[Q] Excessive data usage problem - General Questions and Answers

Hi,
I've recently discovered that very large amounts of data are being transferred from my Nexus S which is pushing me over my data limit of 750mb. I downloaded 3G watchdog and monitored traffic for a while and noticed that every hour or so data use goes wild running into the tens of mb over a very short period of time.
I'm currently running MIUI-109020 and have a fairly standard range of apps installed. I've tried killing all of the apps that might possibly transfer data but this makes no difference. So, at the moment I've turned off mobile data before it bankrupts me but obviously I'd like to have it back on again.
Anyone, anywhere have any thoughts or pointers as to what might be going on or how I could solve it?
BTW I'm in the UK on Vodaphone's network.
Cheers
David McNorton

davidmcnorton said:
Hi,
I've recently discovered that very large amounts of data are being transferred from my Nexus S which is pushing me over my data limit of 750mb. I downloaded 3G watchdog and monitored traffic for a while and noticed that every hour or so data use goes wild running into the tens of mb over a very short period of time.
I'm currently running MIUI-109020 and have a fairly standard range of apps installed. I've tried killing all of the apps that might possibly transfer data but this makes no difference. So, at the moment I've turned off mobile data before it bankrupts me but obviously I'd like to have it back on again.
Anyone, anywhere have any thoughts or pointers as to what might be going on or how I could solve it?
BTW I'm in the UK on Vodaphone's network.
Cheers
David McNorton
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That much data? Email, gmail, facebook sync.

Install Droidwall and prevent some apps from the network.
I would also like to see what exactly Android is doing all the time...

MIUI has a built in Monitor app. Use that to see which app is using up your data.
You may also want to opt-out of MIUI stats. I'm not sure of how much data it sends, but it will cut down on some of your data usage.
Droidwall is a great suggestion as well. Prevent some apps from connecting on 3G but allow them on wifi. If you want some apps to connect on 3G, check your sync settings.
Sent from my Evo + MIUI using Tapatalk!

Thanks for your replies. I've now installed droidwall and that looks like it could help. I've also purchased the pro version of 3G Watchdog (hadn't realised MIUI had a monitor app) and that's showing me what how much data my apps are using.
I phoned Vodaphone and they increased my data plan to 1GB which gives me a little leeway while I try to work this out. So I'll test it again tomorrow and see if I can work out what's going on.
Cheers
David McNorton

Is your Gallery app syncing pictures to Picassa? It's the only thing i can think of that would explain that much data in a short period of time.

Problem solved. Google+ was the culprit. By default the app had Instant Upload of all photo's and video's set to on. That has cost me about £50 since installing the app in late September when it first came out. Thank's Google
Thanks for all your tips. At least now I have a better handle on data monitoring and firewall protection.
Cheers
David McNorton

Wow, never thought Google Plus would use that much, even though it syncs a ton. Good think I have unlimited, may want to look into it yourself.
Sent from my DROID3 using XDA App

Related

[Q] Data monitoring that monitors apps?

Anyone know of an app that monitors individual apps net connect? I use 3g Watchdog but would like to know what apps are using the net and how much?
thanks
Lee
I've noticed my Android phone is gobbling data a lot faster than my Blackberry ever did. I'd like to know what's eating it as well.
I know the Blackberry is a lesser experience, but I've burned through half of my data cap in a week.
I've now resorted to just disabling data unless I need to use it, but it would be nice to know if there is one app, or a few apps that are chewing through it that I don't need to be running.
"Phone Usage" is what you should be looking for in android market! Droidwall is another app that will allow you to explicitly enable/disable certain apps from accessing data on your phone!
Try spare parts, there's a battery management option that'll show you data usage, gps usage, partial wake lock and cpu usage. if it shows a UID in place of the app you just need a app identifier to tell you what that uid is.
Biggest thing I found using it was dolphin browser had a huge data leak even after closing it through exit causing massive battery loss on my phone
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Pat123 said:
"Phone Usage" is what you should be looking for in android market! Droidwall is another app that will allow you to explicitly enable/disable certain apps from accessing data on your phone!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Droidwall requires root access though. I am trying Phone Usage now next to Network Monitor (which does not monitor seperate apps) cause I am wondering if Network Monitor catches everything (Provider says I am using more...)
uncletaz said:
Droidwall requires root access though. I am trying Phone Usage now next to Network Monitor (which does not monitor seperate apps) cause I am wondering if Network Monitor catches everything (Provider says I am using more...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ugh..I meant to "quote" you and accidently "thanked" you. So..thanks?
Anyways, I have PhoneUsage, which is useful for showing how the data is spread across your phone, and shows the top apps. However, I don't think it shows individual apps..only the top hogs.
3g watchdog PRO does monitor individual apps also. This is one of the extra features on the pro version
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
You can also try ZDBox.
This has been a telepathic transmission from the Outer Limits
Thanks for all the replies. Now to track down the source of my issues.
LBartley said:
Thanks for all the replies. Now to track down the source of my issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this might be useful. Although it's more on applications that are not closed properly or running on its own..
You can identify the problem by looking at your CPU usage.. if you have application showing and the cpu is high. probably, the problem lies on the program.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=967686
Hello. I am also looking for an app that monitors individual installed app network usage (3G or WiFi) in a real time sense (graphically or text based).
There are several utilities that monitor apps individually (3g Watchdog, Network Counter, NetworkTraffic Stats, OS Monitor) but nothing I've found offers a real time showing of individual apps the way that some apps show real time network usage of the OS.
Some show hourly tracking and some will refresh and show slight changes, but for real time tracking purposes (what the heck is consistently sending data *right now*), these are not as helpful.
Some background: for the past few days, my Vibrant would only get 3-4 hours of uptime, way down from the 8-12 I'm used to. I then noticed that my 3G connectivity was always on in both directions and I wanted to know exactly which app(s) was constantly transmitting. With the hourly monitoring, I had to wait, and I might have missed it. With the constant refreshing utility, the changes were so miniscule and not sorted by actively transmitting apps that it was counter productive to search that way.
Again, I'm not looking for one of the many utilities than do real time monitoring of the total network traffic, but real time network monitoring of the individual apps.
If anyone knows of any app that can do this, assistance would be really appreciated.
Thank you!

