Spotify for Android causing massive battery drain and heating of phone

[stegnersaurus]

Hello. I recently became a Spotify Premium member after using Freefor about a year. I love the service; however, I feel that the Android app is a bit lacking. I use the downloading playlists feature to avoid having to be constantly connected to a network and therefore save battery, but have noticed that any usage of Spotify, even while listening to downloaded music in offline mode while my phone is in airplane mode causes the battery to die very quickly. 1% of drain per minute is the average, I would expect this behavior while streaming high definition video; not while listening to downloaded music. It is very frustrating to have to stop listening to my music to charge my phone after only an hour at work. Additionally, my device becomes very hot when listening to music with Spotfiy.
If this is a normal occurrence with the Android app, I would hope for a fix very soon. I am glad to be a Premium member, but am not too happy with the Android app.

My phone is the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint, if that helps with anything.

Thank you for your time.

- Ben

[ev3c]

It's great on my galaxy nexus, but spend so much battery, also in off-line mode...

Much more than the android player reproducing mp3. 
It's the biggest problem that I found to still using spotify if you can't fix this 'bug'. 

Thank You !

Salut !

[Joe]

Is that just playing local files or when you're streaming? 

[ev3c]

Playing local files... 

I download some lists before.

Thank's !

[Joe]

Hi. I had something similar with spotify recently - rapid battery drain and device running hot. On looking into it, it seems that musixmatch had crashed and might have been responsible. I haven't been able to reproduce this since though. Does your android version have a battery usage by application display in settings? If so, could you post a screenshot showing the effect of spotify.

[stegnersaurus]

Hi, thanks for the reply!
My phone does have a Battery Usage screen, but to be honest with you, when the EVO 3D updated from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich, I felt that the Battery Usage menu got much less useful. It used to list specific apps all the time; now it hardly ever does. I haven't seen it list Spotify in its battery usage menu at all. I'll double-check soon, but I'm pretty sure that for whatever reason it doesn't show up. I do use the Watchdog app to monitor how much of the CPU and RAM apps are taking up. I could take a screenshot of that for you.

[Joe]

I forgot that the battery app in ICS was broken. how about something like Battery Stats PLus from Play?

[CrazyEddieNL]

Hi,

I have the same problem, after listening 15 min to Spotify offline music the battery has drained at least 25%! It doesn't matter if i'm connected with Wifi, 3G aro have no data connection at all. Also listening to to online (streaming) music the draining continues (wat i can imagin somehow)

I got an older battery but if i use my phone regular like just some browsing on the internet, looking en posting on Facebook etc. the battery can hold it for the daytime. So it has to be somthing with spotify.

Ofcourse im totaly not happy with it since i want to use it on my holiday in offline mode. But only listening one hour without recharge options is not done for me!

My phone is a HTC Sensation with the ICS 4.0.3 update.

[Joe]

Could you run one of the battry usage monitoring apps for a bit too, then post a screenshot to help with troubleshooting.

---

@CrazyEddieNL wrote:

Hi,

I have the same problem, after listening 15 min to Spotify offline music the battery has drained at least 25%! It doesn't matter if i'm connected with Wifi, 3G aro have no data connection at all. Also listening to to online (streaming) music the draining continues (wat i can imagin somehow)

I got an older battery but if i use my phone regular like just some browsing on the internet, looking en posting on Facebook etc. the battery can hold it for the daytime. So it has to be somthing with spotify.

Ofcourse im totaly not happy with it since i want to use it on my holiday in offline mode. But only listening one hour without recharge options is not done for me!

My phone is a HTC Sensation with the ICS 4.0.3 update.

---

[CrazyEddieNL]

Hi,

I thought it was 15 min, but it seems to be 22 min, but to much anyway. The phone does heat up too. I use Spotify already for about 3 years (even on a window 6.5 phone after finaly they released it for that phone (HTC HD). I had some problems along the way, but never this draining issue.

Here are a few screens i took a few weeks ago with planning to post it here, but i was a little to busy the last weeks, you can look at the time right above. thank for tryning to help!

[Joe]

Thanks. I was hoping for something showing battery usage for each app. I realise that the built in battery app is terminally brken. Could you maybe try running something like Battery Stats Plus for a day - it should show the drain caused by spotify and other apps.

