Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra battery drains rapidly after July security update
A July security update released at the end of July has caused severe battery drain and overheating on Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphones. Users report that the charge can fall from about 85 % to 5 % within a few hours of normal use, and standby loss rates of 5‑7 % per hour have been documented, with some isolated reports of up to 24 % per hour.
Affected devices also become noticeably warm, reaching temperatures around 40 °C even when idle, and charging times have lengthened dramatically, with a full charge taking roughly three hours instead of the usual 70 minutes. The issue is believed to stem from background processes stuck in loops, possibly linked to encrypted WhatsApp backups, though Samsung has not confirmed the root cause. Samsung Electronics has not issued an official statement or a fix, leaving users to rely on temporary work‑arounds such as clearing cache partitions and disabling heavy background tasks.
The problem has been reported by owners in Germany and China, indicating a broad geographic impact across markets where the phones are sold.
Entities: Galaxy S24 Ultra · Galaxy S25 Ultra · Samsung Electronics · Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra · Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Claims
What the coverage asserts, and how well corroborated each claim is across sources.
- [● 3 SOURCES] Devices become warm, reaching temperatures up to about 40 °C even when idle.
- [● 4 SOURCES] Battery level can drop from about 85 % to 5 % within a few hours after the update.
- [● 2 SOURCES] Charging time for a full charge increased to roughly three hours from about 70 minutes.
- [● 4 SOURCES] The July security update released at the end of July caused rapid battery drain on Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S24 Ultra. (supported by articles efa61fdd-7370-49ae-aa41-07e3393917d3, cdc97ee3-3c2b-4801-b06e-c05e05133fcc, 0a9bf4a1-687a-4a37-a9e)
- [● 2 SOURCES] A likely cause is background processes stuck in loops, possibly related to encrypted WhatsApp backups.
- [● 4 SOURCES] Samsung has not officially confirmed the problem nor released a fix.
- [● 4 SOURCES] Standby battery loss after the update is between 5 % and 7 % per hour, with some reports of up to 24 % per hour.