Facebook’s engineering manager, Ari Grant, has revealed that the app’s battery-draining behavior was caused by several technical issues, some of which were addressed in a recent update.

One major problem involved a “CPU spin” in the app’s networking code. This flaw caused the app to repeatedly run an endless process, consuming more power than necessary. While the update doesn’t fully eliminate the issue, it introduces optimizations that should reduce unnecessary processing.

Another significant bug was related to audio management. The app was unintentionally keeping audio sessions active in the background, even when no sound was playing, essentially running a silent audio track. Since Apple allows apps to continue playing audio while in the background (like streaming music), this caused Facebook to stay active unnecessarily. To fix this, Facebook removed background audio entirely.

Grant also addressed rumors about Facebook’s Location History feature being the cause of battery drain. He clarified that the app does not access location data in the background unless users have explicitly enabled both “Always” location access in settings and the Location History option within the app.