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YouTube iOS App Causing Battery Drain, Overheating Issues for Some Users

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Apr 12, 2001
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YouTube has confirmed it is working to resolve a bug in its mobile app that causes significant battery drain on Apple devices, even when the app is running in the background.

First covered by tech blog PiunikaWeb, the issue has been noted by several MacRumors forum members, as well as on Reddit and Twitter, and appears to be mainly affecting devices running iOS 11.1.1.

Screen-Shot-5.jpg
Image via PiunikaWeb​

In addition to battery drain, some iPhone users have reported that the YouTube app is causing their device to run much hotter than usual when watching videos, although the two issues don't seem to occur together in every case.

Hi there! Appreciate the report, this is something we're actively working on. Thanks for your patience. - Team YouTube (@TeamYouTube) November 12, 2017
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YouTube says it is aware of the problem and is "actively working" to come up with a fix for the app, although no timeframe was given. In the meantime, affected users are advised to watch YouTube videos in their web browser of choice.

Article Link: YouTube iOS App Causing Battery Drain, Overheating Issues for Some Users
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/13/youtube-ios-app-battery-drain-overheating-issues/
Don’t really know if I can class this as high usage 6% with 11 mins of onscreen and 6 mins background but I’ve noticed the iPhone X does get hot when using YouTube. Hotter than I’d have expected and hotter than using any other app that plays video and audio.
 
I've been having this issue for months now, but the problem is not YT on my phone. I've been to the Apple Store so many times with a battery that lasts 3 hours and a boiling hot iPhone 7, but they don't know what's causing the problem, they just exchanged the phone, but the problem is still there.
 
Stiss said:
Don’t really know if I can class this as high usage 6% with 11 mins of onscreen and 6 mins background but I’ve noticed the iPhone X does get hot when using YouTube. Hotter than I’d have expected and hotter than using any other app that plays video and audio.
Click to expand...
Google/youtube has been moving away from the old AVC standard which has hardware support in iPhones toward VP9 which does not. It may be doing more and more in software bruteforce on cpu.
 
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Anyone would think they’re trying to dull the shine of the iPhone X by pissing on its battery life!

Demonitising iPhone X review vids “accidentally” was an unfortunate and coincidental accident too...
 
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Have this happening on my 7 Plus.

After I turned off background app refresh for YouTube and mostly remove the app from the app switcher it seems to have solved this issue.
 
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emulajavi said:
And people still says that’s there no reason to close apps in the App Switcher.


People live in an fairy world where all apps are correctly programmed thus they can run in the background.
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There is no reason to close apps in the App Switcher unless you have problems.
This is such a case.

And i'm pretty sure this problem didn't occur if you disable updating in the background for the youtube app. At least i did and never had any problems.
 
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Had this problem in my iPad Air 2 twice after installing iOS 11. Uninstalled YouTube asap and all good after that. Now using YouTube in safari.
 
Yes, I have this issue on my iPad Mini 2. Turned off Background App Refresh to fix this but I would hope Youtube would get to the bottom of this fairly soon.
 
Ummm.. to my knowledge, the YouTube app has been draining app since a couple of years.. I've notified google like several times... never fixed...

It's not new.. so it's not some users, it's all users.. since I don't know.. 3-4 years or more... maybe from the time Google shifted to its material design
 
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Also who made these screenshots? Are they real? The screenshot on the right shows the app was in the background for 9.7 hours, and the phone is been running for 9hrs and 58 minuites.. that means, it's been running since it's charged (because standby time is also the same... if anyone doesn't know, standby includes usage time as well..)

And the battery is yet 60%? Which phone is this... ?
 
Oh, and while you are at it, Google? Please add in true VP9 Codec support for your iOS App. Good Bot.
 
ThiGeever said:
I've been having this issue for months now, but the problem is not YT on my phone. I've been to the Apple Store so many times with a battery that lasts 3 hours and a boiling hot iPhone 7, but they don't know what's causing the problem, they just exchanged the phone, but the problem is still there.
Click to expand...
Easy. Restore as new iPhone. Could be a bug in your software.
 
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My iPhone 7 Plus has been running really hot every time I use YouTube, thankfully I found this article cause I thought it was the phone. Hopefully an update will fix this.
 
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