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MacRumors Site/Forums Causing Battery Drain?

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So I started running into this recently. I’ve been using the forum a lot more over the past week as I’ve been waiting for my new iPhone to arrive, so I’m not sure if the problem started recently or if I only just noticed it because I’ve been using the forum more.

In any case, I tried two ad blockers… 1Blocker and AdGuard and neither seemed to be making a difference for me… the phone would still overheat.

I finally closed the safari tab with macrumors and then opened a new tab and went back to macrumors and that finally fixed the problem.

So just as a PSA, close the tab or maybe even better yet, restart safari after installing the adblocker.
 
Have not tried it myself yet, but I think MacRumors has a PWA - Progressive Web App - that you can install on iOS and Android. PWA's run independently from Safari, so I wonder if it would have fewer problems with overheating? Has anybody tried this? On iOS you should be able to install by opening the site in Safari then going to Share and selecting "add to home screen".

PWA's do not work in Safari on MacOS, but can be used in Chrome, Edge and (I think) Firefox and Opera.
 
Boyd01 said:
Have not tried it myself yet, but I think MacRumors has a PWA - Progressive Web App - that you can install on iOS and Android. PWA's run independently from Safari, so I wonder if it would have fewer problems with overheating? Has anybody tried this? On iOS you should be able to install by opening the site in Safari then going to Share and selecting "add to home screen".

PWA's do not work in Safari on MacOS, but can be used in Chrome, Edge and (I think) Firefox and Opera.
Click to expand...
That’s not really an app. It’s just a bookmark to the site.
 
Just tried.... looks like you're right, it does only install as a bookmark. I've been working on my own very complex PWA for about a year, it's possible to make a web app run independently if you set it up properly but that does not seem to be the case here.
 
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MrAperture said:
Both my iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPad Mini 5 both get really warm when browsing MR.
Click to expand...
With every iOS device I have, it instantly thermals near the battery controller, [which would be towards the top near the camera module sensor]. What’s happening is, the battery controller is losing regulation, which causes the overheating, which starts at the top and then slowly will trickle towards the processor unit.

It’s all because of their ads, and I installed ad guards on everything to stop the issue. I enjoy this site, but I’m not paying to be a contributor to prohibit my devices from spiked thermals because of ad-ware.

**FYI, I’ve noticed this started occurring back in July 2021. I have like a total of [9] iOS devices, and this occurs on every one of them.**

However, there is one _slight_ work around that temporary will slow the thermal progression, and that’s activating -low power- mode if applicable.

Edit:

Yes, I am up-to-date on all of my iOS.
 
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[Edited: Originally, I thought this had just been fixed. Seems to not be the case.]

2018 15" MBP here. Always have high utilisation of two cores when I'm on this site. This site seems to use anywhere between 10W and 30W all on its own.

Doesn't seem to matter if I use an ad blocker or not, still unjustifiably high power draw.
 
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We have a thread going here
forums.macrumors.com

Battery Dropping iPhone 13 pro

I've noticed that it tends to be Macrumor forums only that causes not only my phone to get hot/overheat, when it really heats up it drops the brightness too. Again only happens on this forum. Checked the battery and its Safari that kills it. I'll see how it goes and possibly return it - never...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

A lot of us are noticing extreme battery drain due to overheating when on this site. It’s happening on my iPhone 12 and 13.
 
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imaginex20 said:
We have a thread going here
forums.macrumors.com

Battery Dropping iPhone 13 pro

I've noticed that it tends to be Macrumor forums only that causes not only my phone to get hot/overheat, when it really heats up it drops the brightness too. Again only happens on this forum. Checked the battery and its Safari that kills it. I'll see how it goes and possibly return it - never...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

A lot of us are noticing extreme battery drain due to overheating when on this site. It’s happening on my iPhone 12 and 13.
Click to expand...
Yep. Will be talking to our ad network again this week to try to see what else we can do.
 
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In the meanwhile I've made a change that should help. Forum ads for logged in users stop loading after a number of page views. It's a temporary patch, but it should reduce the issue for people who are on the forums for long periods of time. I presume it's most noticeable for those who spend a lot of time on the forums.
 
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I'd read these threads before, but it was never an issue for me as I always access the forums on my iMac. Earlier today I accessed the MacRumors forums via Safari on my iPhone, and within 3-4 minutes my phone was already getting noticeably hotter. Immediately prior, I had spent several hours on another forum pertaining to one of my other hobbies, which also uses Xenforo, and had no heat issues at all there. I've accessed that forum many, many times on my XS and now my 13 Pro, spent several hours on it many times, and never once have I felt my phone heat up (using Safari on both iOS 14 and 15, no content blockers or add-ons installed). I'm also on a couple other forums which use vBulletin, and never had them heat my phone up either. It does seem to be unique to MacRumors, at least in my experience.

Hopefully the temporary patch @arn implemented this afternoon will help with the problem.
 
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This patch does seem to be in effect, spent a while on the site via iPad and this time no major drain or heat issues. I have stopped using this site on my iPad in recent months due to this issue but this is better.

I do not think this is a Xenforo issue, rather some issues with ads. I remain on Xenforo in the Paradox forums, even with ads there are no issues with that site or any others I have used regularly.

