Nexus 5 battery drain on Android 5.0.1 Lollipop fixed

Ever since Android 5.0 Lollipop was released, users have been complaining about Nexus 5 battery drain issues, as well as various other bugs involving cellular connections, Wi-Fi connections, random restarts and unresponsive, sluggish performance. Google has addressed the issues and released Android 5.0.1 Lollipop update for the Nexus 5, but a handful of people are still reporting serious issues with their Nexus 5 devices.

Nexus 5 battery drain on Android 5.0.1 Lollipop first and foremost can be cause by third party apps that have not been updated, so if you are experiencing this issue, try starting your phone in safe mode and see if the battery drain is still happening. If not, you need to clear your third-party apps one by one and see which of them is causing the battery drain. You can also try to monitor how much battery each app uses by going into settings and battery information. The chart should show you which app is draining your battery the most. Nexus 5 battery drain issues can also be caused by the software itself, in which case there’s not much you can do.

It is alarming that even though most problems were fixed by the hasty Android 5.0.1 Lollipop update for the Nexus 5, some people are still experiencing battery drain, app crashes, failed signals, unusable Wi-Fi connections and even random reboots when the Nexus 5 goes into sleep mode. Nexus 5 battery drain issues aren’t as common as the latter one, many people reporting on forums and social media that once their lockscreen is activated on the Nexus 5, the phone just restarts without notice. The same thing happens when you lock it yourself or if it goes into standby by itself. This issue doesn’t have an official fix yet, but one of the methods that seem to have worked for some of the people experience Nexus 5 battery drain and restarting issues is a clean manual install.

If you’ve let Android 5.0.1 install automatically, your installation process might have become corrupted without you noticing it at first. The solution to this is a manual installation of Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. For that, you are going to have to root your device and perform a manual update, which is not recommended because you may void your warranty and even brick your Nexus 5 if you don’t know what you are doing.

Another method of trying to fix the Nexus 5 battery drain issue is to clear your cache, in case there’s something in there that is tapping into your power source. If that doesn’t work, you can try to wipe your cache partition by following these steps:

1. If you are not able to access the settings menu (such as when the device hangs when updating), use Recovery mode:
2. If your device is on, hold the Power button to restart the device.
3. When the device turns off, press and hold the Volume Down button, then press and hold the Power button at the same time until the tablet turns on.
4. Press the Volume Down button twice to highlight Recovery mode.
5. Press the Power button to start Recovery mode. You’ll see an image of an Android robot with a red exclamation mark and the words “No command.”
6. While holding down the Power button, press the Volume Up button.
7. Use the volume buttons to scroll to “wipe cache partition” then press the Power button to select it.
8. When the cache is cleared, press the Power button on “reboot system now.”

Let us know if these methods worked for you. If they did not resolve your Nexus 5 battery drain problems or other problems like random restarts, storage space errors and error notifications, I’m afraid we are going to have to wait for yet another update to hit our devices until we can use our devices like before. If none of these work for you, and your device has been rendered unusable, you should perform a factory reset and see if that helps. If not, you’ve no other choice than to downgrade to Android 4.4.4 KitKat, which I assume worked just fine for you. Downgrading requires flashing and some experience, so proceed with caution.