topic Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues in Other Smartphones

Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Kachiu — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 13:29:06 GMT

I work in a phone store, over the last week or so we’ve had at least 40 people come in with the j3 2016 having issues with the battery discharging rapidly. Some have bought replacement batteries and are still having the issue. Some have updates available, others are on the most recent version of android for the phone. There doesn’t appear to be any app in the battery app that is misbehaving to suggest it’s the culprit. Can anyone confirm what would suddenly start all these phones discharging at the same time. Some phones are over 2 years old others have only been in use for about a year so there doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern that we can identify.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

AntS — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:07:03 GMT

Hi @Kachiu.

That's an odd one! What's the typical battery usage breakdown in Battery Usage you've seen? Any problems with mobile or Wi-Fi signal strength in your local area you're aware of? (I'm assuming your customers are coming from around where you're located, of course.)

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Kachiu — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 17:57:52 GMT

It’s really strange. The battery usage looks fairly typical. Screen time being the largest drain as you would expect and then occasionally a social media app but only minimal percentage of overall battery use. The majority of our customers that have this phone are older users so their use age is fairly minimal anyway compared to some others. They’re not living on their phones in other words. Signal around here for us is great but customers have not all been from within just one small town. It’s perplexing and difficult to deal with as we just don’t have answers for them!

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

AntS — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 11:22:54 GMT

No doubt.

I'm fairly sure that the Members app can't be installed on a J3 2016 - otherwise I'd have advised sending error reports with log files for the software team to analyse.

Has a factory reset or a data cache clear on any of the phones had an effect?

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Kachiu — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:07:45 GMT

Cleared what caches we can, with them being quite small on the memory front it doesn’t clear a lot of space, the majority of people don’t even have additional apps on their phones anyway, one customer hasn’t even created a google play log in to download further apps. We’ll pick someone to do a factory reset on that is ok with that happening, generally people don’t want to though as it will wipe their phone.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

AntS — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:18:59 GMT

Let us know it goes.

And agreed on the reluctance to factory reset. I'm not too big a fan of it either. If you can, try to get the customer to back up their data beforehand.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

JAMES4578 — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 20:13:36 GMT

A few relatives have the J3 , however as far as I'm aware do not currently have the battery drainage issue. Not so long ago one had an issue with freezes but it was sorted.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Talkabout — Sat, 25 May 2019 11:32:10 GMT

I have a mobile phone store and have exactly the same issue. Only in the last month I’ve had at least 20 Users of J3 2016 with same battery problem. Changed batteries, reset phones, etc some ok, some same problem. All about 1-2 years old. Very strange and confusing!

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

10kell10 — Sun, 26 May 2019 12:03:44 GMT

Myself and a friend are also having the same battery problems with the Samsung j3 2016. We have both bought new battery but the problem still exists.

I have gone through my phone and forced closed apps and it's made no difference. The system is up to date and I checked the battery usage and there is nothing out of the ordinary.

This problem started round about a month ago, just as explained in the other posts.

Did anyone do a factory reset as previously discussed or found another way to resolve the problem?

Do Samsung have an official comment on this?

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

10kell10 — Wed, 29 May 2019 11:12:03 GMT

Kachiu, did you get anyone to do a factory reset on their phone?

Really need to know if anyone has gotten anywhere with resolving this issue yet before I go out and buy a new phone.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Neil-Savin — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 12:23:13 GMT

Having same problem on 2 off J3 2016. Spoke with someone called Jack at Samsung Milton Keynes 01908 978440 who said it was a known software bug, which they should fix by mid June. (ie 2 weeks from now)

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Phil007 — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 20:21:05 GMT

Having exactly the same issues with my J3 2016 - draining flat within approx 18 - 20 hours whilst not even using the device. Have sent it in for repair by EE - total waste of time; comments from EE, with whom I have the phone on contract, range from "we are not aware of any such problem" to " the fault is a known issue with Samsung who are unfortunately unable to offer a solution at this time." My take on this is that I have a contract with EE who are not providing me with a device which is performing even close to the Samsung published specification of "up to 349 hours standby." Interesting conversations to be had methinks....

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

IainClark — Fri, 21 Jun 2019 09:44:36 GMT

Hi all. I have the same issue, we have 3No Samsung J3 (2016) in the family, 1 of them is 2 years old the other two are approx 18 Months old. All three phones had normal battery usage up to about 3 Months ago but now all discharge completelly after approx 16 - 18 hours. A few stats:-

1) all 3 phones are on the Virgin network.

2) 2 of the phones connect to Virgin wifi in Warrington, the other one connects to Talk Talk wifi in Oldham.

