iPhone 6 on iOS 9 drains my battery while in standby

[comics addict]

I updated to iOS 9 on my iPhone 6 and since then my usage and standby metrics are hardly an hour apart from each other. I have not change my usage nor settings on my phone since updating from iOS 8 on Wednesday evening. Have tried turning off background app refresh, Force quitting apps in the multitask view, rebooting the phone and calibrating my battery. Short of restoring and setting it up as new (something I just did less than two months ago) is there anything else you guys recommend I do? And is anyone else encountering this problem?

PS: I updated via iTunes downloading the ipsw file so I didn't go Over the Air.

 

[Armen]

I updated to iOS 9 on my iPhone 6 and since then my usage and standby metrics are hardly an hour apart from each other. I have not change my usage nor settings on my phone since updating from iOS 8 on Wednesday evening. Have tried turning off background app refresh, Force quitting apps in the multitask view, rebooting the phone and calibrating my battery. Short of restoring and setting it up as new (something I just did less than two months ago) is there anything else you guys recommend I do? And is anyone else encountering this problem?

PS: I updated via iTunes downloading the ipsw file so I didn't go Over the Air.

is iCloud doing something in the background? what does battery usage say?

 

[comics addict]

is iCloud doing something in the background? what does battery usage say?

It goes in line with my actual usage but when I select for it to display in time and minutes and I add them up it goes in line with my expectations but not along what 'actual' usage the phone claims. It's like there is a background process that goes not stop.

 

[sbailey4]

settings>general>reset>reset all settings,. Most likely that will fix it is known to solve various other issues between updates. It keeps your apps and data. Just have to reset wallpaper and any wifi networks, run through the settings to set up like you prefer. But its pretty quick and painless and does work most times.

 

[Ashin]

I'm glad Apple allowed us to see the actual screen time now - people can finally see their "usage" stats are inflated.

Finally all the times I have been called crazy for insisting iOS has tons of phantom usage are proven wrong.

 

[comics addict]

I opted to do a restore via iTunes with backup. If the issue still persists I'll have to bite the bullet and restore as new AGAIN :S I never thought I would say this on a forum but I miss the stability of iOS 6. My personal experience is two hit or miss with iOS since 7 two years back.

 

[Armen]

I opted to do a restore via iTunes with backup. If the issue still persists I'll have to bite the bullet and restore as new AGAIN :S I never thought I would say this on a forum but I miss the stability of iOS 6. My personal experience is two hit or miss with iOS since 7 two years back.

Hope your backup isn't the problem.

 

[comics addict]

Hope your backup isn't the problem.

You and me :/
Would hate to lose all my workout history from my Apple Watch due to this...

 

[comics addict]

I can update my situation in that on the short testing that I have done, I still get abnormal 'usage' readings from my iPhone running the public build of iOS 9 both having restored the phone from a backup using iTunes as well as new. I can only hope for a fix in the next update and God only know when that'll be :S

 

[teknikal90]

I can update my situation in that on the short testing that I have done, I still get abnormal 'usage' readings from my iPhone running the public build of iOS 9 both having restored the phone from a backup using iTunes as well as new. I can only hope for a fix in the next update and God only know when that'll be :S

thanks for following up.
having the same issue and was hoping a restore would fix.
thanks.

 

[comics addict]

thanks for following up.
having the same issue and was hoping a restore would fix.
thanks.

Can you please verify if by any chance the battery drain is due to excessive pinging of GPS by system services? That is the only thing left for me to troubleshoot thoroughly. I am seeing absurd amounts of requests for location notices.

 

[ed.]

I had a somewhat similar experience: I've installed a couple of iOS 9 betas in the past few months (I have access to the developer center), and went back to iOS 8 right away because of the terrible battery life. I've since installed the GM as an update by downloading the ipsw file and while performance was ok, I started to have the impression that the battery was draining especially when the phone was not in use, getting to less than 5 hours of usage per day. I then bit the bullet and tried a restore plus I've set up the phone as new, and after a couple of days I can say that the drain issue on standby is definitely gone, and I get close to 7 hours of usage per day.

 

[mpavilion]

Can you please verify if by any chance the battery drain is due to excessive pinging of GPS by system services? That is the only thing left for me to troubleshoot thoroughly. I am seeing absurd amounts of requests for location notices.

