reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?

[Fizz]

Hi all-

I have a Pixel 3a running Focal, which i recently updated to OTA-5. I don't know if the issue is related to OTA-5 or coincidence, but in the last couple weeks i have noticed battery lifetime is significantly reduced. I used to go to bed with a full charge, and wake up 7-8 hours later at about 75%. Now however it's dropping to about 45%.

Running top through Terminal, the primary thing running is something called "crtc_commit", which is consistently using between 10-13% of the cpu. When i compare to my old phone (Nexus 5 running Xenial), that command is not running.

I don't have any apps running during this time. And this occurs even on a fresh reboot.

Any idea as to what is going on? Thanks!

-Fizz

[kugiigi]

@Fizz Just to confirm, you were getting 100% to 75% in around 8 hours overnight prior to OTA-5? I assume you have wifi enabled?

[MrT10001]

It could also be down to the hot summery weather. All my devices drain a lot quicker in the hot weather we have been experiencing in the UK. The battery drain on my OP5T, 5T, 6 and 6T has remained the same before and after OTA-5. My Redmi Note 7 is the same.

[domubpkm]

For equivalent use, the battery does not seem to drain any faster on the Volla with OTA-5.

[Fizz]

@kugiigi
Yes, prior to OTA-5, i'd lose about 20-25% in about 7-8 hours. Typically i do not have wifi enabled, though Bluetooth is (but not actively connected to anything during this time).

Now it seems to be draining twice as fast, dropping from 100% to about 45% in the same time frame.

@MrT10001
Air conditioning is keeping the house at a nice 70 degrees F, so i don't think heat is the issue.

Note, i don't know if this is the cause of OTA-5 or not. I updated a couple weeks ago, and sometime in the last week is when i've noticed this increased rate of battery usage.

Anyone know what this crtc_commit is? It continues to be using a steady 10-13% of cpu usage, all the time.

-Fizz

[MrT10001]

@Fizz My Redmi Note 9 Pro went from 100% to 50% overnight. However the battery is old and on standby it lasts no more than three days on OTA-4.

[kugiigi]

@Fizz That seems to be concerning even without the regression in OTA-5. Do you know if this is the experience for all Pixel 3a devices?
For context, my FP4 always has wifi enabled and overnight it loses around 5% in average. Although I would say it sometimes varies a lot and I'm actually trying to observe and log data about that lately.
Could it be a hardware issue or something in the background? Perhaps you can try reflashing the full system without wiping your data. You can do this via the Installer or the longer route of switching channel from the settings. Stable OTA are usually delta updates and doesn't fully reflash the whole system.

[Vulpex]

@kugiigi wow I'm buffled 5% over night with wifi (on) on the FP4...
My FP4 loses something between 15% to 20% of charge with just sim/data (on) over night.
Daily consumption with usage holds stable though,
this probaly sounds stupid but for me,
It seams my phone keeps a better battery- household when in use, rather than squatting around all night on the desk.
Sorry but in my case its not Ota5 specific, the situation already persists from the beginning.
Batter-saver has helped to correct it but not fully.
Next step is to get a new battery even if this one is just 6month old... always good to have a spare one....

...5%...

[Mario.CH]

Hi @Fizz,

@Fizz said in reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?:

Anyone know what this crtc_commit is? It continues to be using a steady 10-13% of cpu usage, all the time.

According to my research on the WWW net, the functions of the <CRTC> processes are: working between the kernel and the memory (I am not a coder), see also here.

My recommendation is to switch the device off completely (no restart). Wait 20 sec, switch the device on again. If the procedure is unsuccessful, then follow the step from @kugiigi.

I also have the subjective feeling that UT does not initialise properly when starting up, whether this has to do with the different ports (each device needs its own), I do not know.

Edit:
I had to make a correction here because the figures given were based on an estimate from memory. And it was too positive, probably because the very good values, with the Sony Xperia X, collided in my head. I'm sorry about that.
However, the current figures are also only a single snapshot, see the figures in bold.

My battery ‘Log’:
Battery consumption over approx. 24 hours is between 13 and 30%,
overnight between 4 and 9%.
The device (Oneplus Nord N100; UT 20.04 (OTA-5) was bought new (unused) and I do not use any mobile data, WiFi or Bluetooth.

