[carlson2010]

I am having battery drain problems. They started 2 days ago, but I have had the .668 upgrade for a while by then (therefore, upgrading to .668 doesn't seem to be the culprit). Before the problems started, I would only have to charge the playbook every couple of days (standard use, leaving wi-fi on all the time). Now the battery drains at 7-10% per hour on standby. I tried deleting my hotmail account and doing a hard reset and nothing has worked. I haven't installed or used any new apps lately, so that doesn't seem to be the problem either. Any suggestions? The playbook is only 6 months old, so I wouldn't think that I should be having battery problems this soon.

[Chaddface]

There is/was a bug with email set to manual sync. Try setting it to any time interval.
If that isn't the issue it sounds like something is stuck running. The battery guru app could help determine whether the PB is consuming that power or the batteries aren't holding the charge.

[carlson2010]

It isn't an email issue because after deleting the hotmail account there were no other accounts left (i.e., no email at all). I thought a hard reset was supposed to force close everything, so an app running in the background wouldn't be the problem either, right?

[FF22]

It isn't an email issue because after deleting the hotmail account there were no other accounts left (i.e., no email at all). I thought a hard reset was supposed to force close everything, so an app running in the background wouldn't be the problem either, right?

Did you press the Power Volup/down at the same time? That should have restarted. So you have NO native email installed anymore?

Any sideloaded Android apps? (I can't remember but I think someone had a problem with one, even after deleted from the home screen)

[smartie88]

what's your app behavior? pause?

[carlson2010]

1) Yes, I did the "three finger" hard reset, pressing volume up, down and power at the same time. The unit turned off and powered back on, so I'm pretty sure I did it correctly. I did this a few times actually.
2) The hotmail account was the only one I was using, so yes, the native email is now not in use.
3) I have a few sideloaded andriod apps (e.g., kindle, pulse), but I've been using them for months with no issue.
4) No, I don't believe I have any apps on pause. Even if they were, a hard reset should take care of that, right?

[Chaddface]

How did you do the hard reset? You could try just holding the power button until the screen shuts off. This method will require you to start it again. If you hold the power, volume+ and volume- it will restart on its own.
If neither of those things work then a OS reinstall may be in your future. That may be an issue if you can't manually back up everything you need. I don't think a .668 backup will restore to the older OS which is now the official.

I just manually backup media and documents with drag and drop.

[carlson2010]

Just did a full re-install. Didn't work.

[smartie88]

Just did a full re-install. Didn't work.

have you tried those

Extending battery life on the BlackBerry PlayBook �Inside BlackBerry Help Blog

[jpash549]

Not sure about the answer under "paused". If you go to the gear under general - application behavior you can select between showcase, default and paused. Of the three paused is the selection most likely to shut down an unruly app. Have you tried Airplane Mode? Also concur that Battery Guru can be helpful in running down problems. Since a full reboot did not solve the problem and I assume you loaded nothing after that but still got the battery loss, whatever is causing the problem must come in with the system. Do you have other accounts than email which might load automatically?

[Faid]

After a few tests and reading this amazing forum I realize that was something related to my bb bridge conection, so I turnef off bluethoot and my battery seems to be back to normal.

But as i said on the title IT SUCKS to have to turn it on every time i want to check email away from wifi.

[carlson2010]

1) My setting was "default", but it was default for the entire time I was using the Playbook, so this probably isn't the issue
2) I have never used bluetooth, so that isn't the issue either.

[Chaddface]

Try airplane mode or turn off wifi.

[carlson2010]

I shouldn't have to turn off wi-fi or use airplane mode, right? For the past 6 months, I didn't need to use those settings, so what is different now? Did the rest of you need to start altering the way you use your tablet in order to get normal battery drain after 6 months?

[Chaddface]

I shouldn't have to turn off wi-fi or use airplane mode, right?

It's troubleshooting. I had some excessive drain in standby that would go away when I turned wifi off. My drain was just a few percent per hour. It would help you to download the battery guru app.

[FF22]

You can try the various trouble shooting ideas (bt, wifi, airplane). You did the DEBRICK rather than just Security Wipe?

No Android stuff? No, you should not have to routinely do any of those things - just testing. I leave bt and wifi on (no native mail) and have some sideloaded apps and I lose very little power overnight on standby.

