Really bad Battery Life on Jailbroken iPhone 4

[stephen1108]

For the past couple of weeks I've been experiencing horrible battery life on my iPhone 4. Today my percentage was down to 24% and I only used my phone for about 3 hours, with 6 hours total standby. Comparing these numbers, and looking at what I was doing, those numbers are VERY low. Through that, I only used about 10-15 minutes in total of my time browsing the internet on 3G, and the rest of my time was spent sending and receiving text messages.

I downgraded my mobile substrate from .3228 to .3209, still no avail. I also uninstalled OpenSSH thinking that may be the culprit and my battery life is still dismal. Any suggestions on what could be the culprit, and what I can do to rectify the problem?

 

[Myzhi]

Disable mail fetching. Uninstall JB apps one by one and test. Discharge battery fully and recharge. If the problem still persist, restore as new device then re-JB.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Or even better, get rid of the jailbreak. Apple blocked that stuff for a reason. Either suck it up or get rid of the jailbreak.

 

[grapes911]

Either suck it up or get rid of the jailbreak.

That isn't true. My iPhone is jailbroken and I have no battery issues. I believe there is an installed app that is causing the issue.

 

[stephen1108]

Or even better, get rid of the jailbreak. Apple blocked that stuff for a reason. Either suck it up or get rid of the jailbreak.

I obviously want to keep the jailbreak if I came in THIS forum asking for a solution to my problem. There are many people here who have the jailbreak without the issue I'm having, so no, it's not a problem directly related to the jailbreak.

These are the Cydia apps I have installed:
Five Icon Dock
iFile
MakeItMine
Navigate from Maps
Remove Background
Safari Download Manager
SBSettings

I'm going to start with Remove Background.....

 

[Shanewilliams]

My iPhone 4 is jailbroke and I have excellent battery life! It literally just hit 2% and I have 6hrs 43mins usage and 13hrs standby. I might be mistake. But in my opinion that's excellent battery life!

 

[Shanewilliams]

I have almost the same apps installed as the op. The only one I don't is remove from background app. Other then the ones mentioned I have a few themes installed, locktopus, winterboard, caller Id faker and the commcenter hack. I have not changed the mobile subtrate, so with the battery life I'm getting I'd be inclined to say that you might have an issue with the battery itself.

 

[-aggie-]

I obviously want to keep the jailbreak if I came in THIS forum asking for a solution to my problem. There are many people here who have the jailbreak without the issue I'm having, so no, it's not a problem directly related to the jailbreak.

These are the Cydia apps I have installed:
Five Icon Dock
iFile
MakeItMine
Navigate from Maps
Remove Background
Safari Download Manager
SBSettings

I'm going to start with Remove Background.....

I also have great battery life and I’m jailbroken. MobileSubstrate is not your issue, that’s for sure. I don’t have Five Icon Dock (I have InfiniDock), MakeItMine, or Remove Background. I have a number of apps you don’t have too.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

That isn't true. My iPhone is jailbroken and I have no battery issues. I believe there is an installed app that is causing the issue.

It is true. What else can you do? According to you, there should be no problem at all in the first place. You just stated that you don't have any problems and are jailbroken.

Is the installed app that you believe is causing this issue only for jailbroken devices? Then it is related to the jailbreak and the fact that you have no issues is irrelevant.

I obviously want to keep the jailbreak if I came in THIS forum asking for a solution to my problem. There are many people here who have the jailbreak without the issue I'm having, so no, it's not a problem directly related to the jailbreak.

These are the Cydia apps I have installed:
Five Icon Dock
iFile
MakeItMine
Navigate from Maps
Remove Background
Safari Download Manager
SBSettings

I'm going to start with Remove Background.....

Irrelevant. This is the iPhone Hacks forum. Sometimes hacks can cause issues. So the solution would be to remove the hack. Or live with the problem. If I installed a beta version of iOS onto my iPhone and had problems, people would tell me to revert back to a public version of iOS or suck it up because it's beta. Jailbreak isn't exactly 100% seamless and perfect. It only increases the chances of having some kind of problem. To be fair, iOS itself isn't 100% perfect either. A jailbreak won't decrease chances of having an issue.

