Battery Issue with S4 Mini Android 4.4.2

[sweatlord]

Hi there,

I'm having some issues with battery life occasionally with syncing.  One case where this happens is when the error Tracker Not Found shows up.  When this appears, my battery will begin draining around 1% per 2 seconds.  If I attempt to reboot my phone at this point, my battery will flatline to 0% and remain on just long enough to tell me it's going to shut off.  This can appear after I've recently synced my Charge 2 HR to my phone and typically happens when I'm on LTE, though it has happened at home.  When it occurs I can plug in my phone and it simply cannot charge fast enough to keep up with the drain, leading me to believe there's some sort of infinite loop going on.

The second issue is similar, where it will take an awfully long time to sync or may not sync at all.  The blue bar at the top of the screen will not progress past roughly 10%, and this is when I have All-Day Sync off so it shouldn't really be trying to sync by itself anyway.  At this point the battery will not drain, but when I reboot it will typically drop to 0% or a really low amount.  Also worth noting that while this is occurring, the device is slow to respond to commands leading me again to wonder if it's an infinite loop.

The third thing isn't related to this, but is a general question/suggestion.  I have All-Day sync turned off because I would rather sync when I'm home and know I can plug in my phone if my battery is going to tank(this has happened on trips), however the option seems to be ignored and whenever I attempt to open the app it attempts to sync.  I'm not 100% sure if it's loading data from the phone, which shouldn't really take that long considering it should really just be loading integers and a few doubles.  Drawing the sleep graph may take a while but still doesn't seem right that it would take that long.

Another thing I noted regarding the battery, is that when the battery drain occurs, the device keeps attempting to sync but nothing progresses.  It will show "syncing" on the specific device menu, then show "last synced: a moment ago", then try again.  Bluetooth can be hugely battery intensive and if the app keeps checking over and over again for no real reason(it has already synced in these cases), it's draining the battery for no real good reason.

I this has provided some insight into these issues and that you can fix them.  I know my phone is old, but I don't have a really good reason to upgrade and I don't think it's the phone that's the problem in this instance.

[LanuzaFitbit · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Forums @sweatlord! 

I'd like to discuss each of the situations you mentioned one by one.

1. I haven't seen any previous report of something like this. It would seem like the Bluetooth in combination with the uploading of information is related to the drainage of the battery. Have you tried force quitting the app and turning the Bluetooth on your S4 whenever this happens? It seems like it could help. 
2. Again seems like an issue with the Bluetooth and the uploading of information. A good option that we could try in this case is to remove the Fitbit from your account and then pair it up again. Try going into the Bluetooth settings, looking for your Fitbit (and any other Fitbit you might have) and remove them from the paired devices list. Then, go into the app and tap the account tab. Once there, tap 'Set Up a New Device' and run the setup process on your Fitbit.
3. Even when All-Day Sync is not activated, the app will attempt to sync to your tracker whenever you open the app in order to provide you with the most updated information possible at that moment. This is expected behavior.

I hope you find this comments useful! Let me know if you have any further questions. 

[sweatlord]

Hi @LanuzaFitbit, thanks for the suggestions.

As for #3, I understand why it works that way, but would prefer if it only updated whenever I synced.  I can manage.  Have a nice last little bit of your weekend!

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hey @sweatlord!

Thanks for the nice words, I hope you have a great week. It's really great to read something like that.

I understand how it can be inconvenient at times, the best way to go about preventing any syncing is to turn off the Bluetooth on your mobile whenever you do not want it to happen at all. 

Please let me know if you have any further questions or need any sort of help.

[75002r66]

I'm having similar if not the same battery drain issue(s).  I tried your suggestions, but no luck.  The only thing I've found so far that helps is to delete the app and reinstall.  Unfortunately though, the problem typically reappears within a few days. 

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @75002r66,a very warm welcome to the Community. 

That sounds very inconvenient. Have you tried force closing the app instead of only going back to the home menu? It could be that the app is constantly trying to run in the background and that is causing the battery drain. If you close the app, instead of having it on the background, the battery life should improve.

Let me know if you have any further questions.