Just a thought, if you're running Musixmatch for lyrics, could try uninstalling it to see if it makes any difference?

[stegnersaurus]

Sorry; I was out all day today and havn't had a chance to respond. I'm still interested in a fix though.

Okay, I have this app that I bought on my phone from a How-To Geek recommendation: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asksven.betterbatterystats
Will that work for this testing? I haven't used it a whole lot and don't know if it monitors individual apps. If it won't work I'll install whatever you recommend. 

Should I then use Spotify offline as usual without re-charging it? 

Sorry for so many questions. 

[XeroS]

Hi,

got the same problem. since some time spotify drains my batterie as hell! my phone (sony xperia arc s) gets really hot, cant hold it longer than 10 secounds in my hand after listening music. Sometime, i can hear 3-4h music without using any other app. Then my batterie got 0%. But thats the best case- i achieved one time 70% loos in 45 minutes... 

All of my music is downloaded and i diseable online connection... pretty sick!

If i use my normal player and hear mp3 music- my batterie has 30% after 8h listening and using fb mobile messenger. 

Dont know what to do- love spotify but this is a huge problem!

excuse my bad english

xeros

[stegnersaurus]

I downloaded the Battery Stats Plus app and used Spotify for maybe 45 minutes today. What do I need to capture and share here so we can take a look at the issue?
The app said it may be inaccurate until it runs for a day or two.

[Joe]

A screen capture showing battery drain by application would be really helpful.

[stegnersaurus]

Here's the top of the Battery Usage by app after today.

[Joe]

@stegnersaurus Thanks for that. Spotify doesn't appear on that list at all which is a good sign 🙂 How's everyone else doing with this battery drain issue?

[CrazyEddieNL]

Well, today i found when the issue off battery draining appears, its when you keep Spotify open in the foreground, it drains about 1% per minute, and phone heats up a lot. If you listen to music in the backgound it doesn't seem to apear, 11% in  almost 1hour and no heating up!. See my recent screenshot to support my findings. The first screenshots are from background listening, lateron from foregorund. You will see the big difference! Also an andrid app 1013 seems to be quite active, maybe that is causing the problem?

(By the way, i dont think that Wakelock Detector is accurate!)

[CrazyEddieNL]

Here same screens from Wakelock Detector

[CrazyEddieNL]

This to make it official!

Description

Massive battery draining while listening to Spotify in foreground, including phone heating up. Doesn't seem to appear when runnning in the background

What are the steps you took to get to the error/issue?

(We need to know what you are doing so we can do the exact same to try and get the same error)

Cleared all cache and reinstalled Spotify according step B

1. Start Spotify with a full battery

2. Listen to Offline playlist while running in the background, to tapped my homescreen button, and put the phone in standby, seem to work fine

3. Started a playlist while not tapping the homebutton (album arts on screen), pressed my powerbutton to shutdown screen. Phone heats up and battery is draining when i look at the battery status.

Note: It also happens when steaming music, but with some additional battery use for using 3G of WIFI!

What I expected to happen

Regular battery use like my standard Android music app

Did you restart your device when troubleshooting in section B?

Yes

Did you read the connection troubleshooting tips?

Yes

Your device

HTC Sensation

Device’s Operating System

4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich

What type of account do you have?

FUP

(FYI for the below points: Android devices tend to refer to the internal memory as "SD Card" and the SD card you inserted yourself as "External SD Card")

Space left on your device

286 MB

Space left on your SD card (if applicable)

27 GB (not downloaded all playlist yet and cleared some space)

Space left on your External SD card (if applicable)

... GB

Is your device rooted?

No

Are you using a custom ROM, if so which one, exactly?

No

Did you set your external SD card as storage location?

Yes

Did you manually install an older version before installing the latest version from the Play Store?

No

Do you have the same issue when switching between WiFi/Mobile Data (If applicable)?

Yes

If you said "No", when does the issue not occur?

NA

My mobile Spotify version

0.6.5.183

My desktop Spotify version (if applicable)

0.9.1.57

My mobile provider and country

Vodafone

My username

CrazyEddieNL.

Do you have a Spotify (non-Facebook) login?

Yes

Are you logging in with Facebook or with your Spotify login details?

Spotify login

Do you have any screenshots you can attach to more clearly explain your issue?

See my previous messages in this topic