3) All 3 phones are all lightly used.

4) There is no indication on the phone as to what is consuming the power and using power optimisation makes no difference.

Now the interesting bit which I hope may lead to an answer....We have just returned from a couple of weeks in Rhodes, the two phones that we took with us reverted back to normal battery usage when out of the UK whilst my Daughter (who didn't come with us) still had the battery issue. Now that my wife and I are back in the Country we have the battery issue again. Whilst away the devices weren't connected to wifi 24/7 but were connected for about 18 hours per day.

So my summation is that the problem has resulted from something that the device downloaded about 3 Months ago that is causing a constant power drain which isn't recognised by the device as being an App (as it doesn't show up when checking power usage). Whatever this downloaded software was it is not active outside the UK despite being connected to wifi.

Any ideas???

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

ChrisM — Sat, 22 Jun 2019 13:32:45 GMT

Hi all. We've had some news back from our developers on this one.

Recently, Samsung has been notified that some users with J3 2016 devices (SM-J320F), based on the ‘EE’ network, have experienced the symptom of rapid battery drain on their phones. For users affected by this, Samsung is scheduled to release a new software update which will be available in the coming weeks (hopefully by the end of June).

Please check for updates to your phone's software regularly, either through the menu of the phone or via the Smart Switch app for PC. Samsung encourages all users to keep their software and apps updated to the latest version wherever possible. We're committed to providing the best possible mobile experience to all our customers.

If the problem is still not resolved after the software update, please visit your nearest authorised Samsung Service Center to enable one of our engineers to give your phone a thorough inspection.

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

IainClark — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 12:30:50 GMT

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the reply, that makes perfect sense as my devices are all on the Virgin network who use EE. My phone has now updated and battery usage has returned back to normal.

Regards

Iain

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

paul_bradford — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:16:31 GMT

Same issue here too. Bought the phone in Jan 2018 and no issues at all until 2 months ago-the battery started to hold a charge about as well as a strainer holds water. Thought the battery might be a problem so bought a new one-still having the same issue. At the moment all I do is unplug from the charger as I get up and, as I make breakfast, the charge is down to 96-97% without me using the phone. On my commute I'll update the BBC weather app, check the headlines on the BBC news app and my e-mail account then my phone sits in my bag all morning; by lunchtime charge is down to 60-70% from a morning of doing nothing. Phone is on power saving mode with a timeout of 1 minute, if I had the screen brightness any lower I wouldn't be able to see it. To be honest getting fed up of having to re-charge every night and I can't trust the phone to make even a short call after 5pm. I use it for work and, compared to colleagues phones, it's an embarrassment. Went into my local Smasung store and the guy I spoke to was very helpful but he couldn't seem to figure the problem and the only advice he could give was to run the phone down regularly then re-charge to full; been doing that for 2 months now and it's no better. Looking around for a new phone and, after this experience, it won't be another Samsung. Strange how all the reported issues come after 18 months or so! Attempt by Samsung to force an upgrade?

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

Mulubrhan — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 12:36:28 GMT

I bought J3 Samsung(2016) phone in February 2018. At first it was working fine. But a year later, the battery started to act weird. It discharges very quickly. In addtion to that, the battery even popped and started to push the back cover of the phone. Then, I threw it and bought similar battery (Made in Vietnam) in Amazon. Uh.. still unlucky. I charged it fully yesterday and started to use it today. It worked very fine till the battery discharged to 60%. Then, suddenly it dropped to 20%. It started to fall by 1% every minute and when it reached 15%, the phone shutdown. What is really happening? I have heard some friends of mine also complaining about Samsung batteries. What is the matter?

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

paul_bradford — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 18:45:06 GMT

So.....
Local Samsung shop advised me to drain the battery completely & recharge to full - have been doing this for the better part of a month and it's made no difference
Assumed it was a battery issue so I bought a new battery - no difference
Checked my software - phone tells me I have the latest versions
Did a factory reset - no difference
Find it hard to believe that Samsung have "identified an issue" that only affects phones on a certain network
Looking at the broader picture there's a lot of threads about battery issues with other Samsung products on this site so it's difficult to come to a conclusion other that this is something Samsung are aware of but are choosing to do nothing about

Can't see any option other than buying a new phone that isn’t a Samsung...

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

JayCG — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 16:26:53 GMT

Is this software update available yet? (August 23rd 2019)

Re: Samsung j3 2016 battery issues

MysteriousOne — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 02:48:48 GMT

I don't know, but it better be, I have the same battery issue, and my phone is always the first phone in my family to die, and it's been like that for a little over a year now