[Updated] Some Sony Xperia devices impacted by severe battery drain after Google Play January update (workarounds inside)

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

Original story (published on March 8, 2023) follows:

Sony Xperia smartphones have been in the industry for many years. Currently, Sony mobile devices focus on those who like things like a plethora of camera options, good audio quality, and more.

That said, it seems that some Sony Xperia users have been facing a severe battery drain issue where the cause seems to be a recent Google Play system update.

Sony usually attaches great importance to the battery life of its devices. The company seeks to improve not only its daily duration, but also to preserve its health in the long term.

But in the last few weeks, multiple complaints about the battery life on some Xperia smartphones have begun to emerge.

Xperia 1 II – SOG01 Rom

I am using Sony Xperia 1 ii. The code is SOG01, and I’m on android 12. I want to go back to android 11 because lately my phone is overheating and draining battery fast. Please everyone share the android 11 rom for me. My device has not unlocked the bootloader
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Lots of people are complaining about huge power drain this last two weeks. There was another thread yesterday about it. It might not be just the screen, I think there’s something Google going on as well.
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Numerous users noted that they started experiencing a severe battery drain issue at the same time. After much discussion and debate, the community discovered a few key things.

First, multiple Xperia users agreed that the battery drain issue started after the ‘Google Play’ January (2023) update. Google Play updates do not come with OS updates, as they have been handled separately for a while now.

I noticed the drain since the Google Play system is updated to Jan 2023. Not sure it is the direct cause, though I suspect it is
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My wife’s 5 II had a battery drain recently which seems to be caused by Google Services (TBC).
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Before that, users thought that the issue was caused by certain apps. This is because apps like YouTube Vanced, Revanced, Google Authenticator, Shopee and even Telegram were consuming more battery.

However, a Redditor later dropped key details about the situation. The most important has to do with the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service.

‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ is a system service present only on Xperia smartphones. While its main goal is unknown, it seems that the Google Play January update caused conflicts with it.

According to analysis offered by the Redditor, ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ is causing the device’s CPU and GPU to increase speeds to high levels when certain apps are running.

More specifically, Google services are causing constant wake-locks after the January update due to the conflict with the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service, preventing the device from entering in a ‘sleep’ state.

He said he used to use (https://github.com/google/battery-historian) when he worked before. He said that Google service keep pulling wakelock, cause that Kernel (Android OS) couldn’t sleep.
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So, the battery drain issue doesn’t seem to be the fault of any specific app, but the conflict between the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service and the Google Play January update.

There are some potential methods that could help to fix the issue. First, the easiest is to disable the apps that are known to ‘activate’ the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service which overloads the CPU and GPU.

So far, these are the known apps that they recommend uninstalling:

YouTube Vanced

ReVanced

Google Authenticator

Shopee

Telegram

There are two other potential workarounds, although they require some prior knowledge. First, affected users can use ADB commands to disable the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service.

The third method is more extreme, since it consists of changing to a custom ROM. This eliminates the problem as the ‘com.sonyericsson.crashmonitor’ service is only present on native Xperia ROMs.

I manually flashed OS to Customized EU 58.2.A.7.93-R12C version (Android 12) and problems with battery and overheating were gone.
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In the latest development in the situation, the Redditor wrote to Sony technical support, and they responded saying that they will contact the technical department. Sadly, a fix doesn’t seem to be close.

Nope, still no way to fix it. I had written another email to customer service yesterday, and they just said that they will contact to there technical department. So… maybe we have to wait for awhile.
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We will update this story as events unfold.

04:04 pm (IST): Google released February 2023 Google Play System update earlier this week. Hence, Xperia users can check its availability from OS settings and see if this issue gets resolved.

Featured Image: Sony

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