# Xiaomi Mi A1 battery drain and USB file transfer issues



## peppimeister (May 28, 2020)

Hello everyone,

Since a month or so, my phone battery is draining very fast. It used to hold for two days sometimes, but suddenly it started draining 10%/hour, and it even runs down at night when I put it in airplane mode.

I've tried to look around online for a solution, and the best match I could come up with seemed to be that I have some wakelock on my phone which is draining the battery. On suggestion of several websites, I installed the Wakelock Detector.

To run the Wakelock detector, I have to connect to a PC via USB, either to root my phone or to run a workaround script (I wanted to do the second). Unfortunately, my phone has not been allowing me the file transfer option for a longer time, all options to use the USB in the USB preferences screen are greyed out.

I tried solving that in the following ways:
- Other USB port/cable/laptop,
- Install universal android driver on laptop (Xiaomi's website does not seem to contain any drivers?),
all to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated since it's really annoying to have to charge my phone twice per day! And ofcourse it's also convenient to be able to transfer files via USB...

Thanks in advance.


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## Mukith82 (May 31, 2020)

I've experienced both issues but I'm not sure ever together. 

For the USB data transfer I think I resolved by both using a new cable and also removing the old drivers. Some cables seem to only work well for charging but not for data. If your using windows 10 once you connect a new device, or reconnect after removing drivers, the system should automatically download compatible drivers. You can also force the default option to data transfer by enabling developer options and finding the option for "default USB configuration" but I never had to do that.

Battery drain issues are annoying. Sometimes they happen after an update but eventually just resolve themselves after several restarts. On my old Redmi note 3 I did find that the system was having an issue with my old SD card. You can unmount the SD card from settings and see if this makes a difference. If it does it may be an issue with the card. I just removed mine permanently as I didn't need the storage. On a different occasion Xiaomi updated firmware and I had battery drain issues until I disabled "MIUI optimisation" but sin you have an Android 1 device this shouldn't affect you.

Hopefully you find a solution.


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## peppimeister (May 28, 2020)

Thank you for your reply Mukith!

In the end, I did a factory reset, which seems to have resolved the battery drain issue.

The USB transfer was still not possible however. I know for sure that it's not the cable, because (i) it was possible with this cable two months ago and (ii) I used my roommate's cable which he uses to transfer data. There is something strange with the drivers though. I removed the drivers as you suggested, but when I connect my phone, it does not automatically download drivers...

Also when I reinstall drivers manually, they don't show up in the device manager list. Really have no clue how to solve this...


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## plodr (Jun 27, 2014)

When you connect the phone to your laptop does it charge?


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## peppimeister (May 28, 2020)

plodr said:


> When you connect the phone to your laptop does it charge?


Yes.


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## plodr (Jun 27, 2014)

Then try this
1. tap+hold+drag from the top of your screen until you see USB charging this device.
2. Click on USB charging this device and you will see 4 options:
Charge this device
Transfer files
Transfer photos (PTP)
Use device as MIDI
3. Select transfer files.


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## peppimeister (May 28, 2020)

plodr said:


> Then try this
> 1. tap+hold+drag from the top of your screen until you see USB charging this device.
> 2. Click on USB charging this device and you will see 4 options:
> Charge this device
> ...


Unfortunately, when I scroll down the top of the screen, this banner is not showing up (it used to, I know exactly what you mean). When I go through settings to the 'Use USB for' screen, all other options than charging are greyed out and I cannot select them.

I also tried to go to developer options to turn on transfer files by default, but this also did not work.


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## plodr (Jun 27, 2014)

Sorry, I have no other ideas.

Workaround: put into an email files, photos, music you want on the other device. Pick up the email on the device you want these files on and download them to this device.
It is cumbersome but if you can not transfer using the USB charging cable, I don't see what else you can do.


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