[Q] Using a TON of network data. Please help!

My wife got a Skyrocket in December and as of January 18, it started sending a TON of data. I'm talking GBs at a time. The first night it sent 4GB and thereafter it's 500MB-1.5GB here and there. Obviously this is busting our extra gigabyte purchases pretty quickly.
I've installed a couple of per-app monitoring applications. TrafficStats allowed me to show system applications and filter to network data only. It shows the data was sent (not received) in the total, but doesn't attribute it to any application. Right now it's over 731MB but the Gmail app, which has used the most, is at 31MB.
It seems to happen whether or not Wifi is enabled and connected. Turning packet data off does stop the traffic.
What can I do to figure out when this is? I have ADB working and root access, but not sure how to go about seeing which app is doing this.
Thanks!
I m guessing its CIQ that's sends this much ****ttttttttt so just disable ciq and it will hopefully stop sending!!!!!
avengerp said:
My wife got a Skyrocket in December and as of January 18, it started sending a TON of data. I'm talking GBs at a time. The first night it sent 4GB and thereafter it's 500MB-1.5GB here and there. Obviously this is busting our extra gigabyte purchases pretty quickly.
I've installed a couple of per-app monitoring applications. TrafficStats allowed me to show system applications and filter to network data only. It shows the data was sent (not received) in the total, but doesn't attribute it to any application. Right now it's over 731MB but the Gmail app, which has used the most, is at 31MB.
It seems to happen whether or not Wifi is enabled and connected. Turning packet data off does stop the traffic.
What can I do to figure out when this is? I have ADB working and root access, but not sure how to go about seeing which app is doing this.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed CIQ via the commands here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1399429&highlight=remove+ciq
We'll see if that helps. Would CIQ really transfer gigabytes at a time? Is it sending real-time video back to AT&T in addition to keylogging??
If anyone else has a good tool to monitor the traffic I'd still be interested.
Download / Install "My Data Manager" (free) from Market.. it will show every app/service using data, wifi... and how much.
Unfortunately I'm having a problem finding any apps that support AT&T LTE interface monitoring.
I can, however, see some traffic flying by on tcpdump over adb (on rmnet_sdio0 which I think is the mobile interface). But there's no way to tell which app it's coming from.
download "Data Usage Defender" its the best data/wifi monitoring. It tells you exactly what apps sent and received how much data, over what network 3G/4G/Wifi, it monitors and can cut off your data connection to a pre-set limit you chose, it also gives you realtime speed from a little windows under your status bar. I've had it, but since i have 10Gb of data and NEVER go over i uninstalled it
Thanks! Data Usage Defender seems pretty great, and was able to catch all the traffic. I just watched the 'Email' app send 50MB in about 45 seconds while receivinf 4.4kb.
Now to figure out why...or just uninstall email and switch entirely to the gmail app. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Q] Sudden massive data use

