Sudden massive battery drain on new PW3

[bz9993]

Hi all. I've had a new PW3 for less than a week (my first Kindle) and have been getting it up to speed in terms of content. Today I did a manual upgrade from the delivered 5.8.11 to 5.9.6.1 which I downloaded. No problems getting it installed. Kindle rebooted, seemed fine on 5.9.6.1. No new big items to index as far as I know. I had it fully charged to green (though I've noticed the battery icon very quickly falls just below the absolute full mark once you actually use it after a full charge) and put the unit to sleep in the usual way (I have a case that does it magnetically). I came back a few hours later, opened the case -- it woke in the standard lock mode, and I discovered the battery was down to one bar! I can't see any reason for this -- but I'm suspicious given I just did the firmware upgrade. I just now restarted the unit and am charging back up to full again. Any suggestions or ideas on what may be going on with this new unit? Thanks very much!

[knc1]

does if have 3g?
if yes, turn it off.

turn off wifi.

(putting in "airplane" mode will do both)
fully charge, try the same test again.
If the same thing happens, return it for exchange, it has something wrong with it.

If it is a "refurbished" unit, just return it for exchange, it has something wrong with it.

[bz9993]

I've kept airplane mode on all the time unless connectivity was needed. After another reboot and full charge, it seems to be back to the original behavior without the super fast drain for now. Perhaps this related in some way to the firmware upgrade -- the timing is certainly suspicious in that regard since the drain occurred essentially immediately after I upgraded.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by bz9993

I've kept airplane mode on all the time unless connectivity was needed. After another reboot and full charge, it seems to be back to the original behavior without the super fast drain for now. Perhaps this related in some way to the firmware upgrade -- the timing is certainly suspicious in that regard since the drain occurred essentially immediately after I upgraded.

Agreed, that sounds suspicious. Perhaps the upgrade required rebuilding some of the underlying databases due to changes in the contents from the previous firmware level. That would definitely be a major battery eater.

Dave

[bz9993]

Yeah, I was thinking that there might be a database format change that triggered a rebuild. Thing is, I thought database ops/indexing were suspended in sleep mode, and the unit was in sleep the whole time the battery drained. If I'd known there would be an issue I would have left it plugged into power, of course.

[badgoodDeb]

Unless the magnet that automatically turns it off didn't connect, leaving it on to do some of that possible database ops/indexing .

[bz9993]

It sure seemed to be in sleep. When I opened it up it lit and was in screen lock. I unlocked and saw the battery was down to one bar after having been fully charged a few hours before. Well, we'll see what happens going forward! Thanks.

[NiLuJe]

Content indexing (as well as other background tasks) is in fact *specifically* done during idle and deep idle time .

You can ask any number of people here who suddenly got an OTA update while the device was "asleep" for a few hours .

[knc1]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

Agreed, that sounds suspicious. Perhaps the upgrade required rebuilding some of the underlying databases due to changes in the contents from the previous firmware level. That would definitely be a major battery eater.

Dave

There was a database change between 5.8 and 5.9

If your device is not jail broken, you can not tell if it is "asleep" or not.

Just because the screen shows a sleep image (screensaver) does not mean that it is asleep.

Just because when you open the case and the sleep image is removed, and the touchscreen becomes active does not mean it just woke up.
It means the sleep image was removed and the touchscreen became active.

IF you have the date/time of the Kindle set the same as some external time keeper (clock, watch, etc) -
IF you keep track of the date/time you open the cover and the date/time you close the cover -
[/b]THEN[/b] you can dump the system messages (search bar: ;dm) and compare the wake and suspend message date/times with your notes.

[bz9993]

And I had a couple of gigs of stuff there for it to reindex too. And I was misled during initial indexing when I *thought* I saw the index count not changing during what I thought of as sleep periods. But if that mode isn't really sleep, and since indexing can hang sometimes anyway, that apparently was a wild goose chase. So now I know for the future that it's probably a good idea to leave the unit on external power for a time after firmware upgrades, just in case the database is going to be reindexed by a change. Thanks!