The jailbreak only gives you root access. The concept and the code involved won't affect battery life. That is 100% certain. But installing apps that Apple hasn't approved/screened can affect battery life for better or for worse. I would start with SBSettings. That is one app I keep hearing can cause battery life issues with every version of iOS. You are correct in saying it's not a problem with the jailbreak, it's the stuff that you did after that. So by that definition, it is a problem directly related to the jailbreak because that app or setting that is causing this issue wouldn't exist unless you jailbroke in the first place.

I'm still back to my original statement. Suck it up or remove the jailbreak. You knew the risks and increased chances of having issues.

For the past couple of weeks I've been experiencing horrible battery life on my iPhone 4. Today my percentage was down to 24% and I only used my phone for about 3 hours, with 6 hours total standby. Comparing these numbers, and looking at what I was doing, those numbers are VERY low. Through that, I only used about 10-15 minutes in total of my time browsing the internet on 3G, and the rest of my time was spent sending and receiving text messages.

I downgraded my mobile substrate from .3228 to .3209, still no avail. I also uninstalled OpenSSH thinking that may be the culprit and my battery life is still dismal. Any suggestions on what could be the culprit, and what I can do to rectify the problem?

You asked for any suggestions and what you can do to rectify the problem. I gave you a suggestion and told you what you could do to rectify the problem. You obviously can ignore me and not do what I suggested. That's your choice.

 

[grapes911]

Sometimes hacks can cause issues. So the solution would be to remove the hack. Or live with the problem.

The problem with your statements is that the hack is most likely not causing the problem. The problem is probably either hardware (maybe?) or an app installed by the user (more likely). If an app is causing the issue, and to install the app required the phone to be jailbroken, does not mean the jailbreak caused the issue.

If I have a hangnail, do I cut off my finger? If I don't have any fingers, I can't have hangnails, right?

I'm still back to my original statement. Suck it up or remove the jailbreak.

Why "suck it up" when there is probably a solution out there?

 

[Worf]

Or even better, get rid of the jailbreak. Apple blocked that stuff for a reason. Either suck it up or get rid of the jailbreak.

C'mon can you at least respect people have the freedom to jailbreak. If a problem arises through the jailbreak or apps themselves there are ways to fix it. If you don't have anything thing to help the person fix the JB problem other than restore it and stick to stock - something they specifically don't want to do - than why say anything at all.

 

[stephen1108]

Ok, so I've uninstalled both SBSettings, and Remove Background, set email fetch to every hour (GMail) and my battery is still dropping at a rate of 10% for every 30 minutes. I have WiFi off, Bluetooth off and brightness about 20% with Auto-Brightness on. Mind you this whole time I've been doing some light texting, snapped about 3 pics, and was using the Facebook app for all of 5 minutes. I also have very good reception. Right now I stand at 90% for 30 minutes of usage, and 48 standby. It doesn't quite matter what I do, as long as my phone is in use, I've noticed that it will drop 20% battery life per hour.

Any tips on what my next move should be y'all?

 

[ftaok]

Any tips on what my next move should be y'all?

Have you ruled out a hardware issue? You could try removing the JB and going back to a stock iOS for a few days. If that solves it, you could re-JB it and add apps one by one to see if any one app in particular messes your system up.

 

[stephen1108]

Have you ruled out a hardware issue? You could try removing the JB and going back to a stock iOS for a few days. If that solves it, you could re-JB it and add apps one by one to see if any one app in particular messes your system up.

I haven't ruled out it being a hardware issue yet, because before my battery life was pretty good! I'm going to leave that as my last resort. I think I'm going to go back to a stock iOS, but I have an issue. I've been told that restoring it, but setting up as new is the way to go when dealing with a battery life issue, but I don't wanna lose my text messages so what should I do? Is there anyway I can take the .db file and view them on my computeR?

 

[jsgreen]

I've posted this previously and I think it helped some people with battery drain - the issue could be one of your Accounts (mail/contacts/calendar) acting up.