I recently used Windowbreak, and set up internet sharing on my Samsung Omnia 7, following the instructions here. It all seemed to work fine, but I've now had messages from my network (Orange UK) saying that I've gone way over my monthly data allowance. My allowance is 750MB, and I never usually use more than about 400. This month I went over 750 in the first two days!
Orange won't send me a full breakdown, but they did say that the phone is using huge amounts of data at apparently random times in the middle of the night. Not only was I not using it, but it was connected to my home wifi at the time, so shouldn't have been using any 3G data at all! I have only used internet sharing a couple of times, and it's always turned off when I'm not using it.
I'm on 7.10.7740.16. Can anyone help me? Sorry if this has been posted before, I've searched, but only found people with the opposite problem (i.e. no data at all, instead of too much!)
I'm no expert with this stuff, just following instructionhs really, so I'd be really grateful for any help.
Thanks,
Steve.
Did you change any other settings when you used Windowbreak? Have you installed any apps that use frequently-updating Live Tiles? Do you have the user feedback option enabled? When you say the phone is on WiFi, is it actually plugged in? If not, it will turn off the WiFi when the screen is locked in order to conserve battery.
There have been some spikes of data usage in the past, but they were generally tracked down (having an auto-updating Yahoo mail account was a data hog for a few months, for example Some kind of breakdown would help, but You can always just try turning off as many data-using features (Find My Phone, email sync, Live and Facebook messaging, Live Tiles, etc.) as you can find. Then, re-enable them one or two at a time and try to find the culprit. Some people here in the US get by on 200MB or less of data limit (I have no idea how; I can use several times that in a day) so it should be possible.
Thanks for the reply. No, I don't think I changed anything at the same time as setting up Windowbreak and internet sharing, I just followed the instructions for each one. I haven't got any new apps either that would explain the sudden spike in data.
My phone is always plugged in overnight, so I don't understand why it didn't use wifi instead of 3G for whatever it was doing. It might be that it had always used that much data, but it had previously done it through wifi so I hadn't seen it.
The annoying thing is that Orange won't give me a breakdown of what data I'm using until after the end of the billing month, so I can't get real time information to show me what's working and what isn't. Is there any way to monitor data use, or to see which apps are using what?
Thanks,
Steve.
Sadly, that's not currently possible. You could just turn off the cellular data connection (in Settings) at night, but that's awkward and you'd need to remember to re-enable it.

Increased Data Usage

I recently came back from a two-month trip and started using my ATT sim card again. My Infuse is basically the same as when I left - Infused 2.23, no major changes.
All of a sudden my data usage has gone from an average of a couple of megabytes (at the most) a day to over ten. I only have a 200mb plan, so this is a problem.
I installed traffic monitor; unfortunately most of the data used falls under the heading of "System Traffic," which cannot be researched further. New build of Maps? Some rogue system program? I can't figure out how to find out what it is, and a google search wasn't particularly helpful.
Something is different, and I don't know what it is.
Anyone facing a similar situation or have any clues?
Start uninstalling apps and watch your usage to see which is the culprit.
Sent from my not-an-iPod
Thanks. That's a good idea, but it's all system apps, not apps I've installed. None of them are causing any trouble. I'm not even sure which are all the system apps...
Some apps I noted:
1. Quick Office Pro uses like about 20k on phone start up; not sure if it does it every time. There could be a few more apps that do this.
2. Google voice syncs itself
3. Push emails send info to server saying the link can be used
4. Maps new build could be a possible culprit (I keep mine frozen all the time now, and defreeze it only when needed)
I noticed this even on my wife's iPhone sometimes when she gets 65% usage sms (she has a 200 MB plan), and she's always on WiFi at home, and sometimes the data usage on AT&T site shows up to 20-30 MB per session. No way to track it. I tried taking it up with them, but that won't help since AT&T too does not track which app or what data it is.

mobile data

on my moto g when i enable mobile data i see that an application Android OS is taking most of my mobile data and because of that i am loosing my internet speed . Itried to restrict background data but it seems this application is the only one whose background data cannot be restricted .
plz help
Might be a silly thought but have you edited the PlayStore settings to only update apps over wifi?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2680038
I had this issue - it turned out it was the combination of Google Backup & Restore being active (Settings/Backup & Restore), along with my automation app which I'd set up to regularly refresh my wallpaper (i.e. every 10 mins when the phone is in use). It turns out that Google Backup was uploading each wallpaper as it was changed and was eating data in the process.
non of the solutions apply to me. android os drained 30mb data in one month. it is not much but i only have 200mb data per month.
any other solution?
and thank you for helping guys, i really appreciate it! :highfive:
ManBearrrPig said:
non of the solutions apply to me. android os drained 30mb data in one month. it is not much but i only have 200mb data per month.
any other solution?
and thank you for helping guys, i really appreciate it! :highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just had a look at my Android OS data use over the last two weeks or so (since I fixed the issue I've had). I've been on Wifi a lot over the last week, but combined Wifi and Mobile data use in two weeks it's at about 65MB which seems par for the course.
so no solution yet guys???
for my thing it seems it slowed down but its still there it runs along when other internet apps r running like hangout and it slows internet down.
i dont mind it running but i need the speed cauz my data is 2g its just draining speed
i would also be thankfull for a solution. i have only 200mb data per month so if it drains 30-40mb a month it is a lot for me.
my current sollution is to load like 10 articles and turn off data and when i read all articles i turn on data and load another 10 articles.

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