[knc1]

Originally Posted by bz9993

And I had a couple of gigs of stuff there for it to reindex too. And I was misled during initial indexing when I *thought* I saw the index count not changing during what I thought of as sleep periods. But if that mode isn't really sleep, and since indexing can hang sometimes anyway, that apparently was a wild goose chase. So now I know for the future that it's probably a good idea to leave the unit on external power for a time after firmware upgrades, just in case the database is going to be reindexed by a change. Thanks!

1) Wrong.
That is not a screen saver image.

2) Wrong.
Fixed years ago.

3) Wrong.
The system will protect the battery from over-discharge.
Fixed years ago.

(you really should read the date attached to posts here, don't expect something written 6 years ago about a different model and firmware version to still apply to current model(s) and firmware(s)).

4) Wrong.
It is not a database that gets re-indexed, it is the documents.
The database gets converted to a different schema.

Dump the messages:
;dm
in the main search bar, the semi-colon is part of the command.
Read them.
Learn.

[bz9993]

So do you always respond to messages like a jerk? I've been in this business for many decades, and I've likely been reading UNIX/Linux logs a lot longer than you have. I've been coding db applications almost as long. Unless I'm giving a technical presentation, screensaver is a common alias for lock screen among ordinary users. A db schema conversion is frequently referred to as a primary reindex event -- even though it is not technically plowing through all the documents again -- because you end up with a different database structure afterwards that is typically not compatible with earlier versions.

As for what specifics are or are not currently accurate in any given thread -- I plowed through piles threads before posting the original question and found much the same misinformation even with much more recent dates. If I'd been able to find definitive information that was clearly accurate for current firmware on current devices, I would not have needed to ask the question in the first place.

Thanks to everyone else who responded.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by bz9993

and I've likely been reading UNIX/Linux logs a lot longer than you have.

ROFLLMAO I sincerely doubt it.

[fllc]

Yeah, knc1 is pretty old... Here is some trivia about him collected over the years.

The letters from Ada Lovelace to knc1 are on display at the Smithsonian. His letters to her are in the British museum.

Alan Turing's trans-Atlantic telegrams to knc1 are in the NSA archives; they were only declassified in 1991.

The preface to Donald Knuth's 400000 page "The art of computer programming" describes how knc1 critiqued the manuscript causing Knuth 9-year long rewrite. (When I was in college, one of my professors forced us to use the marked-up manuscript because Knuth was delaying volume 255 publication!)

When Grace Hopper wanted to nominate knc1 to lead the development of COBOL in 1964, knc1 famously said that he wouldn't even consider a Macro-Assembler; real programmers write in hex!

The dedication page on my dog-eared copy of 1977 Beta edition of K&R "The C programming language" reads: to knc1, without whom there would be no Unix or C.

In 1979 the US Department of Defense designed a new multi-purpose language that they wanted to name knc1/L, but had to rename it ADA because knc1 name was still classified.

In 1980, when IBM wanted to buy CP/M and was refused, they had to call knc1 out of retirement. According to a well-publicized story, after painful deliberation, knc1 introduced his great-great-grandnephew Bill Gates to IBM.

Did you know that Sergey (Brin) keeps a miniature statue of knc1 on his desk?

Readers (not hackers or programmers) in this forum easily recognized that the character "Ove" in Fredrik Backman's novel is based on knc1. Backman was very cryptic about it in the Acknowledgments but confessed in "60 minutes" interview.

And closer to home: all Mobileread youngsters (such as NiLuJe, TwoBob and others) working on their PHD's had to put knc1 as co-author on their thesis in order to post unmolested on Kindle developers forum.

My personal story: I have been retired for many years. But I remember when I was in my first job (using PDP-8 and paper tape), knc1 was a featured guest at the opening of our new datacenter. He regaled us with the stories how he had to crawl inside the Univac Mark-II and using jumper cables on vacuum tubes to fix bugs in real-time! That's embedded systems!

BTW, Mobileread still uses knc1-developed editor that purposely does not differentiate between "your" and "you're" or "there", "their" and "they're".