This may not be news, but I just noticed – in Settings > General > Privacy > Location Services (scroll to bottom) > System Services (scroll to bottom) – a "Product Improvement" switch called Routing & Traffic which was switched on and had recently used my location.

I don't recall this switch from before; is it something new? I switched it off...

 

[Mystic Eddy]

This may not be news, but I just noticed – in Settings > General > Privacy > Location Services (scroll to bottom) > System Services (scroll to bottom) – a "Product Improvement" switch called Routing & Traffic which was switched on and had recently used my location.

I don't recall this switch from before; is it something new? I switched it off...

It was previously just for traffic conditions. I guess it now interfaces with Maps when using GPS to reroute around traffic jams.

 

[mpavilion]

It was previously just for traffic conditions. I guess it now interfaces with Maps when using GPS to reroute around traffic jams.

My theory (since I haven't used Maps recently, but that "Product Improvement") switch showed recent activity) is that it was passively sending GPS data as I drove around, to gauge traffic etc. for the Maps severs (like Waze does, when you're using that app). But I dunno.

 

[comics addict]

I had a somewhat similar experience: I've installed a couple of iOS 9 betas in the past few months (I have access to the developer center), and went back to iOS 8 right away because of the terrible battery life. I've since installed the GM as an update by downloading the ipsw file and while performance was ok, I started to have the impression that the battery was draining especially when the phone was not in use, getting to less than 5 hours of usage per day. I then bit the bullet and tried a restore plus I've set up the phone as new, and after a couple of days I can say that the drain issue on standby is definitely gone, and I get close to 7 hours of usage per day.

I once again restored my iPhone but this time put back my data from my last backup since it didn't seem to be worth the hassle to start anew without any benefit so I'll keep an eye and see if after restoring it behaves better but I think I'll have to wait until a software update comes out

 

[ed.]

To give you some numbers: with the GM updated over 8.4 (and then with the official release, still updated and not restored and set up as new), I was getting around 5 hours usage and around 12-13 hours standby.
With the official release and the phone set up as new I'm getting almost 7 hours if usage and over 24 hours of standby (around 27-28), so there was definitely something going on with the standby drain.

 

[C DM]

To give you some numbers: with the GM updated over 8.4 (and then with the official release, still updated and not restored and set up as new), I was getting around 5 hours usage and around 12-13 hours standby.
With the official release and the phone set up as new I'm getting almost 7 hours if usage and over 24 hours of standby (around 27-28), so there was definitely something going on with the standby drain.

What device? Also iPhone 6?

 

[ed.]

Sorry, I didn't mention it: an iPhone 5s.

 

[JulianL]

I'm glad Apple allowed us to see the actual screen time now - people can finally see their "usage" stats are inflated.

Finally all the times I have been called crazy for insisting iOS has tons of ghost usage are proven wrong.

How do you get to that display? In the battery section of settings I still only see usage and standby numbers on my 5 running official release of iOS 9.0 so is this screen time in some other section of the Settings app?

I'm with you on the "ghost usage", I've even came up with a very similar term to refer to it ("phantom usage" in my case). I see it a lot because I only tend to use my phone when I'm out of the house and recharge it every other day so if I'm in working at home for a day it's not uncommon for my phone to show 24 hours of standby and something like 3.5 hours of usage even though I've never touched it for the whole 24 hours. I have background applications disabled, have location services off for all system activities, don't have iCloud or email set up, and have calendar and contacts set to manual fetch. I just do not understand what can be chewing up all that time on an iPhone that should literally be doing nothing except maintaining a connection with the phone mast (WiFi and Bluetooth also off and things like App Store told not to use mobile data).

My excessive phantom/ghost usage is on earlier iOS releases. I haven't had a chance to see what happens with iOS 9 because after my upgrade I did have a lot of real usage from playing around with the new release. I'm leaving my phone untouched for 24 hours now and am hoping that iOS 9 will be better but I'm not so hopeful based on this thread.

When Apple spoke about gains in battery life I was wondering whether a lot of that claimed gain was going to come from its developers hunting down where iOS unnecessarily woke up the phone to do housekeeping and generated this phantom usage. In my case I really do think it's iOS itself that is doing it because I've also tried killing all the apps from the multitasking screen before leaving my phone idle for 24 hours and I still get 3+ hours of phantom usage.

