting SOME of us.

As my previous post, it only takes a nano-second of one or other server dropping out, or yr internet connection, to cause problems with ANY download.

The code in 9.2.1 is complex, and I guess it got interrupted during my download, which was what was causing my battery drain.

Mine also said Safari was using 85% of my battery power. Ridiculous.

Suggest you try the battery reset as above. Meremaide hasn't had any luck with it, but it fixed mine, and others too. If all else fails, contact Apple Support, and insist they acknowledge it as a problem caused by the update. BTW, everyone should do the battery reset thing once a month to prolong battery life.

Good luck, look let me knw how u get on,

Angel153

PS Meremaide, u cld try the battery reset again, leaving it at zero and having powered itself down to Off, for as long as poss, then charging to 100% WITHOUT USING IT AT ALL, then leaving it for another 2 hours on top (lithium polymer batteries are NOT harmed by leaving them plugged in, they stop drawing power once they're full, so u cannot overcharge them.) U cld also try a hard reset - hold down Power and Home buttons together until the Apple logo appears (about 15 secs). That's worked for some people, too. Some users report that it took several hard resets to get things normal again. It cld be the same with the battery reset, I don't knw for sure, but it seems possible. Let me knw how you get on.

Angel153 X

Feb 5, 2016 9:59 AM in response to angel_153

Hi Angel_153,

Thanks. Feeling better as of today. :-)

When I called Apple Support, I did hit the "Now" button (HAA!) which is how I got them to respond so quickly also. Then after the rep had no solution for me, I found this chat area on Apple Support and found the thread with your suggestion for the fix. My iPad is years old, but I've never had an issue with any other update except 9.2.1. That said, I always leave my Pad charging and only unplug it when in use. I'm aware of the different batteries and the fallacies about leaving devices plugged in and what it might do to the batteries.

I'm going to try your suggestion again and let my iPad drain down to 0%, then plug it in for several days, etc. I will let you know sometime next week if it finally fixes the issue. If not, I'm sure that Apple will eventually come up with yet another fix for this issue.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Meremaide

Feb 8, 2016 10:37 PM in response to Meremaide101

HI,

I have an iPad Air and have been having the same problem so I read your advice and battery just ran out and turned it self off so fingers crossed this will do the trick it I will follow your other advice and call Apple. My iPad it attached to my right halmost 24/7 and the fact it is plugged in and suppose to be charging while I am using it and I watch the battery slowly drain away is so frustrating. I even have a MacBook Pro 15" that I purchased two years ago that I have maybe used a total of 80-100 hours because I just am more comfortable with my iPad. I was surprised that you mentioned we should have 3GB for it to really preform the best but that's so hard when you only have 16GB, at least it is for me. I have been trying now to back up it up along with my iPhone 6 now at least every few weeks. I am now out of cloud storage, for me iCloud is still such a mystery, so I noticed the other day how to download the app to my devices to check and see what is actually in there. Well to my utter suprise, there was one file and one file only that came from a text message and that was it! How can that be when over a year ago I purchased extra iCloud space, my phone and iPad are saying they can't backup to it because there is no storage, I just don't get it? Believe me I really am Apple operating dumb, I was only really good and could find my way and understand the Microsoft XL OS, hinestly that's probably the reason I don't utilize my Macbook like I should. I also have a Toshiba 27" touchscreen that is now Windows 10 and I just started playing with that and the 10 has me lost and feeling pc in general just dumb because just to find the control panel on it to me forever. Anyway my plan is to try not to touch my iPad for 4-5 hours, i hope that's overnight enough, then plug in and let it charge and then let it stay plugged in for another two hours. Oh, one of the things I would do to help it charge quicker since I'm very impatient, was to put on airplane mode. I suppose that is not recommended when I plug it back in right if the purpose is to reset or just straighten out this dam battery issue. If you think it would be though if you could post that and I will follow up tomorrow night with a post hopefully saying that all is well and back to normal, for the ipad anyway. Thanks for all your time and effort trying to help resolve this.

MIchelle

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 8, 2016 11:33 PM in response to Meremaide101

Meremaide, how are you getting on?

Angel153

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 8, 2016 11:51 PM in response to Irishlass.

Hi Irish Lass,

Wow, do you speak without any full-stops or comma's, too? Lol!

Sorry yr having the same battery drain issue. Yes, it IS alarming to see the battery draining even while it's plugged in.

You MUST use it until it powers itself off, and then leave it for as long as poss, like 8-12 hours, not only 4 or 5, before plugging it in again. Also, using Flight Mode won't hurt it, I don't think it will make a massive difference to the time it takes to charge, but it shouldn't hurt it.

But PLEASE, don't use it AT ALL UNTIL IT HAS FULLY CHARGED TO 100%, PLUS ANOTHER COUPLE OF HOURS. I understand yr impatience, but if you want to fix this, yr going to have to be patient, Irishlass!

Re the cloud - is a mystery to me, too. But if you've only one file and it seems to be taking up a huge amount of space, something's not right. It could be something called Ghost Data using up space on yr iPad - I had 2.2GB of email, according to mine, but after I deleted then re-added my email accounts (make sure you have yr passwords to re-input), it mysteriously went down to 782MB, which freed up nearly 2GB. Astonishing. And it was this Ghost Data. I had it before, when I first had a 16GB iPad and took my iTunes off it because of the sheer lack of space. It didn't free up any more space until I'd done a hard reset (home and power buttons held down until Apple logo appears), then it was fine.

