[Update: Possible culprit found] Android 11 update: Pixel users reporting excessive battery drain & performance issues

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on October 09, 2020) follows:

The Google Pixel is perhaps one of the most perfect Android phones to exist. With a great hardware package, the best smartphone camera and timely updates from Google, the Pixel is one of the best there is.

The timely updates are what makes the Pixel so special. Android has always been a mess with updates, with some OEMs taking years to push them. The Google Pixel has always been stellar when it comes to updates.

Getting 3 years of OS and security updates, the Google Pixel is always top on the Android game. While users really appreciate Google’s timely updates, they are also equally wary of Google pushing buggy updates now and then.

Google has pushed a few many buggy updates and the latest addition to the list is the Android 11 update. Yes, you read that right. Google started pushing Android 11 to the Pixels last month and users are reporting of unexpectedly high battery drain.

Users have flooded the forums with reports of their phone batteries draining excessively after the Android 11 update. And it’s not just one phone, it’s happening across all the Pixels.

While there’s no official word from Google yet, an expert suggested booting into safe mode. Predictably, that didn’t help. There are reports that the phone is getting warm and battery is dropping to 25% in a few hours after a full charge.

Users have tried uninstalling apps, rebooting and a lot of other stuff, and most of them didn’t help. While some users reported that the problem resolved automatically, most of the them aren’t so lucky.

As if battery draining wasn’t the only problem, there are reports that the phones have become really slow after the Android 11 update. This issue is also being reported across all the Google Pixel phones. Ouch!

The October security update which got pushed this week, didn’t help either. With users reporting that it’s causing more harm than good. The only fix that works is downgrading the Pixel back to Android 10, but that wipes all data.

As with most software issues, the problems aren’t plaguing all the phones out there. My Pixel 2 is working like a charm. However Google should fix this issue fast. Hundreds of users complaining of issues after an update doesn’t result in good PR for Google.

Update 1 (October 12)

More users have begun reporting about the battery draining and performance issues after installing the Android 11 update. This time around many Pixel 3 series and Pixel 3a series owners are confirming that the issue exists on their devices.

Update 2 (October 14)

According to some user reports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), it appears that the TuneIn Radio application may be the culprit for excessive battery draining. This is because users who uninstalled the app claim that the issue was resolved.

However, this does not seem to be the case for everyone. The problem exists for other users who do not have the TuneIn Radio application on their devices as well.

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