Help Data usage by app?

[sremick]

Has anyone yet found a solution to determining data usage on a per-app basis that works with the Captivate? The only two market apps I've found, TrafficInfo and TrafficStats, both require Android 2.2 which of course isn't an option for us (yet).

I had been fine but recently have seen my data usage skyrocket from 500-600MB per month to 200-300MB per DAY and yesterday over 500MB. At this rate I am going to blow through my 2GB only 11 days into my monthly billing cycle.

 

[wdsport]

I had this issue (my data usage suddenly skyrocketed) and downloaded a firewall app (droidwall), turned off all traffic and then turned on things one by one (and used 3D Watchdog to watch my 3G data down/upload rates). I discovered K-9 Email was downloading about 5mb of data every time it checked emails, even if there were no emails to download. I had it set to check emails every 15 minutes, I think. I didn't notice it greatly since I'm on wifi at home, however my home internet went out for 4 days and K-9 was downloading 5-ish mb of 3G data every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day.

I prefer K-9 to the stock email app, but have stopped using it and my data usage is back way down.

Doing the firewall thing was the only way I found to try to pinpoint what was downloading. AT&T couldn't even tell me what was downloading. Just "data".

 

[sremick]

I use K9 too, but I've been using K9 all along. Unfortunately, the stock email app falls way too-short of my needs (I'm a hardcore IMAP user).

Not sure why K9's usage would've suddenly jumped. I'm not ruling it out, but if the culprit is indeed K9 then something would've had to have changed with it.

I actually read another post somewhere (perhaps one of yours) that mentioned K9 being a data hog, so yesterday I had set the "Folder poll check frequency" to "Never", "Folders to check with poll" to "None" and "Folders to check with push" to "none" just to see. And yesterday was the day my usage went even higher.

So I'm not sure K9 is it, at least in my situation.

Unfortunately Droidwall requires rooting and I've been trying to avoid that due to the side-effects (such as problems installing OTA updates). I hate to feel like I'm being forced into rooting by this issue...

 

[wdsport]

Are you looking at your data usage via something like 3D Watchdog, or via AT&T? I think AT&T might be a day behind, the way they get their data usage reported.

Looking back, I think K9 was doing it all along, but because I was on Wifi at home (i.e. all nights and weekends), I didn't notice anything wrong. My data usage was higher than it used to be, but not outrageous. Until my home internet went down, then wowser.

I still have K9 installed (and would love to use it again) but have it set to never check right now. According to 3G Watchdog, I used 25-ish mb of data yesterday (that included the AT&T update download). Before yesterday (when I turned K9 off), it was more like 120mb a day I was going through (which was down from 400ish mb while my home internet was down!).

This little exercise did make me wonder if what you're looking for exists, I mean even AT&T just classifies everything as 'data', and there doesn't seem to be a way to track what the data is or what's doing it.

 

[sremick]

I looked at both AT&T's stats as well as 3G Watchdog. They're both pretty close to each other.

Apps do exist to do this, but they are only for Android 2.2 for some reason that has never been clarified.

Which rooting method/tool did you use? Since it seems the Captivate update applied ok for you.

 

[wdsport]

I used one-click-lag-fix to root my phone. With the root and lag-fix, my AT&T update went fine yesterday, no issues at all.

 

[sremick]

I used one-click-lag-fix to root my phone. With the root and lag-fix, my AT&T update went fine yesterday, no issues at all.

Ah bummer. I don't want the lag fix, I just want the most-reliable (and reversible) root for the sole purpose of using Droidwall.

Want to keep this simple and minimalistic if I'm going to do it...

 

[wdsport]

One-Click has the option to just root (and un-root -- I've done that too). It's a separate option/process from the lag-fix. You can use it just to root/unroot.

 

[NightAngel79]

Has anyone yet found a solution to determining data usage on a per-app basis that works with the Captivate? The only two market apps I've found, TrafficInfo and TrafficStats, both require Android 2.2 which of course isn't an option for us (yet).

I had been fine but recently have seen my data usage skyrocket from 500-600MB per month to 200-300MB per DAY and yesterday over 500MB. At this rate I am going to blow through my 2GB only 11 days into my monthly billing cycle.

Batteryleft Widget has a data usage option, and a partial awake meter, and a gps usage meter, along with a cpu usage meter. it really does it all IMO

 

[sremick]

Batteryleft Widget has a data usage option, and a partial awake meter, and a gps usage meter, along with a cpu usage meter. it really does it all IMO

I tried that (having seen it suggested in other threads), it didn't work. You go into [History], select Network Usage and all it says is "No battery usage data available". Apparently that error isn't uncommon but I've seen no mention of why it happens or a fix if you're getting it.

wdsport: thanks for the info about rooting with OCLF. Will look into it. Is that the safest/simplest way of rooting the Captivate at the moment? I should probably dive into the "all things root" sub-board...

 

[NightAngel79]

I tried that (having seen it suggested in other threads), it didn't work. You go into [History], select Network Usage and all it says is "No battery usage data available". Apparently that error isn't uncommon but I've seen no mention of why it happens or a fix if you're getting it.

Is that after it is calibrated? It has to be running obviously before it will give you stats and after a couple days it should give you accurate findings.

 

[sremick]

Is that after it is calibrated? It has to be running obviously before it will give you stats and after a couple days it should give you accurate findings.

Ah, that wasn't made clear. I've only had it running 2 days.

Of course, there's nothing for it to collect at the moment since I had to turn off data otherwise I'd blow past my 2GB limit today.

 

[NightAngel79]

Ah, that wasn't made clear. I've only had it running 2 days.

Of course, there's nothing for it to collect at the moment since I had to turn off data otherwise I'd blow past my 2GB limit today.

yea, once you put the widget on a screen it takes at least one full discharge of your battery to be 'accurate'. the widget will tell you when it is, and once you do turn data back on it should give you a fair idea of what is using all your data, the partial wake usage is also extremely handy tool as well.

 

[sremick]

wdsport,

So I bit the bullet and rooted my phone, and installed DroidWall. However, DW isn't working... when I try to apply the rules, I get errors:

Error applying iptables rules.
Exit code: 1

[: not found
[: not found
[: not found
[: not found
--version: not found

Does the Captivate even have/support iptables? Please don't tell me I need a new kernel...

 

[sremick]

yea, once you put the widget on a screen it takes at least one full discharge of your battery to be 'accurate'. the widget will tell you when it is, and once you do turn data back on it should give you a fair idea of what is using all your data, the partial wake usage is also extremely handy tool as well.

Hmm well for what it's worth, I'm still getting "No battery usage data available" even after letting it collect enough calibration data to be "100% accurate". Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Also could really use help with the Droidwall problem listed above. Seemingly others have this working on the Captivate.