 

[Dex762]

settings>general>reset>reset all settings,. Most likely that will fix it is known to solve various other issues between updates. It keeps your apps and data. Just have to reset wallpaper and any wifi networks, run through the settings to set up like you prefer. But its pretty quick and painless and does work most times.

My iphone was bit lagged and the battery drain straightly all i do was reset all then when apple start up have a guess my iphone got stuck for like 20 min and thought that impossible something wasnt right and now at the moment im plug my iphone 6 to imac (restore and downloading again) it wasting my time all that crap

 

[Ashin]

How do you get to that display? In the battery section of settings I still only see usage and standby numbers on my 5 running official release of iOS 9.0 so is this screen time in some other section of the Settings app?

I'm with you on the "ghost usage", I've even came up with a very similar term to refer to it ("phantom usage" in my case). I see it a lot because I only tend to use my phone when I'm out of the house and recharge it every other day so if I'm in working at home for a day it's not uncommon for my phone to show 24 hours of standby and something like 3.5 hours of usage even though I've never touched it for the whole 24 hours. I have background applications disabled, have location services off for all system activities, don't have iCloud or email set up, and have calendar and contacts set to manual fetch. I just do not understand what can be chewing up all that time on an iPhone that should literally be doing nothing except maintaining a connection with the phone mast (WiFi and Bluetooth also off and things like App Store told not to use mobile data).

My excessive phantom/ghost usage is on earlier iOS releases. I haven't had a chance to see what happens with iOS 9 because after my upgrade I did have a lot of real usage from playing around with the new release. I'm leaving my phone untouched for 24 hours now and am hoping that iOS 9 will be better but I'm not so hopeful based on this thread.

When Apple spoke about gains in battery life I was wondering whether a lot of that claimed gain was going to come from its developers hunting down where iOS unnecessarily woke up the phone to do housekeeping and generated this phantom usage. In my case I really do think it's iOS itself that is doing it because I've also tried killing all the apps from the multitasking screen before leaving my phone idle for 24 hours and I still get 3+ hours of phantom usage.

Oh, I usually do refer to it as phantom usage

I ran some XCode Instruments to see process activity in iOS9, and it seems backboardd never sleeps when the phone is on standby - it idled between 0.5 and 1% usage, which adds to the CPU time non-stop. Interestingly this non-stop usage seems to keep other system processes running at 0.1% usage - all in all around 10 processes at 0.1% each, so we have around 2-3% cpu usage in idle. In comparison on 8.4.1 backboardd will idle to 0% with only small spikes between 0.2% and 0.3%, which briefly pulls other system processes into use at 0.1% - the CPU time doesn't constantly rise though.

The most common phantom usage bug I have encountered is mstreamd (related to iCloud Photo Stream). I would credit myself to finding this, but there are other people that noticed this too -

My Original post - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-7-1-battery-drain-merged.1715396/page-3#post-18882778
More technical people discussing it (MacRumors isn't famed for it's technical expertise) - - https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/28n3vn/solved_crazy_battery_drain_may_apply_to_other/
Some other guy's XCode logs - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6492952?start=0&tstart=0 (sadly the "expert" at the Apple site gave some typically useless advice for a question far beyond their technical knowledge)

A tl;dr mstreamd basically starts and stops in an endless loop regardless of whether Photos is enabled in iCloud, and can even persist with iCloud entirely removed - this causes a lot of phantom usage as the phone basically never sleeps as a consequence.

Sad thing is - this has been around, documented, discussed, for well over a year (year and a half since my original post), and it still exists (I'd be willing to bet it exists in iOS9).

I'm also willing to bet this mstreamd bug is the cause of a great majority of people's hot phones/terrible battery/lagging.

Before I get jumped on by Apple apologists - go download XCode yourself, and run Instruments process monitor.

 

[JulianL]

Oh, I usually do refer to it as phantom usage

I ran some XCode Instruments to see process activity in iOS9...

The most common phantom usage bug I have encountered is mstreamd (related to iCloud Photo Stream). I would credit myself to finding this, but there are other people that noticed this too -

My Original post - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-7-1-battery-drain-merged.1715396/page-3#post-18882778
More technical people discussing it (MacRumors isn't famed for it's technical expertise) - - https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/28n3vn/solved_crazy_battery_drain_may_apply_to_other/
Some other guy's XCode logs - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6492952?start=0&tstart=0 (sadly the "expert" at the Apple site gave some typically useless advice for a question far beyond their technical knowledge)
...
Sad thing is - this has been around, documented, discussed, for well over a year (year and a half since my original post), and it still exists (I'd be willing to bet it exists in iOS9).