Greetins Mario

[kugiigi]

@Vulpex Well it's not consistent so sometimes it's a lot more which is what I'm currently investigating why. I have many hacks in Lomiri though so not sure if those affect it greatly yet.
Interestingly, there's actually a bug in FP4 because it's not properly sleeping like other devices. So any running process would greatly affect battery. That might also include apps that have suspension disabled and in the foreground when the device got locked.

BTW, mobile data is a lot more battery draining so maybe that's also a big factor.

[Fizz]

@kugiigi said in reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?:

@Fizz Perhaps you can try reflashing the full system without wiping your data. You can do this via the Installer or the longer route of switching channel from the settings. Stable OTA are usually delta updates and doesn't fully reflash the whole system.

So, if i switch to the Release Candidate channel, and update to Version 13, i will get a full reflash of the system without losing data? Interesting. That's probably easier than doing the installer, even if it takes longer.

Is there an app that will report what apps / processes are using the most battery power? That crtc_commit still seems suspicious to me (don't see it on my Xenial Nexus 5).

-Fizz

[Fizz]

@Mario-CH said in reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?:

@Fizz said in reduced battery life - something with OTA-5?:

Anyone know what this crtc_commit is? It continues to be using a steady 10-13% of cpu usage, all the time.

According to my research on the WWW net, the functions of the <CRTC> processes are: working between the kernel and the memory (I am not a coder), see also here.

My recommendation is to switch the device off completely (no restart). Wait 20 sec, switch the device on again. If the procedure is unsuccessful, then follow the step from @kugiigi.

I've tried restarting, but not the 20 sec wait. So i'll give that a go and see. I'll report again in another day and see if behavior has changed. Thanks.

-Fizz

[lduboeuf]

P3a here too, i can experience that issue sometimes, but i can't figure the cause yet.
For sure 4G and/or Wifi does affect a lot. idk for BT or NFC
Last time i was on 2G + flight mode during night it only looses 60% in 3 days with very few internet checks.

[MrT10001]

Pixel 3a from 100% to 94% in 6 Hours.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 pro 100% to 43% in 6 hours.
ASUS Zenphone - 100% to 94% in 6 hours.
OP6 - 100% to 79% in 6 hours.

[Eric H]

On Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC (surya) , when I made the MR17, one month ago, I had measured a battery endurance of 34 hours (devel channel).

Now, after OTA-5 (stable channel), I measure a 22-hour endurance…

These 2 measurements were made in similar conditions: only phone calls, SMS, messages written on telegram, and web browsing with morph (no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, VPN nor Waydroid)

The problem has been discovered and confirmed by @Boldos , on the ut_pocox3 TG.

[magnargj]

It is my impression that this is the case on my Volla 22 as well. Stable release.

[Fizz]

Hi again all-

I have been experimenting over the last couple weeks, and think i have found a couple patterns.

1: After @Mario-CH 's suggestion, i tried leaving the phone off for 20 seconds, then rebooted. Sure enough battery performance was much better, and overnight (7-8 hours) i only lost about 5% from a full charge. However...

2: The phone definitely drains a lot faster when it's using data rather than wifi. But, simply turning off wifi doesn't do it. The phone (not sure if it's the fault of the Pixel 3a, or UT, or my provider Freedom) does not reconnect to data immediately after turning off (or losing) wifi. It says it is connected, but I I always have to open up Mobile Settings and toggle network types before it "kicks in" and starts getting data. Once it does that, then battery usage goes up significantly, about 7% per hour, even when i'm not actively using it, all apps closed, screen off, etc.

3: And then if i re-enable wifi, data usage goes down to normal again.

So, i think my battery is fine, and i think on wifi it behaves well. But is that kind of drainage for data expected? And why does it not smoothly change to data working when wifi is lost or disconnected? (It always requires me to toggle the network type to get it to start working.)

Anyone else experiencing any of this type of behavior on their devices?

-Fizz

[Eric H]

Hi,

Anyone else experiencing any of this type of behavior on their devices?

After @Fizz's post, I've done two measurements (on my Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC):

1. With Wi-Fi off, data on, I measured 27 hours of battery lifetime.

2. in same conditions, but with Wi-Fi on, data on, I measured 38 hours of battery lifetime

[Fizz]

This post is deleted!

[Eric H]

Hi @Fizz

Interesting that you get the opposite that i do; i get longer battery life when wi-fi is on.

I get longer battery life when Wi-fi is on : 38 hours…