High battery drainage Xperia 10 III

Bug Reports
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#333

If you have read the thread, you would know that there are no sleeping issues on the 10iii. I just checked the dmesg log and there is nothing suspicious. Everything works as expected.

If your 10ii suffers from battery drain(the 6% per hour you wrote someehere) there must be something wrong wth your phone. I never heard of such a huge drain on the 10ii.

Since the 10ii and the 10iii don’t share the same Sony binaries and AOSP base they are not comparable.

If you still think that your drain is a generel problem and not only an issue on your phone/ your SFOS installation please start your own thread about the drainage on the 10ii and stop polluting this thread with nonsense.

#334

Ok, thanks for the information.

While using the phone a 6%/h does not seem a problem for me. It is a 16h of working, even with 12% is about 8h of working. I have no experience about Android smartphone that can last much longer than this.

This is a very good point about hardware support and brings me to the idea that having a Xperia 10 III in my personal lab is a necessity in order to support it. Thanks again.

1 Like
#335

At first I was going to suggest including the Xperia 10 (and other Z80-based (1) designs) as well, since the those phones look almost identical, but then I had an epiphany.

We really should put everything in a single thread. Not only would this relieve us of updating thread titles, crossposting and being off topic would cease being possible at all. Unity, Mir (2) and understanding (3) will follow.

After all we’re here because of Sillfish Opera System and as you know Forum means city square in Latvian (4).

(1) That chip was designed by deflectors from the intel community in a story simliar to that of the 6502 A.D., but different
(2) …and, surely, the Snap package format and its related forum, Snapchat
(3) Please, just remember to sudo apt dist-upgrade regularly
(4) The citizens of ancient Vilnius who gathered in the square were not constrained by “titles” (5) set by anyone. We should follow their example and be equally free
(5) Titles were in fact bestowed upon the Caliph by God

Edit to add: Please disregard, my account was taken over by CheatGDP. Hitting Ctrl-C repeatedly saved you from more of the same.

4 Likes
#336

@miau answered in a very consistent way:

AFAIK, this is the most significative difference between these two system apart 5G support and a different arrangement of the CPUs sets. At, least from a system admin point of view.

BTW, does the binaries package contain also the Linux kernel?

#337

Differences include, but are not limited to:

  • different SoC (Qualcomm SDM665 Snapdragon 665 11 nm vs. Qualcomm SM6350 Snapdragon 690 5G 8 nm, i.e. different CPU, different GPU, different modem, different technological process
  • different AOSP binaries, different kernel version
  • different battery (and probably the entire BMS)
  • different other hardware components (display panel, camera module) and possibly also internal components like power circuitry, etc.
  • software differences on the SFOS side, for example individually implemented VoLTE support for each of those models separately.

To recap, these two devices are actually almost completely different, with not much in common but the look. Any (or all) of the above can be responsible for different power consumption. These two devices are NOT comparable when it comes to power consumption. This thread is about the 10 III. If you want to talk about 10 II’s power consumption, please find (or start if it doesn’t exist) a separate thread about that model’s power drain.

2 Likes
#338

Thanks @wetab73, I got your point.

However, from the PoV of a system administration those differences can bring different contributes and requires some adaptation in the shell scripting (eg. CPU arrangement 4:4 vs 6:2 or 2:6) but it almost the same old story:

  • we need power saving templates (here).

When applying a pm template will be as easy as push a button or select an option and bush a button, then we can improve the templates. Improving both in generalization (policies) and in customization (smartphone models).

If this would not be possible, it means that the SFOS abstraction layer from the underlying hardware is not good enough (from the PoV of a system administrator).

Anyway, I am not interested in continue to write in this thread because I collected enough information from here. :blush:

#339

What we need is Jolla working on this. But there isn’t even a notice, nothing, they just don’t care.

5 Likes
#340

It something that we can do by ourselves.

#341

With all respect i have to say that i definitely have a sleeping issue with the Xperia 10 III, and it still happens every now and then. I described it earlier in this thread:

#342

Seems like some process crashed and was eating up the cpu. If this happens again you could check the cpu usage and if a process is keeping your cpu busy. I wouldn’t call this a sleeping issue.

#343

I have checked, and there is no process keeping any of the cores busy. Also from the attached screenshot (System Monitor) you can see there is no excess CPU usage during that period.

@direc85 commented my post and i think he has a point:

1 Like
#344

Sorry, i didn’t look at the screeenshot. I would call this a bug in SFOS charging system. If a charger is connected, all cpu cores are awake all the time. Seems like this didn’t go back to normal after you stopped charging.

#345

For a few days my 10 III has been draining battery like crazy - but only on 4G network. 250-300 mAh of constant drain and NEVER GOING TO SLEEP, which results in 4-5% of battery drainage per hour. But that’s ONLY on 4G network (regardless of “4G calling” function status - switching it on or off does not make any difference). It makes no difference if mobile data is enabled or disabled, either.

