Google+ Killing my Note 2's Battery life

[Chiropteran]

I've been pretty happy with the battery life of my Note 2 overall, can usually go two full days without plugging in if I need to.

However, from fully charged Friday night to Saturday evening the phone completely died. This was unusual, but I recharged it overnight and it worked okay Sunday, but again I noticed the battery draining particularly fast. Charged again overnight, and yesterday at lunch I saw the phone was already down to half charge.

I check the battery usage, turns out google+ has been using some 35%+ oh the battery. Funny thing is I never use google+, I even had the app hidden on my app list. Apparently some new update made google+ become far more active and it's killing my battery life.

I figured it would be easy to fix. Revealed google+, ran the app, went into settings and disabled all the various notifications. Finally signed out of google+ and hid the app again. I did this yesterday and the battery life seems to be better... but I still see the highest usage by google+ on the battery usage.

Now this is really starting to annoy me. How can I kill google+ for real? Why does it still use the battery even when I am signed out and haven't touched the app?

 

[Red Storm]

That's odd. The first thing I did when I got my Note 2 was disable G+ and the bloat apps from Verizon.

 

[s44]

Maybe it's syncing all your pics?

 

[Chiropteran]

Maybe it's syncing all your pics?

I disabled that. Along with notifications, and everything else. It shouldn't be doing anything. I did a force close on google+, not sure if that will help but going to wait and see.

 

[vshah]

disable the app entirely - from the same screen that you force closed from, there's a disable button.

 

[Red Storm]

I disabled that. Along with notifications, and everything else. It shouldn't be doing anything. I did a force close on google+, not sure if that will help but going to wait and see.

If you don't use it then do a true disable. Go to the app info page for G+ and disable it completely.

 

[Chiropteran]

If you don't use it then do a true disable. Go to the app info page for G+ and disable it completely.

disable the app entirely - from the same screen that you force closed from, there's a disable button.

Can't seem to do that. I did the force close from the battery usage screen, there was no disable button. And no disable button on the applications page either. The phone isn't rooted. It's also a stock Samsung phone, not branded for t-mobile or any other carrier.

So, instead I uninstalled updates, since I never noticed this problem before. Also, of course, had to disable automatic updating for google+. I think this may do it, although I won't know for sure until it's been a few hours.

 

[dougp]

Can't disable unless you're rooted.

 

[vshah]

should be able to, maybe it would only show up after uninstalling the updates. go back and check again.

http://www.jayceooi.com/2012/10/23/how-to-remove-bloatware-on-samsung-galaxy-note-2/

 

[Chiropteran]

should be able to, maybe it would only show up after uninstalling the updates. go back and check again.

Cool, it is an option now, I guess I had to remove the updates first. Have it disabled, it gave a little warning about disabling built-in apps can cause other problems, we'll see how this works.

 

[Chapbass]

Im curious about this too. I have a GN2 and normally get a good 2 days as well. Woke up this morning (hadn't charged it last night) and the battery seemed like it drained a lot more than normal. I actually like Google +, but gonna keep a close eye on this.

 

[zerogear]

the only thing that Google+ drains for me is when i take lots of photos and it does instant upload.

 

[tdawg]

I use G+ on my phone, but it never sticks open. I've used it today and it's not even on the list of programs using up battery.

I've yet to experience any noticeable battery drain on this device, a welcome change from all other smartphones I've owned.

 

[Yuriman]

Location services is what kills me. See if G+ still kills your battery with GPS disabled.

 

[Chocu1a]

I am running CleanRom on my Note 2. I just left out Google+ with the Aroma installer. That & street view. Never use them, so not even installed. Battery lasts 2 days.

 

[iahk]

My friend has a Nexus 4 and this was an issue for him too. We were going through things of what was going on and it turned it for some reason, the Google+ app wasn't letting his phone sleep. It kept his phone awake the whole time. Nothing worked so he factory reset his phone and it settled down and hasn't occurred since. We never found out what started this. Pretty odd.

 

[shortylickens]

I am running CleanRom on my Note 2. I just left out Google+ with the Aroma installer. That & street view. Never use them, so not even installed. Battery lasts 2 days.

Tmobile.
No bloat.
Battery lasts 2 days no matter what.

 

[tdawg]

Tmobile.
No bloat.
Battery lasts 2 days no matter what.

I'm also on tmobile (prepaid) and have absokutely no battery issues. GPS and Wi-fi always on, G+ running, this is the best battery life I've ever personally experienced from a smartphone.

 

[isekii]

I'm running stock T-mobile and got 18+ hours on 1 charge and still had 48% left earlier today.

I wouldn't be surprised if I got well over 24 hours on a single charge.

 

[s44]

Google updated G+ today -- wonder if that fixed OP's issue.

 

[Chapbass]

Yeah, I think mine was just a one day affair. Phone running for 1 day with my normal use (unplugged yesterday 7am), currently 65% battery life.

 

[corkyg]

It took a some time and added to my irritation, but I finally got rid of Google+. It is an insidiuous auto attempt to embroil the user into their social networking scheme.

 

[Red Storm]

It took a some time and added to my irritation, but I finally got rid of Google+. It is an insidiuous auto attempt to embroil the user into their social networking scheme.

It took me all of 10 seconds...

 

[Chiropteran]

After the last change (removing updates & disabling google+ in applications), my battery life returned to normal, 60%+ life remaining after 24 hours. Just because I love to fix something that isn't broken, I'm going to re-enable google+, update to the new latest version, and see if it doesn't start killing my battery life again.

I also own a nexus 7 which never seemed to be affected by this bug, so it might just be my exact model of phone, I don't think very many people here use the unbranded Note 2.

 

[Chiropteran]

Hmm, I wonder if this was also part of the problem:
http://www.ibtimes.com/samsung-gala...d-android-412-jelly-bean-causes-battery-drain

I did get that update right around when the battery life seemed to be cut in half. Maybe google+ was only half the problem.