Then support where they will make you run through a number of these things anyway according to their script:

The PB has a one year warranty to the original purchaser. It also has 90 free Tech support. I do not know how Rim deals with "quasi-tech support v. warranty"

Rim Support
Tel:
Canada Toll Free: 1-877-644-8405
United States Toll Free: 1-877-644-8410
Puerto Rico Toll Free: 1-855-651-4936
Email: [email protected] (this route generally does not work and a call is necessary)

(UK Support) 0800 096 2805

Playbook French Support
http://fr.blackberry.com/playbook-ta...ok-support.jsp
Phone : 0800 914 533 (within 90 days from activation)

[brianatbb]

There is/was a bug with email set to manual sync. Try setting it to any time interval.

How do I do that? The Manual option is greyed out, at least in my hotmail account, so you can't change it.

[jpash549]

Standby doesn't turn everything off. Any background apps that have not shut down will continue running. Wifi and bluetooth will continue if you are not in airplane mode. You said 7 to 10% per hour which amounts to an average operating power of 1.4 to 2 watts which ,considering the screen to be off , is at least as much as one would use ordinarily. The idea is to find out what it is. That is the reason for suggesting trying airplane mode and disabling accounts which might be doing too frequent messaging not to rquire you to change your established usage habits. It might be that something has gone wrong with the battery or some other part of the tablet system but the other possibilities should be eliminated before the traumatic situation of return for repair is considered.

Also what is your battery life under normal operation? If a background app continues to run under normal operation seems like that would have a significant effect there also.

[peter9477]

Standby doesn't turn everything off. Any background apps that have not shut down will continue running.

What jpash549bb said above is generally true, but I want to clarify this one point.

Although some poorly written apps do keep running and using power, in general apps should NOT be doing that and you therefore should not have to exit all apps every time you enter standby... that would be a pretty poor user experience. Battery Guru, for example, definitely does NOT use any measurable power when you have the device in standby (nor, for that matter, when the screen is on). Well written apps should not be a problem.

The trick is to identify whether you may be running one of the "bad" apps, which would continue sucking power even in standby. Generally those are ones which would also suck power even when you have made another app fullscreen and aren't actively using the bad app, so it's not just about standby.

Note also that using the Application Behaviour mode switch in the settings doesn't affect all apps. It does currently affect WebWorks and AIR apps, and possibly Android ones as well, but many or most native apps currently ignore that setting.

[carlson2010]

Thanks for the responses. When I say "standby", I mean that nothing is running at all and the screen is off. That is why a 7-10% drain is weird. Another thing that is happening is that the lock screen has stopped coming up. I've posted about it in this thread:

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...operly-722681/

Given that the battery drains so fast even when nothing is running, I'm suspecting that the lock screen problem and the battery problem are related. Other people are having the same problem. The only question is why...

[peter9477]

carlson2010, can you check that the screen is even turning off when you "go into standby"? Generally you can do this merely by looking at it in a totally dark room or, if ambient lighting is fairly low, just hold it under your shirt and look at it there.

If the screen isn't even off, that would explain lots of power drain (possibly 1.3W steady). We don't actually know how much power is the screen and how much is the backlight, since it's not possible (normally) to turn just one of those off without the other going off also, but maybe in your case it's happening.

Battery Guru would show you the actual power. If you run it, wait for the thing to "go into standby" (screen blanked or whatever you see) and then leave it for about four minutes. The OS provides updates only every 2 minutes, and you should discard the first one since it might be an average that includes some screen-on time. When you've waited long enough, swipe it on and immediately check the power reading, and that tells you what it's using under those conditions.

jpash549bb's math above is about right too... 1.2W to 2.0W depending on your battery capacity, so that fits with screen at least partially on (i.e. backlight, screen, or both).

Doesn't solve anything, but it could help get you an RMA if that's of use, and at least would point you to hardware and not a bad app/service.

[carlson2010]

Yeah, the screen is totally off. That's not it. Maybe I just need to get it replaced by Blackberry? What a pain...This thing is only 6 months old!

[peter9477]

It would not be the first time some hardware had gone defective and started sucking juice.

Nor the first time that a "driver" had been corrupted and done that.

No, I don't personally believe a software problem like that could survive a debrick, but I seem to recall someone with a similar issue going through this and RIM's eventual explanation when they allowed it to be RMAed was some mumbo-jumbo about it being the camera driver, I think.

[carlson2010]

What is an RMA?

[brianatbb]

I unplugged my fully charged PB at 10 am. At 2 pm it was down to 60%. Wifi is on and it was on Standby most of that time. Checked email a couple of times, went online briefly. That was about it.