In my case I deleted my Exchange account and set it up again, this resolved by battery drain issues.

 

[stephen1108]

So today I've restored and updated to 4.1 and my battery life is MUCH better already! I'm currently at 3 hours usage and 5 hours standby and I'm down to 60%. By miles far better than the 24% I was at a few days ago. I restored from a backup and kept all the same settings. I wonder what went bad with my previous setup to make my battery drain in such a fashion? Thank you for the tips everyone!

 

[lucifiel]

So today I've restored and updated to 4.1 and my battery life is MUCH better already! I'm currently at 3 hours usage and 5 hours standby and I'm down to 60%. By miles far better than the 24% I was at a few days ago. I restored from a backup and kept all the same settings. I wonder what went bad with my previous setup to make my battery drain in such a fashion? Thank you for the tips everyone!

Well now, you're going to have to wait with the rest of us for a 4.1 JB....

 

[stephen1108]

Well now, you're going to have to wait with the rest of us for a 4.1 JB....

I don't mind. The only thing I really jailbroke my phone for was iFile and Safari Download Manager, and I guess I'll just have to live without them until then. I'm more than happy that I have a phone that I can use for more than 3 hours now.

 

[BeSweeet]

I consider this to be normal. My iPhone 4 has had battery life like that since day 1. My phone came with 4.0.1. I get the same battery life on 4.1 and 4.2 beta 2. My iPhone 3G also had similar battery life. My iPhone 2G would last 5x longer than both for some reason.

 

[boshii]

Did you reboot after downgrading mobilesubstrate?

EDIT: Just realized you got anxious and upgraded.

 

[hatersgonnahate]

Just set fetch to off

 

[vong]

hopefully i wont have this problem when i jb my iphone 4.1..

 

[globalist]

My iPhone 4 is jailbroke and I have excellent battery life! It literally just hit 2% and I have 6hrs 43mins usage and 13hrs standby. I might be mistake. But in my opinion that's excellent battery life!

I think you are mistaken. Your phone didn't last a full day whereas most iP4s last at least 2. Here my non-JB (yet) ip4:

I run Skype in the background for hours on end by the way. If I hadn't my battery usage would be even better.

And I have to say the OP's issue isn't necessarily JB-related IMO. The other day the battery percentage on my perfectly fine and new iP4 (see pic above) was going down like crazy. 10% down every hour. Had no idea what was causing it so I just sucked it up and waited till it drained down, then powered off, rebooted, recharged and all was fine ever since.

We will NEVER know what this sucker is doing with the battery at any given time, trust me and don't blame it on JB.

 

[ExcelonGT]

i too notice bad battery life once I JB 4.0.1. Apps installed: Intelliscreen, BiteSMS.

im not sure its just a badly designed app that is draining the battery since I only have 2 jailbroken apps installed.

What I also noticed is that my iphone4 drains rapidly while in my office. If i get into work at 7:30, by 12pm, the phone is 10% or less. Anyone else notice this phenomena?

when im not in the office, say at home on the weekend it doesnt drain anywhere near as fast. And I'd say that i use the phone more at home than I do in the office?

I recently changed offices from suburban NJ to downtown NYC. I didnt notice rapid discharge while working in NJ..only in NY.

 

[stephen1108]

i too notice bad battery life once I JB 4.0.1. Apps installed: Intelliscreen, BiteSMS.

im not sure its just a badly designed app that is draining the battery since I only have 2 jailbroken apps installed.

What I also noticed is that my iphone4 drains rapidly while in my office. If i get into work at 7:30, by 12pm, the phone is 10% or less. Anyone else notice this phenomena?

when im not in the office, say at home on the weekend it doesnt drain anywhere near as fast. And I'd say that i use the phone more at home than I do in the office?

I recently changed offices from suburban NJ to downtown NYC. I didnt notice rapid discharge while working in NJ..only in NY.

How is your signal in the NYC office?

and 10% an hour is what my battery drops now, but it's 10% per every hour of usage. While on Standby, the percentage will stay put.