Battery Drain Solution as affected by identityservices / Messages

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39 points

Battery Drain Solution as affected by identityservices / Messages

iOS9 Battery Drain - in relation to identityservices and Messages - affects IPhone, Watch and OS X Devices
Some people are having issues with battery drain on their iOS devices. We have two sets of iPhone (each a 6S+) / Watch combinations - each running the latest versions - 9.3.1 and 2.2 respectively. The battery drain on the Watch and iPhone was noticed about five days after the release of 9.3.1. I took the devices into the genius bar - they worked on them for three hours - doing many things to the watch — restoring it as new. They also reset all settings on the IPhone — all to no avail. Both devices had abnormal battery drain. They agreed to leave the ticket open since the issues were not resolved.
I found a post that suggested signing out of all services. I tried that on the first combination of iPhone and Watch. It seemed to clear the issue. Tried it a day later on the second phone - still very bad battery drain on the second set - it didn’t work. Various tests showed that the Watch by itself (matching iPhone not tuned on) did not drain - it drained only when the iPhone was on. And, the iPhone by itself drained.
Next step: I ran instruments from Xcode on the iPhone still having issues. I ran the activity monitor multiple times for various periods. The most recent run showed the system task: identityservices consuming over 5 HOURS CPU time in a 9 hour standby period. Safe to say that system task was draining the battery. The iOS log in the iPhone lists that task as consuming excessive CPU time - and that the thread causing it is related to a Messages store. I researched more and find that this system task seems to have created battery issues in other IOS version too.
I also found that the OS X version of that task (identityservicesd) was creating an inordinate number of error messages in the console log on two of our OS X devices (iMac and MacBook). It also ran the battery down on the laptop - quickly. Armed with that information I again instrumented the iPhone. I began shutting down each iOS device - (two iPhones and two iPads) one-by-one - when three of those devices were shut down the identityservices task dropped to minimal CPU usage - no longer at 50-90-105%. In addition the corresponding task on the OS X iMac and MacBook stopped spewing the error messages.
I re-booted each iOS device one-by-one after they were fully charged. The ‘runaway’ system task (identityservices) is back to very low usage. Battery life on the iPhones now - after being in standby mode for five hours - consuming very low “Usage.” Not actually doing much with the phones during that five hours. Previously Usage was almost equal to Standby time - it was a low ratio. Now it is a a very high ratio - about a 1 to 10. For those that like %’s - after five hours it is at 97%.
As to the watches - we are going to turn those and the IPhones back on soon and see how they do. I’ll post a report on those later in the day.
UPDATE: Watches are now running at normal battery levels.
The identityservicesd error messages on the OS X machines indicated that the error was associated with a particular “Machine ID” (not the same as the serial number shown in About). I’m going to see if I can track that number down to a specific device. I don’t know how to find the Machine ID’s on the iOS devices - or watches for that matter. Perhaps one of devices has an issue - more likely turning off all devices and re-booting them one-by-one cleared Messages caches.
I think some people may have the same issue - but perhaps do not realize it since they are used to a certain battery life level- or maybe they don’t have it as bad. In any event, I don’t think this particular system task should continue to run and consume high CPU when there is an issue.
I hope this note helps those few people that seem to have battery issues. This is not for everyone - I would consider the following to determine if it might help you.

Check your iOS log (Settings | Privacy | Diagnostics & Usage) for an entry that starts with: ExcResource_identityservicesd-2016-MM-DD . . .
If you have one or more of the above - chances are this may help you
Power off all IOS devices (and maybe your OS X devices too - not sure if that is necessary) and power them back on one by one.
Simple -- for us it has been very effective
My concern - this may happen again if the system tasks is not modified.

My plan is to to submit a bug report to Apple to document this behavior as son
For reference, here is an example of the messages that were continually (~ 5/sec) being generated in the OS X console log during the periods of high battery drain.
Apr 17 20:31:20 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] Received IDS message payload is empty, not delivering B4DAF3C4-515F-477B-943F-6CF3B92643BB com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys
Apr 17 20:31:20 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] No broadcast desired for command 227 topic com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys -- deleting message with guid B4DAF3C4-515F-477B-943F-6CF3B92643BB
Apr 17 20:31:41 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] Received IDS message payload is empty, not delivering 9542E416-5CC5-4377-B3D6-BB1444BD7FBC com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys
Apr 17 20:31:41 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] No broadcast desired for command 227 topic com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys -- deleting message with guid 9542E416-5CC5-4377-B3D6-BB1444BD7FBC
Apr 17 20:31:41 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] Received IDS message payload is empty, not delivering F9CE360D-9705-4DE6-8E5C-EBB930BCD62D com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys
Apr 17 20:31:41 XXX-MBP identityservicesd[288]: [Warning] No broadcast desired for command 227 topic com.apple.private.alloy.thumper.keys -- deleting message with guid F9CE360D-9705-4DE6-8E5C-EBB930BCD62D

iPhone 6s Plus, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on Apr 18, 2016 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

