iPhone 12 Pro Max on 14.4 has overnight battery drain caused by stuck Backup app
Last night, I went to sleep at 12am with the phone at nearly 100%. When I woke up at 7am, the battery was down to 50%. I noticed that the Backup app was constantly running while the device was locked, on wifi, but unplugged from power.
It looks like there is some issue with the automatic iCloud backup. The last successful backup was a month ago, around the time I got the phone new. It gets stuck on "Estimating time remaining...". I can sync with my mbp, imac, and air without an issue.
I signed out of iCloud, hard reset, then signed back in, but it still will not complete. Turning off iCloud backup appears that it may prevent the abnormal idle battery drain, but I will have to let it sit tonight to verify.
I didn't grab a screenshot of the last backup size before I signed out of iCloud, but it was small. Maybe around 155MB. While it listed an option for "Next backup size," it would not display the size. It only said "Loading...".
Any ideas as to why this is occurring and how to fix are appreciated.
Overnight edit:
On suggestion from u/JazzySpazzy1, toggled iCloud Drive / Whatsapp backup off:
Let iCloud backup try to run about an hour before going to bed. No change, no estimation of time, nothing. Turned off iCloud backup and went to bed @ 100%. Woke up this morning down to 40%. Now the abnormal battery drain now logs as being caused by App store.
Morning edit:
On suggestion from u/Archvile7, deleted only existing iCloud backup from one month ago. iCloud backup continues to get stuck on "Estimating time remaining...".
Trying to backup to my imac also gets stuck.
Posted Mar 1, 2021, 12:58 AM UTC · edited
Does you iCloud account have enough storage to sustain the backup? Maybe it’s stuck in a limbo trying to back everything up but there’s no storage left.
I'm at 12GB out of 50GB currently. iCloud drive shows 9.6GB, Photos at 2GB, and backups at 133.3MB. Everything beyond that is negligible.
Right now, the iPhone reports 34.9GB of 128GB used. Whatsapp is the biggest offender at 3.9GB, Google news at 525MB, and everything beyond that is < 300MB.
If the backup routine were backing up all the apps and related data, that may push it close to the 50GB cap. I'm not sure that's the way it's functioning.
Try turning off backup for something large like iCloud Drive, and see if it goes through? And if low power mode is on, turn it off while doing this.
With iCloud Drive on:
https://imgur.com/nnzOdHq
Toggling iCloud Drive off:
https://imgur.com/j7ZHc8e
It's currently "Backing up..." and "Estimating time remaining..."
Will let that sit for a bit and see if it flows through. I assume it will at least give me the time remaining without requiring the phone to be locked?
edit: Whatsapp eventually popped up again after toggling iCloud Drive off (screenshot didn't show it initially). Toggled that off as well.
Side q: why would it be backing up Google Drive as a part of iCloud Drive? It isn't listed under iCloud > Manage Storage, though it is an app I've downloaded. I'm at 54GB out of 100GB on GDrive.
It is most likely backing up the login data and stuff for google drive, not the actual content. Turning off low power mode, WhatsApp backup, and iCloud Drive backup should allow the phone to successfully back up (you may need to restart the phone after turning those things off to clear things up). If it does back up successfully, then the problem is definitely low iCloud storage. If not, then there is probably a bigger problem that apple support may be able to help with.
On a side note, leaving on low power mode overnight when your phone isn’t plugged in should help your phone retain its battery a lot better. I remember being SUPER tired and going to bed with my 12 pro max at 1% in low power mode without being plugged in, and to my surprise the phone was still at 1% when I woke up in the morning.