I think you should talk to Apple support about the Cloud issue.

Be patient with resetting yr iPad battery - we're all supposed to do this battery rest once a month on every iOS device we have, so best get used to it! And you have another Mac computer, u lucky thing, so step away from the iPad while it's being empty and powered down, and while it's recharging :-)

Good luck, and let me know how you go.

Angel153.

Feb 9, 2016 12:32 AM in response to angel_153

HI angel_153

Sorry for my proper use of grammar I can get on a roll so I'm told. I will be patient and wait 8 hours since I started anyway. This is the reset you mentioned in your previous post? i wanted to ask you about that and forgot. Maybe because I don't sleep much that seems like a lot. I did back up, reset, then downloaded the backup from iTunes on my Mac a few months ago and did get rid of a lot of other, believe it or not it was 7.4, I know bad. Email I'm bad two as I have a few accounts so its up to 3000 pieces and that's just inbox. I do use my email to save a lot of things also so I need to clean it out. I use mymail, an app I like for mail much better. Since I do have a hotmail account, it is such a nightmare every time I have to log back it as it never takes the correct password again. i am going to do that on my phone and that will help with much needed storage space. I have come very close, actually right before christmas it was ordered, back ordered of Verizon, but had to cancel 2 days before it was to ship but almost had my iPad pro 128GB wifi and cellular. purchasing through them on sale it was only going to be $875 or so and just couldn't beat it. Checked last week and of course sale over. That is what I really need for space as I don't have many apps. As a matter of fact, only had orginal apps on it prior to resetting and still no room because of "other". also my icloud back file was only a few lines from a text message and today still reads full. Thanks again for all your help and will wait the suggested time.

angel_153 Author

Level 1

13 points

Feb 9, 2016 2:31 AM in response to Irishlass.

HI Irishlass,

FIrstly, no apologies needed!

RIght. Whilst I fully relate to the not getting much sleep thing, it is absolutely imperative that you drain your iPad battery DOWN AS FAR AS POSSIBLE.

This means running until it switches itself off, at which point it still has about 2% battery power remaining. You then need to leave it like that for, e.g., 5pm until 7am, something like that (and yes, it was me who made an earlier post that I made about battery resetting). Then you plug it in and LEAVE IT WITHOUT USING IT AT ALL (you can open it to check the charge status, just don't do anything on it) until it shows 100%. Then leave it AT LEAST 2 MORE HOURS, to be sure the battery really is totally full (Apple told me this).

Doing that should re-start what Apple call "battery cycling", so this is why it should fix this glitch so many of us have had. It literally resets the way the the battery runs its cycles. You must have had a bad download, like the rest of us with this issue. To be fair, this 9.2.1 update is the first update that has caused me this battery drain issue, others have been fine.

Re your email - mine is currently over 7,000 (7 THOUSAND) emails, and is taking up 757MB (Apples iBooks app, with zero books init, takes up more than that, at 825MB).

You can check to see how much space your iPad thinks is taken up with email by going to Settings>General>Storage>Manage Storage. It will give you a list that tells you how much space it thinks every single app is taking up, starting with the biggest space-hogger (Mine is now photos at 1.2GB).

Before I deleted then reinstalled my emails (hotmail, gmail), I had over 17,000 emails and it said that they took up 2.2GB of space (I totally agree with you about it being nigh on impossible to keep 3GB free on a 16GB iPad, especially since there is only actually 12GB free for us to use after Apple had filled it with iOS and apps). I painstakingly manually deleted about 10,000 emails, tooke four days, and it didn't increase my available storage at all. Deleting then reinstating my email accounts did free up a LOT of storage, so I'm a lot happier on that score :-) 2.2GB to 752MB is amassive difference!

Re Cloud storage - Cloud does backup your whole iPad, so it might be that, but speak to support and have them check. My Cloud storage isn't anywhere near full to its free 5GB limit, think it uses 3.5GB to back up everything - it compresses info, so don't expect it to reflect your used space on your iPad. I know this because I queried it with Apple. I said, "If I had 12GB used on my Pad, and it's only taking up 3.5GB in the Cloud, what's happening? Is it not backing up everything? What's going on?" And they said it was down to compression. Which is cool, because I'm certainly noy about to pay for extra Cloud storage!

i am also thinking about getting a bigger iPad (both of mine have been birthday/Christmas gifts, lucky for me, and only 16GB'ers) but I'd really love the 128GB wi fi only iPad Air with the new anti-glare screen. Think they're around £479, so that will have to wait a while yet :-)

irishlass, you HAVE to be patient while you're resetting the battery - Apple told me it's something we ALL NEED TO DO ABOUT ONCE A MONTH WITH iOS BATTERIES. So, my lovely, you're going to have to get used to it!

BTW, can I ask, re no sleep - do you have fibromyalgia? Are you insomniac with other health issues? Hope you don't mind me asking, but I may be able to advise you on that, too :-)

Angel153 X

IPad Air Battery Drain After 9.2.1 Update :(