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iPod touch Battery draining badly overnight on TWO 4th Gens

sracer said:
It's not a hardware issue. It is related to iOS 4.1 under certain conditions. Try some of the suggestions in this thread before replacing it... you might be replacing it with one that has other issues (like light-leaking).
Click to expand...

I did my own set of tests for it. I restored it as new and synced all her music, apps, movies, etc. on it. I killed ALL apps in the multitasking bar, had push off and fetch to 30mins (I had no email account set up on it though), and flipped on airplane mode.

Like I mentioned above, the battery would usually drain 50+% over night, no apps in the multitasking bar, but wifi still running. Now that I tried airplane mode and the battery didn't even drain enough for me to notice a difference.

I know others have mentioned it, but (at least with my situation) this isolates the battery issue to wifi. I have an iPad running the latest software and leave wifi on all night and it drains maybe 1%. I have an iPhone 4 with fetch on 30 minutes running the exact same software as the iPod Touch 4G (4.1) and that drains maybe 1-2% over night.

I understand we have concluded it's possible software issue, but if that's the case then why isn't my iPhone 4 having the same issue?

I'm just trying to help rule out all possible catalysts to the problem. For me, I'd prefer not to make an hour long trip and spend 20 bucks in gas plus tolls to go have a genius replace it again just to (more than likely) have the same issue, possibly more, like you mentioned.
 
Statusnone88 said:
I did my own set of tests for it. I restored it as new and synced all her music, apps, movies, etc. on it. I killed ALL apps in the multitasking bar, had push off and fetch to 30mins (I had no email account set up on it though), and flipped on airplane mode.

Like I mentioned above, the battery would usually drain 50+% over night, no apps in the multitasking bar, but wifi still running. Now that I tried airplane mode and the battery didn't even drain enough for me to notice a difference.

I know others have mentioned it, but (at least with my situation) this isolates the battery issue to wifi. I have an iPad running the latest software and leave wifi on all night and it drains maybe 1%. I have an iPhone 4 with fetch on 30 minutes running the exact same software as the iPod Touch 4G (4.1) and that drains maybe 1-2% over night.

I understand we have concluded it's possible software issue, but if that's the case then why isn't my iPhone 4 having the same issue?

I'm just trying to help rule out all possible catalysts to the problem. For me, I'd prefer not to make an hour long trip and spend 20 bucks in gas plus tolls to go have a genius replace it again just to (more than likely) have the same issue, possibly more, like you mentioned.
Click to expand...
The iPhone 4 is not an iPod Touch that is why it is not having the same issue.

As I mentioned above, it APPEARS (I don't know for sure) that some of the network/connectivity settings aren't activated until a reboot is done of the device.

The steps that worked for me in resolving my battery drain issue:
  • Settings -> Mail -> Fetch New Data -> Off
  • Reboot the device (simultaneously press and hold the home and sleep buttons for 10 seconds)

I've left location services on and notifications on. All is well.
 
skype update

Latest update now gives option to go offline after various periods, when running in background.

Go to settings and Skype
then can set Go Offline
Immediately
60 mins
30 mins
15 mins
Never

Hope this helps
 
possible fix -- please try and respond

I think I have figured out the issue. Please give this a try and let everyone know if it works or not. This is not necessarily a fix, but a workaround that DOES NOT include restoring, resetting, disabling wifi, push, etc, or using airplane mode.

I have troubleshooted my iPod touch (2G) and my wife's (3G) which have been having the battery drain issue. The Apple Store's solution was to swap out my wife's iPod touch with a "new" (probably just a refurb) one. But we had the same problems and we DID NOT restore from backup but set it up as a new iPod touch.

So, what I think the issue is, is that after the update to the new iOS4 (and all variants including 4.1), there is a firmware issue that the iPod touches do not work well with WPA2 encrypted wireless networks and results in massive battery drains. I disabled my WPA2 encryption and switched to WPA and so far, our batteries are working just fine. PLEASE TRY THIS AND REPORT BACK so we can know what the problem is and for Apple to get off their lazy butts and fix this problem with 4.2.
 
trunksbyu said:
I think I have figured out the issue. Please give this a try and let everyone know if it works or not. This is not necessarily a fix, but a workaround that DOES NOT include restoring, resetting, disabling wifi, push, etc, or using airplane mode.

I have troubleshooted my iPod touch (2G) and my wife's (3G) which have been having the battery drain issue. The Apple Store's solution was to swap out my wife's iPod touch with a "new" (probably just a refurb) one. But we had the same problems and we DID NOT restore from backup but set it up as a new iPod touch.