What does seem to be odd to me however, trying to use content blockers on the iPad failed to make a difference, but using adblock on my iMac did reduce the CPU consumption of the site greatly. Wonder why that is.
 
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Hey @arn and all.

I have had this exact same issue on my iPhone 12 Mini running iOS 14.x and 15. Same issue on my new 13 Pro on iOS 15.

Will look into how you can profile an iOS device, but until then I did some brief checks on my Windows Desktop running Chrome. Compared it to a Swedish forum that is also running Xenforo.

One thing that is very clear is that the CPU (and to some extent GPU) usage is much, much higher on this site. Especially CPU. I am running a 12 core, hyperthreaded 3900x so it has 24 high-performance threads to work with, it still needs upwards of 20% CPU to render each page load in this forum. On the other forum it is a few percent tops.

A big difference is the amount of requests. This forum makes about 350 requests for every page load where the majority of requests are not cached. The other forum makes about 80. I think some bundling or smarter loads will make a huge difference. It will take cpu resources to process everything like scripts and tracking pixels.
Also, after the load is done it continues to do requests in the background. About every 10 seconds it makes 20 requests containing hidden pixels for tracking and some script files. The other forum does nothing like this after the initial load is done.
Modifying the DOM this often and with so many different files will take resources and might be another reason for the drain.

I'm quite sure what we are seeing is the result of unoptimized loading due to how the Ad network, analytics and other services are (not) integrated with the forum software.
And wow, we are really being tracked on this site. The more I look at the traffic the more I get surprised/scared, never seen this amount of tracking on another site to be fair.
 
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My thread about this was closed because apparently it’s resolved by stopping ads for registered users after a period of time.

Sorry, but even with that implementation and Firefox focus for safari enabled, my iPhone 13 pro gets blazing hot when browsing MacRumors.

To be clear, it is the only time since restoring from a backup that my phone has got noticeably warm at all, in any activity. When browsing MR it’s hot and this is at low brightness.

It’s so hot it’s uncomfortable!

Something still not right at all.
 
It is just as bad without and when it is enabled, this is the only site that does it. I don’t want to get in trouble, but in fairness the common denominator is MacRumors, not Firefox Focus.
 
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arn said:
Try using something besides Firefox focus. I can’t prove it but focus specifically seems a common thread. At least on android it does has caused excess cpu usage in the past.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bumc2l
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@arn , please have a look at my post. From one dev to another, the issue is on Macrumors side. It does really only work on your machine ;)

The issue is there on Safari, 100%. It’s also clear on all desktop browsers that this site behave in a bad way with regards to cpu load.

The forum and ad combination is the culprit, I can say this for sure. Will try to dig in a bit more why the loadings result in such high cpu load
 
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Alfieg said:
It is just as bad without. I don’t want to get in trouble, but in fairness the common denominator is MacRumors, not Firefox Focus.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't have a solution for you beyond what I've articulated.

- If it's ads, you can use a content blocker.
- If that doesn't work for you, you can contribute for the subscription that removes ads. Some people claim that this fixes it, but this should be exactly the same as using a content blocker. I'm happy to refund if it doesn't work.
- Some content blockers likely are able to disable javascript completely. Or at least specific scripts on this page. MacRumors works without javascript enabled. If you can isolate a script that is causing it, I'm happy to look into it further.

ls7 said:
The forum and ad combination is the culprit, I can say this for sure.
Click to expand...

If it really happens with ads blocked, it can't be the ads.

I understand it's frustrating. It's frustrating for us too.
 
@ls7
@Alfieg

Can you let me know which theme (MacRumors Autodetect vs Light vs Dark) are you presently using (bottom right of page), and if your iOS device is in dark or light mode?

thanks
 
Firefox focus is a content blocker. I’m only using the Firefox Focus safari extension, not the browser.

It’s actually crazy, I’ve only been on this page to reply (a few seconds) and as I type the phone has gone really hot.

I’m currently using auto detect and in dark mode.

It’s not ads. If it was ads and your solution was to block them or pay to remove them, that would be a strange way to manage your site.
 
battery life is hard to standardize so I feel like it’s been difficult to troubleshoot

I’m not sure why some people are experiencing fast battery drain despite no ads.

I just recorded a video on iOS 15, iPhone 13 PRo Max to give a frame of reference.

forums.macrumors.com

📱🇺🇸(USA) (Apple.com) iPhone 13/Pro/Max/Mini US Pre-orders, Orders, and Delivery Status Thread (2021)🇺🇸🌎

👏 Congratulations to everyone who received their iPhone on Friday, September 24th, 2021! 📱 https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usa-apple-com-iphone-13-pro-max-mini-us-pre-orders-orders-and-delivery-status-thread-2021.2304502/page-568?post=30342434#post-30342434 Hello all, Looks like our dear...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Loaded that thread, waited for my battery to drop to 27%. Proceeded to load subsequent pages and scroll to bottom. Battery dropped to 26% after 35 pages. This is in Safari, and happened to have the focus browser extension on at the time of this test.



Meanwhile @Alfieg seems to experience the battery drain even with JavaScript off - which I can’t explain how it’s possible we could be responsible for that.
 
I’ll try and do a vid tomorrow too. But I need to think about how this might be affecting battery health.
 
I’ve noticed this lately too but thought it was just safari in general. Are the ads also why MR takes longer to load sometimes?
 
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