If I switch the phone to “2G only” mode, or enable the Flight mode, everything starts working normally, i.e. power consumption drops to 100-110 mAh and when not used the device goes to sleep and consumes only 30-50 mAh. Switching to 4G mode instanly rises power consumption and causes that the phone never goes to sleep.

WHAT THE ****?

Hours spent on trying to find what’s causing the problem. I uninstalled everything that could possibly cause it, disabled all email accounts, tested it with other SIM card, looked for any processes with excessive CPU usage… to no avail.

One thing is clear - it happens only if 4G network is in use. The problem started all of a sudden, without any changes on my side and or new software installed.

T-Mobile Poland, nearly perfect network coverage, > 90% network signal strength.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Anything I could try to reinstall?

#346

Reflashing did NOT help. When 4G network is in use, the device never goes to sleep, permanently draining at least 100-200 mAh, which results in 3-4% of battery drainage per hour. After switching to 2G network, as soon as the screen turns off, the device quickly goes to sleep and draws 35-60 mAh.

I have no clue what may be causing it. It happened about a week ago and since then nothing helps, not even a reflash.

On a different note, I’ve just discovered that 4G calling works only in the first SIM card slot. The same SIM card in the second slot can’t register for 4G calling…

1 Like
#347

Have you tried flashing back to Android to outrule a hardware issue?

#348

Yes, I reflashed to Android 11 and then back to SFOS. But I must confess I didn’t test it under Android carefully enough. I was quite sure that reflashing would cure it. Well, it turns out that I was wrong.

What’s really strange is that the problem is present only with 4G network. Switching to “2G only” instantly reduces power consumption to 100-120 mA, which further decreases to 30-50 mA soon after the screen turns off. Switching it back to 4G (even with mobile data and 4G calling disabled) instantly increases power consumption and the device no longer goes to sleep while not in use.

So I’m really puzzled… Maybe T-Mobile PL has recently changed something with their 4G network setup that doesn’t work well with SFOS… Or maybe the 4G band (2.6 GHz or so) that’s been in use where I now live is so much more power hungry… Previously my 10 III was using mostly bands in the 800 and 900 MHz range… Sadly, I don’t know anyone with 10 III with SFOS on T-Mobile to verify it…

Another issue, i.e. no support for 4G calling in the SIM2 slot is also really strange, because everything else works OK. The phone does use 4G network for mobile data, it correctly switches to 2G for calls, it’s just 4G calling (aka VoLTE) that doesn’t register in the second slot. And I don’t know if it ever worked, because I’ve never tried it before.

#349

I can confirm the massive power consumption on 4G network, but with the XA2. Both of my XA2s have it.
When activating 4G they get drained within 12 to 24 hours. No matter if mobile data is turned on or off. That was the reason, I could only use them in 2G network.

Also, it is not a new behaviour. I always had it. But as long as 3G network was active in Germany I had no problem with it. But now …

Last weekend i flashed both phones back to android and then to /e/OS. The battery of the first XA2, mostly used as a dumbphone (no messengers, no mail, bluetooth activated in car, many phone calls), seems to last as long with 4G+mobile data activated, than with SailfishOS installed and only 2G activated. I charged it on Wednesday afternoon to 83% and right now it is at 50% battery.
The other XA2 (nearly no phone calls, 2 Messengers, 1 mail account, much use of internet in wifi) lasts about 50% longer with 4G+mobile data activated, than with SailfishOS installed and only 2G activated.

So it has nothing to do with the hardware or with the provider.

#350

Cellmon lets you monitor the frequencies in use.

Is it anything to do with VoLTE rather than 4G per se?

#351

No, the problem is present regardless of whether VoLTE is enabled or not. Same for mobile data.

I’ve been using it for a long time. Great application, thank you! According to Cellmon, when I’m at home the band in use is always Band 7, i.e. 2662.6 / 2542.6 MHz.

What I’ve just discovered (in Battery Buddy logs) is that when today I moved to a different location (and only during that time) the phone went to sleep a few times, reducing power consumption to 30-50 mA. Only for very short periods like one minute or so, but still. I didn’t check what band it was using at that time, but I remember that at that location it was usually different than the one at home, most probably ~ 2.1 GHz. I’ll further test it tomorrow. As soon as I returned home, the device never went to sleep again, staying above 110 mA all the time with quite frequent 300-500 mA spikes, and consuming > 3% of battery per hour.

P.S. After a few more attempts 4G calling (VoLTE) eventually registered in the SIM2 slot and now it works OK. But power consumption on 4G network using the 2nd modem is just as high as of the 1st modem…

1 Like
#352

I broke the screen on my 10iii and bought a used one. I used Android12 on it for two days. I lost around 60% of battery in 26 hours with only slight use. I installed a battery app and the power consumption with the screen turned off was around 60mah. Looks like the power consumption using SFOS isn’t that bad after all.

3 Likes