Huge amounts of data being used and don't know why

[fearghaloc]

Hi,
I've just got myself a Desire since last week and I am really really happy with it. It's my first android phone (previously had a Nokia N95) so I am still trying to get my head around it.
I've just realised that the phone is using massive quantities of data over the last two or three days. I have installed an app to show me how much and it is saying over 4gb, a lot of it during the night when I have not being using the phone.
I have obviously been using the phone a lot since I got it but nothing close to that amount. The most data hungry app that I can think of that I have used is Grooveshark and that was only for about 20 minutes.
Also I have gone into all the apps I can think of and made sure that they are either set for manual sync or else no more than once a day.
Is there a way for me to tell which app or widget or whatever is using all of this data? I am sure I have forgotten to change the settings on something but I cannot figure out what it could be. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sansenoy]

You should hit menu -- settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/ and then disable always-on mobile data; then again to settings/accounts & sync/ and then disable both background data and auto-sync. You should see all of your data-grabbing accounts on this page, so fix them accordingly (tapping a name gives you more options).

You can use the internet without problems even with all of the above switched off, except for the Market, it needs background data.

Hope it helps.

 

[waldopepper]

I'm having similar issues - after my first itemised bill showed that I used 1.3 Gb in a month (within the 2GB fair-use allowance but still pretty shocking), since then I have been more careful with what's running and what I'm downloading.

Now I've had a text from Three network to say that only 2 weeks in to a new month I've used 80% of my allowance! Chatting to them on the phone won't get you anything except repetition of the fair-use contract.

I've just downloaded the app "3G Watchdog" so you can keep an eye on how much bandwith is being used up but this won't tell you what program is using it.
To my surprise, nothing is generally using up my bandwith, but browsing the web uses up far higher amount than I thought it would.

I'm still puzzled how I can be using so much - I don't watch movies or download large files, all I have are a couple of email accounts and regular browsing (mostly GoogleReader) and Twicca refreshing. Almost 2GB in two weeks???? That equates to 140Mb a day for just browsing the web.

 

[karlcoot]

Is there an app/widget that breaks down the data usage?

 

[DaddyCee]

does sound to me like you have something else connecting on a regular basis which is using up your bandwidth.

I also use the free version of 3G Watchdog and regularly use Twydroid, World War, Facebook and Internet. I average around 50MB a month at present.

I've started using TaskPanel X which allows me to terminate running applications that may be connecting to the internet or phoning home.

 

[reech]

There have been several posts pointing out that the 'Sky News' app consumes data at a fantastic rate, curse you Murdoch.

 

[fearghaloc]

According to 3 g watchdog my problem seems to be data being transmitted rather than downloaded - nearly 3. 5 gigs today. I have turned off background data and not sure if it is still going
to happen but I still want to find out what is causing this. What type of app could be transmitting such huge amounts of data and how can I find out?

 

[Infinifail]

According to 3 g watchdog my problem seems to be data being transmitted rather than downloaded - nearly 3. 5 gigs today. I have turned off background data and not sure if it is still going
to happen but I still want to find out what is causing this. What type of app could be transmitting such huge amounts of data and how can I find out?

Twitter or stuff related? Anything that gets updated frequently.
But 3.5GB? That's a-f*cking-lot

 

[nx1977]

Sounds like it's an email account if it's sending stuff.

 

[fearghaloc]

Ok so I am going through Tue settings of each app one by one. I noticed that Qik was set to track live in the location setting. I have only used Qik once briefly about two days ago but could it be responsible for huge uploads?

 

[nx1977]

Doesnt QIK use the camera to upload vid feeds/blogs?

 

[lekky]

qik streams your video LIVE to its website, so yeah that would use a lot.

 

[Hardcore]

With the 3G Watchdog you can set the amount of traffic you have for week/month and when you reach a ??% it will block the connection in 3G.

I use in my Desire and until now it works perfect.

