PIA consumes more battery than any other app on Pixel/Oreo
My wife's Google Pixel running Android Oreo has been getting terrible battery life for the last month, and we're fairly certain PIA is to blame. Each time we check her battery stats, we see something like this:
My own Nexus 6P does not demonstrate this behavior, even after the recent update to Oreo. And my wife's phone wasn't having this problem when we first signed up for PIA, it's a new issue. We're both up-to-date, using version 1.3.3.1.
I already contacted support about this, and their response was pretty terrible:
My own Nexus 6P does not demonstrate this behavior, even after the recent update to Oreo. And my wife's phone wasn't having this problem when we first signed up for PIA, it's a new issue. We're both up-to-date, using version 1.3.3.1.
I already contacted support about this, and their response was pretty terrible:
Me, 2017-10-17:
My wife's phone drained almost entirely while inactive overnight, so this morning she asked me to investigate. Android's Battery Usage stats report PIA was primarily responsible for the rapid battery drain. It reports "102% of total app usage (4350mAh)" which sounds absurd - I have a screenshot; the breakdown of multiple apps reports it causing 70% of total battery discharge since the last full charge (maybe 36 hours ago) and "Android System" responsible for another 25%, bluetooth for most of the remaining 5%.
Why would the PIA app cause such significant battery drain and is there anything we can do about it?
We've had this app on her phone for months but haven't seen it get this bad before. She's using a Google Pixel (1st generation) and was recently upgraded to Oreo. I also have the PIA app on my phone and have not had problems with it - I'm using a Nexus 6P and am still on Nougat. Please let me know if there are any other diagnostics we can pull for you.
PIA Support, 2017-10-27:
I apologize that you have experienced such a battery drain. Unfortunately the app does use a lot of battery because it needs to maintain a constant connection to keep you encrypted tunnel secure. In order to do this the app needs to ping our server every 8 to 10 seconds. you may be able to supplement this by turning on the batter saver function on your phone. The best option is to turn the VPN off when you are not using the phone.
Me, 2017-10-27:
...Your recommendation is to turn the VPN off when I'm not using the phone? It's a smartphone. If the phone is powered, it's sending and receiving data that should go through the VPN.
Anyway, I'm trying to say that this behavior isn't just normal battery drain. Again, my wife and I have both been using PIA on our phones for months and haven't seen anything like this before. If there's no known battery consumption issue with a particular version of the the app, on Pixel phones, or on Android Oreo, we can resolve this ticket because there's probably nothing you can do for us. But at least throw this report over the wall to your engineering team so they can add it to the pile
PIA Support, 2017-10-28:
I appreciate your understanding. I will make sure that our team is aware of your ticket.
All that to say, they're either in denial or have just decided this problem isn't worth their time right now. To anyone at PIA reading this: Please take this issue seriously! It's not worth sticking with your service if it has such an adverse effect on our phones. To everyone else: Please speak up if you're having a similar issue! PIA probably doesn't have a sense of how many people are running into this.
Thanks!
Brad
Comments
However, I hope that one of the Support guys can bring this up to a developer on increasing the keep alive time interval so the phones can keep the battery up a little longer.
We're looking into it, but many of our own personal devices do not behave this way ((mine included) so narrowing down the specific issue without a debuglog or physically having access to your device will take time to get to the bottom of.
In my experiences developing and using custom ROMs for Android, not every phone is created equal. You can buy the exact same phone two times and get different results sometimes. This has not been ruled out as a possibility but know we're looking into some potential causes.
https://9to5google.com/2017/09/21/google-pixel-android-oreo-random-reboot/
Is there anything I can do to help with the pain of debugging from a distance? I'm a developer and am happy to sideload builds, track down debug logs, whatever will help. If your team can point me in the right direction, I'm happy to share any diagnostics we can find.
Link to my other post on battery drain: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/28912/pia-app-glitches-android-8-1-and-battery-life#latest
In the meantime, I would recommend trying with OpenVPN directly as a workaround: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/android-openvpn-connect
Details:
Xiaomi Mi A1
Android 8.0.0
PIA version: 1.4.5(196)
Can you send us a screenshot of the details of the PIA app's consumption? I highly suspect it's going to be because it keeps your mobile radio active, which is a big battery drain.
Pixel 2
Android 8.1.0
PIA 1.4.5 (196)
Mine is currently sat at 17% (358mAh) with the last full charge being 13h 16 min ago.
OnePlus 5T
Android 8.0.0
PIA 1.4.5
Somewhat unrelated but I just came back from a trip to the US and while data roaming, my phone was draining battery like crazy at a similar rate than what people in this thread experience (without using the VPN). Running PIA or not had zero effect on my phone, but it was already draining. If normal operation of mobile network can cause the drain then it's possible that on some phones the mere fact of having the VPN connection open, even if idle, could cause significant drain just like my data roaming did to me in my trip.
I've just asked the developers for more details/status information on this so I can provide more details as to what's going on.
I haven't actually checked it since the last update so maybe it's fixed now. Planning on leaving PIA on all night again this week and seeing how it goes. Hoping for the best.
You mentioned being on WiFi overnight however, and that grabs my attention. So far, my understanding of this issue was that it had something to do with the mobile radio as for most people, it shows as battery usage over cellular network. I've always suspected it's got something to do with the VPN keeping the mobile radio awake, which uses a lot of power (less so on LTE but if you switch to 3G mode, rip battery). WiFi tends to be a lot more lightweight on battery than mobile data since it doesn't have to transmit nearly as far and maintaining a data channel open is also simpler/faster. That shifts the issue elsewhere which is puzzling.
Do you download a lot of data over the VPN during the time the VPN is in use overnight? Google Play store updates possibly or other similar things?
Please do report back if you find anything!
Running a Sony Xperia X Compact on 8.0.0 with PIA 1.4.5.2 (198).
Could this possibly be similar to this that Pixel users are reporting with Oreo, since your phone also runs Oreo? https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/6wiwrq/psa_turn_off_mobile_data_always_on_on_oreo_for/