I'm also willing to bet this mstreamd bug is the cause of a great majority of people's hot phones/terrible battery/lagging.
...

Thanks Ashin. I'm glad I asked my question because that's a whole load of interesting information that you replied with.

My phantom usage does seem to be less with iOS 9 installed. I've had my iPhone 5 off the charger for over 24 hours now. Since being off the charger I've only hit the home button maybe 3 or 4 times to take a peek at the battery percentage, didn't even swipe-to-unlock it on any of those occasions, so maybe 4 x 30 seconds plus a minute just now to actually unlock and look at the usage stats = 3 minutes total genuine (as opposed to phantom) usage.

Having just unlocked my phone to look at the battery stats in settings it is showing 51 mins usage and 28 hours 16 mins standby. That's a lot better than the 2 to 3 hours of phantom usage that I would typically have seen with iOS 8.4.1 but still disappointingly high for a phone that really should be doing nothing at all as far as usage is concerned. There's currently 78% battery remaining by the way on an iPhone 5 phone/battery that's just a few days over 2 years old. iOS 9 does seem a bit better on phone battery life than iOS 8.4.1 was; it's certainly way better on my iPad Air and has probably added at least an hour to my usage time if not more - more experiments needed there.

I suppose if I'm going to be optimistic maybe at least it's good to know that there is scope for Apple to reduce standby drain further, at least for people who like me don't want much auto-updating stuff like automatic photo/app/ibook/etc syncing enabled.

 

[ed.]

I think the definition of 'usage' is not only when the screen is on, but also when a certain class of activities are being executed with the screen off (and honestly I would not know where to set the line there).
For example a few days ago I've noticed that the Facebook app tends to put together enormous amounts of background execution, I got maybe 40 minutes of background even with a couple of minutes of onscreen time, with background update set to off. Digging a bit deeper, I've found that background updates are something different than background execution: which is when the app has some tasks to complete after you leave it or (in Facebook's case), when it's listed as a VOIP app: this gives some more rights to wake the system and check stuff that are not related to the 'background update' setting.
Btw between yesterday and today I've got 9 hours of usage on my 5s with 15% battery left, and I've left the phone disconnected overnight.

 

[JulianL]

I think the definition of 'usage' is not only when the screen is on, but also when a certain class of activities are being executed with the screen off (and honestly I would not know where to set the line there).

I agree entirely, both with usage not being defined solely as screen-on time and also in confessing that I too wouldn't know where to set the line. I do think though that in my case, because of how I have my phone set up, I really struggle to think of any activity except one that really has an excuse to burn main CPU cycles.

I would hope that simply maintaining connection with the nearest phone mast and waking the main CPU (and iOS) when something happens would all be kept within whatever (probably) Qualcomm chip is responsible for that. Similarly I would hope that the monitoring for a press on the various buttons would be done either with no CPU involvement (external hardware sending an interupt to the SoC on keypress) or with such minimal usage as to not materially affect the readings. The only other activity I can think of is a clock interrupt doing regular wakeups to check alarms but again I would hope that activity in minor.

Now you push me though, in fairness the one possible consumer of usage that I can think of on my phone is that I do have Find My Phone enabled. Maybe that is clocking up usage time on the stats by pro actively reporting my phone's position every now and then. Or maybe someone has my password for my AppleID and is stalking me by polling my phone's position multiple times an hour . The latter is unlikely I think but for my next experiment I will disable Find My Phone for a day or so to see if that makes a difference.

Just to head off one comment that I've seen posted on these forums a few times in the past - "why do you bother having a smart phone if you turn so much stuff off?" - this is genuinely how I prefer to run my phone. I don't like things pushed down to my phone all the time, stuff purchased on other devices automatically downloaded onto my phone, and I like having my phone as an email-free zone when I'm out and about; I can check my emails when I get back home. I prefer to keep complete control of what goes on my phone and when so this locked-down minimalist set up really is what works best for me with the happy side effect that it should in theory also maximise my battery life.