iPhone 3GS Battery problems with Fake APN - any workarounds?

[Flore]

Hello everybody..

I am using a factory unlocked 3GS from Italy...

Forget about all the small text below, no longer relevant.

the issue I have is that i currently do not have a data plan, and need to disable all data.

I was doing this by using a Fake APN profile there are tons around, however there is a problem with extremely fast battery drain if you do so.

The link is for jailbroken phones but still valid explanation.
http://thebigboss.org/2009/07/27/how-to-disable-edge-maybe-on-30/


Has anyone found a workaround to disable data without changing the APN this way, meaning battery drain?


Used to use it with "du" in the UAE with normal iPhone battery life.

Then came to Germany and I noticed it drained much faster with a local T-Mobile SIM. At first I thought it was 3.0.1 or another issue, restarted, restored etc, but before I could test and do more extensive troubleshooting I went to Italy for couple of days where I experienced much longer battery life again (Roaming on the T-Mobile SIM)

Came back yesterday and the phone drains battery like crazy again

I have a profile running that disables cellular data (no data plan on the German SIM), 3G is off, reception average.

So all in all I feel like it is somehow connected to my carrier, or rather the local network. How can that be? Any ideas? It's frustrating..

Edit1:
I found something interesting.

The iPhone reports constant usage even when in standby just lying on the table. After full recharge, disconnect and then just leaving it I had 21min usage, 21min standby without touching it.

I switched to Airplane mode.. and the problem disappeared.

There must be something that tries to connect to the network constantly.

Edit2:
After some testing, it is definetly PUSH that is the culprit.. guess what, I only have MobileMe.
So it seems that MobileMe tries to access Data, but since I have the wrong APN profile installed to disable Data, it does so constantly without success, generating usage and battery drain.

Now I could just turn off Push but I actually would like to have it when I am in WiFi areas...

Any ideas on this? I need to disable cellular data but appearantly if I do it via a fake APN profile, MobileMe goes crazy and drains my battery

To sum it up, the problem is the combination of MobileMe push and the fake APN to disable data. Any workaround appreciated.

Edit 3:

It is not push/fetch/MobileMe.

It seems to be the Data disabler.. from unlockit.co.nz.
Will drop those guys an E-Mail, has anyone else experienced this? Please help..

 

[-aggie-]

Reception issues are probably the cause of most of the battery life issues on this site. Everyone worries about whether they have this or that on, but reception is mostly overlooked. For example, during the day near my office, I have a good signal and the battery hardly goes down. But then when I go home on public transportation I can see my battery sinking fast as we have to go through mountains.

 

[Flore]

Thanks for the input.

As I said though, 3G is off and EDGE reception is average to most of the time rather good (full bars) everywhere in my house.
So this cannot be the cause.

 

[Flore]

Sorry for the double post, I added new information in the first post now instead.

 

[-aggie-]

Sorry for the double post, I added new information in the first post now instead.

Thanks for the new information, which should prove useful to others that might have a similar situation. I don't have MobileMe, nor have I used any fake APN's, but I'll bump your thread to possible get its attention to more knowledgeable members.

 

[Flore]

no longer relevant..

 

[Flore]

Turns out it seems to be not push nor fetch either.

It simply is the disable data profile. Has anyone else who is using the profile from unlockit.co.nz experienced this?

Edit:
Here is a temporary fix, albeit not 100% perfect

Sooo...

I solved my problem to a certain extent.
What I wanted to do is disable all data (Edge and 3G) on the 3GS with 3.0, not jailbroken but factory unlocked.
Using the Fake APN Profile unfortunately caused extreme battery drain, as also pointed out here:
http://thebigboss.org/2009/07/27/how-to-disable-edge-maybe-on-30/

This problem can be solved by doing the following:

1) This step is optional but you can check exactly what is going on in your phone by doing it. Download and install iPhone configuration utility from Apple.
Connect your iPhone. In the Console you can follow what is happening.
The massive battery drain is caused by the constant attempts to connect to network, when the Fake APN is installed.

It looks like this:
Sat Aug 15 16:17:56 unknown CommCenter28 <Notice>: Error (58) activating PDP context 0 that supports types 0: kGprsMissingorUnknownAPN
Sat Aug 15 16:17:56 unknown CommCenter28 <Notice>: Telling PDP context 0 to go active.
Sat Aug 15 16:17:56 unknown CommCenter28 <Notice>: connection mask for 0 is 0

This will occur all the time. After you completed the following 4 steps, these entries should be gone.

2) On your iPhone, remove the Fake APN profile.

3) Then disable Push and Notifications

4) Restart your phone

5) Re-install the profile

6) Your battery drain should be gone while data is disabled at the same time.


I know the problem with this is push and notifications will be gone on WiFi as well.
Currently I don't see a solution, however, the bigger problem I could see from my testing is not push but notifications. So if you do have WiFi most of the time, then leave push on, its impact on battery life is less with regards to this problem.

Unlike notifications, it only shows up with errors in the console 2 times or so a minute.
Notifications shows up every second or so.
I really hope this helps, I am still in the process of testing the exact impacts of fetch, push etc
but maybe someone has more input.

Let me know how it goes if anyone has the same problems.

 

[kido2222]

iPhone battery problem

Hello Flore,

I think I found the answer for the battery problem,
Can you please send me e-mail about this at:

Thanks,
Aviad.

 

[Flore]

I would prefer if we disucss it here or via PM...
but it should be useful for all users who might suffer from this issue..

 

[kido2222]

I would prefer if we disucss it here or via PM...
but it should be useful for all users who might suffer from this issue..

Alright, well... I think the problem is in the sim card,
In my iphone... eveything was going well... until I needed to replace my sim with a new one... when I did that... I had to restore the iphone to get the new sim to start working with the iphone (because I couldn't get any calls at all...), after the restore, the problem with the battery started...
I tried to restore once again with new the sim... and still the problem remains.
In the end... I took another old sim (like I had before all the case started...) and did a restore with it... and it worked perfectly.
So I think it may have some kind of connection... I really don't understand in sim card kinds... but you can try it youself.
Today I'm going to my carrier to try and solve this... I'll update you if I have a solution.
Tell me what do you think about this...