 

[Balistyx]

Go into phone (as if to make a call) and type in the number *#*#4636#*#*
This will take you into the testing menu.
Click on Battery History, then from the top menu choose Network Usage.
From the bottom menu you can choose Since Last Unpluged, or Total Since Boot or Total in all time.
Using this method a couple of weeks ago I found that the Engadget app had started using up huge amounts of data for some reason. I un-installed and usage went back to normal. (The devs got back to me saying it would be fixed in an update, but I haven't re-installed to check)

A handy hint is to save the number *#*#4636#*#* as a contact (call it phone info or something) and when you want to access the menu you go into phone, start typing (IE: pho..) to find the contact, then long-press it and choose Edit number before calling. That will get you straight into the testing menu. Lots of other useful info in there too by the way.

 

[waldopepper]

Go into phone (as if to make a call) and type in the number *#*#4636#*#*
This will take you into the testing menu.
Click on Battery History, then from the top menu choose Network Usage.
From the bottom menu you can choose Since Last Unpluged, or Total Since Boot or Total in all time.
Using this method a couple of weeks ago I found that the Engadget app had started using up huge amounts of data for some reason. I un-installed and usage went back to normal. (The devs got back to me saying it would be fixed in an update, but I haven't re-installed to check)

A handy hint is to save the number *#*#4636#*#* as a contact (call it phone info or something) and when you want to access the menu you go into phone, start typing (IE: pho..) to find the contact, then long-press it and choose Edit number before calling. That will get you straight into the testing menu. Lots of other useful info in there too by the way.

Wow thanks - that's exactly what I needed!

Turns out that Mail has used over 2Gb over two months! Have tweaked the download size and days limit. I do remember a while back struggling to free internal memory space so I was clearing the cache and downloading messages again with different day limits to see what difference this might make - maybe I had some large emails (attachments) that were downloaded a fair few times!

Internet is 1Gb which still seems high, but I can keep an eye on it now to see what pages are bumping up the number more than others.

 

[fearghaloc]

Thanks a lot Balistyx (and everyone else) - just what I needed too.
Mail also appears to be the problem for me. According to the battery history Mail has sent 1298210231 bytes and received 2022726 bytes.

I have (or had) two apps called Mail - one was the standard one that comes with the phone and the other was the new Yahoo Mail app. I can't tell which of these two is causing the problem because they both seemed to be called Mail. But I decided to uninstall Yahoo Mail earlier. I don't think I have had any huge amounts of data sent / received since although I have had my mobile internet turned off and no wifi for a lot of that time.

Has anyone else had this problem with Yahoo Mail? My Yahoo Mail account goes back to 1998 and has a huge amount of stuff in it - could it be that the app was syncing every piece of mail I have ever received in Yahoo? But what I don't understand is why then would it be transmitting data rather than downloading it.

My main email is now gmail so I have no real issue not using this app on the phone. I would like to know what is happening with it though and if it really is the problem. My usage cap is 10Gb a month and I am already well over 6Gb, having not intentionally downloaded anything substantial.

 

[karlcoot]

Go into phone (as if to make a call) and type in the number *#*#4636#*#*
This will take you into the testing menu.
Click on Battery History, then from the top menu choose Network Usage.
From the bottom menu you can choose Since Last Unpluged, or Total Since Boot or Total in all time.
Using this method a couple of weeks ago I found that the Engadget app had started using up huge amounts of data for some reason. I un-installed and usage went back to normal. (The devs got back to me saying it would be fixed in an update, but I haven't re-installed to check)

A handy hint is to save the number *#*#4636#*#* as a contact (call it phone info or something) and when you want to access the menu you go into phone, start typing (IE: pho..) to find the contact, then long-press it and choose Edit number before calling. That will get you straight into the testing menu. Lots of other useful info in there too by the way.

Thanks for the tip.

The only thing about this is that it also includes wi-fi browsing so doesn't give an accurate account of usage over mobile data.

I wonder if an app will come out to do this shortly?

 

[nx1977]

Yahoo has been known to cause duplicates when sending using the default app on app android flavours.

I hope the official app doesnt suffer this same bug! It's one reason I never send mail from the app, I use the mobile website instead.