So, what I think the issue is, is that after the update to the new iOS4 (and all variants including 4.1), there is a firmware issue that the iPod touches do not work well with WPA2 encrypted wireless networks and results in massive battery drains. I disabled my WPA2 encryption and switched to WPA and so far, our batteries are working just fine. PLEASE TRY THIS AND REPORT BACK so we can know what the problem is and for Apple to get off their lazy butts and fix this problem with 4.2.
Click to expand...
Sounds like that might be the solution for some. I wasn't using WPA2 or WPA when I had the battery drain issue.
 
could you try WPA? i haven't tried WEP, but WPA2 sucked my battery dry. maybe WEP is the same? just a guess as i really have no idea, but changing to WPA worked for me without changing anything else (wifi on, push on, multitasking apps on <- wife's only, mine is a 2nd gen)

Statusnone88 said:
Same thing, on WEP because no one around here would try to access my router anyway.
Click to expand...
 
trunksbyu said:
could you try WPA? i haven't tried WEP, but WPA2 sucked my battery dry. maybe WEP is the same? just a guess as i really have no idea, but changing to WPA worked for me without changing anything else (wifi on, push on, multitasking apps on <- wife's only, mine is a 2nd gen)
Click to expand...
It's not WPA or WEP or WPA2 that was the issue for me. I simply changed the email push option to off and rebooted the device. Turning off the option alone was not enough. I had to reboot. I no longer have the battery drain issue.
 
trunksbyu said:
could you try WPA? i haven't tried WEP, but WPA2 sucked my battery dry. maybe WEP is the same? just a guess as i really have no idea, but changing to WPA worked for me without changing anything else (wifi on, push on, multitasking apps on <- wife's only, mine is a 2nd gen)
Click to expand...

When I get a chance, I could definitely try a different router security and see if it makes a difference. For me, turning off push and rebooting did not help.
 
I have had an extremely hard time with my 32gb 2nd gen touch. It was working great until I installed 4.0, and right now 4.1 is not any better.

I can charge it to 100%, unplug it and put it to sleep and the battery will be gone within 8 hours. Listening to music gives me less than 45 minutes. The battery gets so drained that my MBP won't even charge it, and I have to plug it into the wall to bring it back to life.

I've restored it and tried turning off the wifi. And I'm not using the network types mentioned above.
 
I think I really have it fixed this time

I posted a month ago about problems with my 4th Gen iPod Touch battery life. Definitely wifi related. I've since sent it to apple. They returned it after flashing it and saying they couldn't reproduce (which matches my original results after flashing it myself). 2 days later it was happening again. I happened to be in Minneapolis and went to a genius bar there. The guy was very nice, but didn't have an answer. After 2 days up there, I realized that my wifi was much better at the apple store and in my hotel. I came home and did a few more tests (realizing that my issues were always at night, and always on my home wifi). Tried no encryption, which some suggested, and then, on a whim, updated the firmware on the router.

I've now been running 5 days with significantly better results. Charging every 2 days (with average usage), losing nearly nothing at night. This is the best I've seen yet. I'm pretty confident there was some kind of incompatibility with my router. Yes, it was odd luck that a firmware update came out in the last 2 months, and I really can't give details on what the real problem was. My guess is that the iPod was making requests through the night (checking mail?) and it wasn't successful, which threw it for a loop.

My router is a new (albeit cheap) Rosewill RNX-EasyN4 router. I flashed the firmware to Ver 1.1.0.39. I really hope this helps someone. Apple has some kind of incompatibility with this router. My guess is there's more. Try out another router and see if that helps.

-Adam.
 
many possibilities - no one answer

While all of the solutions suggested sound feasible, there is always someone else who has tried that and it hasn't worked. I have a 2nd generation Touch that is 3 years old now. I NEVER had a problem with the battery draining overnight (with Push turned on and wifi on all the time) until the 4.0 software update.

When I went into the Mac store, the genius wouldn't even admit that I could be having such a problem only since the update. He insisted my battery must be defective, but then tested it and found it to be fine. Then he told me to turn of push and wifi.

The thing is, the problem is inconsistent. I leave wifi on all the time - I find I have no use for a device that requires me to keep turning it on and off. If I do, it's off when I need it and on when I don't want it to be and never really serving the purpose that I bought it for. Given that, sometimes the battery drains overnight and sometimes it lasts for 2-3 days. I too, had my theories - like if I was just using music the day before then no problem, but if I let my daughter play some of her preschool games, then it would drain. However, I just used music yesterday, and woke up to a dead Touch.

I think that something changed in update 4 and I wish that Apple would own up to that and research what is going on and put out a fix. I've thought about going back to v. 3, but honestly, don't think it's worth the hassle. Has anyone tried that and found a consistent solution?

Other questions: people say that multitasking is the problem and to close the open applications - but I don't have multi tasking on my 2nd gen, and as far as I can tell, there is no way to "close" an application. You can only press the button to go back to the main screen. Am I missing something?
 
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