May 1, 2016 1:33 AM in response to robnbill

I have this same problem on my iPhone 6 running iOS 9.3.1. I haven't noticed any extra drain on my Apple Watch though. My iPhone battery life had been fine prior to today where it went from 100% to 0% after not being used for 8 1/2 hours. The only thing I did differently than any other day is add airtime to my phone (I'm using Tracfone's prepaid service). But this type of battery drain hasn't ever happened before.

It doesn't look like my iPad Air 2, 2014 MBPr, and 2013 iMac (all running the latest updates) seem to have any effect on my iPhone (and vice versa). My Apple Watch seems to have a minor effect on it, where the identityservices process will shoot up when the watch is initially connected and then things will settle back down with occasional changes, but nothing drastic or "abnormal" (when compared to the iPad).

One thing I did notice is that my older Apple Devices (a 2009 iMac and a 2008 MacBook Pro) send the identityservices process on my iPhone skyrocketing as soon as they're powered on and connected to wifi, and then once they're powered off the process goes back down. And that's with the iPhone locked, connected to Wifi with Bluetooth on, while connected to Instruments Activity Monitor. Turning my iPhone off and on again (several times) hasn't changed anything. Even after the phone died earlier the battery drain is still the same.

Thanks for all of your advice! I'm gonna try it out and see if I can get it working "normal" again. 🙂

I'm also going to try and restore my iPhone and set it up as new (not restoring from backup) since I restored it from a backup recently and thought there might've been problems with the backup I restored from since the phone was displaying incorrect numbers for the backup size and what was actually being backed up. I'll update this post to see if things change after restoring my iPhone.

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Answer 2

robnbill Author

Level 1

39 points

May 1, 2016 4:34 AM in response to Music7750

I've been doing more research on this issue. I found when identityservices task is is using very high cpu - there is a high, unusual, usage of data when on cellular. I charted it since this first started happening - and I can tell when I tried various things to get it to stop.

I found threads on this same issue back to early 2015 - It's unusual - not everyone has it - and I think some people have it and don't know they do.

It's a systemic issue tied to the cloud system - it's going out to the cloud - and it can affect any iOS or OS X device using the same Apple ID. How much? - I can only tell when on cellular for the iPhone - not when on wifi.

These are the things I or others tried along with the results:

Turned off all OS X and iOS devices and re-started each one-by-one. That worked for about a day and a half.
Re-stored one of our iPhones as a new device - picked it because I think that's where the issue first showed up. That has been working now for 8+ days - across all devices. In fact, battery life is extremely good on our iOS devices now.
Changing your Apple ID password via AppleID.Apple.com. I haven't needed to try this - but a number of people report it works - simple - worth a try.

There is another thread on this: Battery problem after update to IOS 9.3.1

If this starts up again I'll look in data usage - under System Services -- to see if I can figure out which area is using the data.

Please post what you choose to do and what the results are.

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Answer 3

May 1, 2016 1:16 PM in response to robnbill

I ended up restoring it and setting it up as a new device and it looks like the problems have been solved (hopefully permanently)! According to Instruments identityservices is no longer causing any issues, and my phone stays at around 8-10% CPU usage when locked with Background Refreshed turned off in settings. Hopefully it stays like this. It's only been about 11 hours though, so things could changed.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like any of the other devices in my household (a few iPhone 5s', a 5C, couple of 5th gen iPod Touches) have this problem. It's strange though, that this issue showed up completely at random with my iPhone 6. Hopefully Apple fixes this in later versions of iOS.

Thanks for your help!

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Answer 4

robnbill Author

Level 1

39 points

May 1, 2016 3:00 PM in response to Music7750

Great - and you're welcome. Our iPhones have been running really well since I restored one as new on the afternoon of 4/22. One comment I saw in a post from 2015 - the person seemed to be having the same issue. They turned off the iCloud sync of Safari - and the drain went away. While I'm glad what we have done seems to have worked - I want a permanent fix. I'm going to see if I can get back to the last Apple tier 3 person - I have her email - with additional info that I now know plus I'll point her to this thread -- another user that had the same issue. Maybe it will get passed to an engineer to look at.

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