Facebook to launch investigation over ‘excessive battery drain’ caused by its

Ironically, Heer found that one of the ways to limit this excessive use of battery life on your iPhone is actually to turn on Background App Refresh for the Facebook app.

However, iPhone users still complain about a massive battery drop, which is believed to be caused by the Facebook app.

“Despite having background app refresh disabled, because the app isn’t “sleeping” properly when I hit the home button, it continues to drain”, Galligan said.

The problem stems from the fact that Facebook manages to run in the background constantly, even when you forcibly close the app on your iPhone.

In a statement provided to TechCrunch, the social networking giant said it was examining reports the app continually runs background processes even when it is disabled – significantly running down the battery life.

There have been a number of theories floated around on what exactly is causing the issue. It suggests turning off autoplay as a way to save data consumption.

If you didn’t know, you can access detailed battery usage in iOS 9 by heading to Settings and then selecting Battery.

This behaviour could explain why “audio” is displayed as the reason for Facebook’s background activity.

More sinister suggestions include that Facebook may be listening to its users via their phone’s microphone, although Facebook has previously denied its microphone function is “always listening”, saying it asks for permission before switching on.

Facebook has recently been made aware of the issue, even though it’s been happening for years according to a few users. Facebook has today confirmed that it is working on the “issue” and that it will release a fix “soon”. A number of Facebook users have commented on the issue of background battery drain over the past week, with users on the MacRumors Forums posting about the issue as far back as last Thursday.