Help Google music out of control for background data

sacedric · Dec 26, 2011

Ok, for the first time ever i just got throttled by T-mobile. And the main reason (thanks to ICS and their great data management) is because of google music. It used over 3gb of background data. And yesterday was my first day of the new cycle and once again, google music just chewed up 281 mb and i never used it at all to listen to music.
What is going on here? If this keeps up i will be uninstalling in a few days.
Thanks!

drhill · Dec 26, 2011

You probably have offline caching enabled. There is a setting to do it only over Wifi.

sacedric · Dec 26, 2011

Thanks. I checked settings and i had "cache music - temp store streamed music" checked and the i did have "download via wifi only checked"
Wouldn't having those two options checked be saving me i would think.

sacedric · Dec 27, 2011

So i unchecked cache music....and today it did 250mb and i never used it. I am going to uninstall tomorrow if this carries on

drhill · Dec 28, 2011

No ideas for you. Sorry. You are right that those two options would not have caused your problem.

rajputsmurf · Dec 28, 2011

It is a flat-out data pig. I decided to give it a try now that I'm on 4G and downloaded Music Manager to my PC the other day and thought I had killed the upload process for my music files because I was at work and wanted to do it on the weekend but apparently I missed something because a couple of hours later we started seeing lag on our network and it turned out that my machine was still uploading massive amounts of data and had apparently triggered Comcast's throttling of our business account as we were maybe getting 2.5 Mbps down and 1 up as compared to a normal 25+/5. Also numerous reports of it overloading home routers and triggering throttling by ISPs so it's absolutely no surprise that it's out of control on phones as well. Not sure what they're going to do about it but I'll be sticking with Amazon and Apple for the foreseeable future as they appear to govern their data I/O better (although a friend did see throttling during an Amazon upload).

BiggestManEver · Dec 28, 2011

rajputsmurf said:
It is a flat-out data pig.

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I have Google Music on my device and it uses no data at all (unless, of course, I go in and listen to songs with it).

Techno Tonis · Dec 28, 2011

BiggestManEver said:
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I have Google Music on my device and it uses no data at all (unless, of course, I go in and listen to songs with it).

I will have to second this.

I use Google Music, and I have massive FLAC files both stored on my phone, and streaming - so I run into large data usage...but none at all when I'm not streaming my music.

I'm also on Verizon, if that helps.

fiatandroid · Dec 28, 2011

Techno Tonis said:
I will have to second this.

I use Google Music, and I have massive FLAC files both stored on my phone, and streaming - so I run into large data usage...but none at all when I'm not streaming my music.

I'm also on Verizon, if that helps.

fyi, google music doesn't stream flac. you can upload flac, but google music converts to 320 mp3 for the stream.

beallpatrick · Dec 28, 2011

Thirding it. Google Music has used less than a meg in the background for me in the previous week. I'm just using the default settings.

jraskell · Dec 28, 2011

BiggestManEver said:
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I have Google Music on my device and it uses no data at all (unless, of course, I go in and listen to songs with it).

The idea that you need to have is that not all problems with software will be experienced by all users of that software. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it's guaranteed to work for everyone else as well.

drhill · Dec 28, 2011

rajputsmurf said:
It is a flat-out data pig. I decided to give it a try now that I'm on 4G and downloaded Music Manager to my PC the other day and thought I had killed the upload process for my music files because I was at work and wanted to do it on the weekend but apparently I missed something because a couple of hours later we started seeing lag on our network and it turned out that my machine was still uploading massive amounts of data and had apparently triggered Comcast's throttling of our business account as we were maybe getting 2.5 Mbps down and 1 up as compared to a normal 25+/5. Also numerous reports of it overloading home routers and triggering throttling by ISPs so it's absolutely no surprise that it's out of control on phones as well. Not sure what they're going to do about it but I'll be sticking with Amazon and Apple for the foreseeable future as they appear to govern their data I/O better (although a friend did see throttling during an Amazon upload).

What did you expect? You were uploading songs to their server. The program uses as many bits as it can to upload all the songs you point the program to. I uploaded 2900 FLAC files over a three days and I didn't have a problem with Comcast. I'm also surprised they throttled as I was under the impression they treated their business customers more kindly and without monthly caps.... of course if I was using my 5mbs uplink and they throttled me you better believe I'd have a few words about them limiting the data I'm paying for.

Google takes those FLAC files I sent them and converts them to 320kbps mp3 files which you then stream down. Of course if you didn't select high quality streaming it will use a lower kbps.

I don't have a problem with Google Music's data usage. I have a 50 minute ride to work so 320kbps does eat up a lot of data. My problem is with Verizon's less then stellar network in South and Central Jersey as there are a lot of bad areas on I295 and Princeton.

gapi · Dec 28, 2011

Took that crap off. I went out and got good ole "Android Music Player" back. I'm not so lazy that I cannot load up my devices with my music.

I see it as an evolution towards data and cloud space sales. More and more devices are being mfg without configurable hard drives and removable storage. I feel like cattle being herded.
As soon as I seen the FREE in Google music I smelled the bait. To own and operate millions of dollars in servers and employees to maintain them out of the kindness of their heats just so we can listen to the same library across all of our devices is so SWEET of them don't you think?

Our grandchildren will have to pay to store and access any kind of personal data period. Hard drives and DVD's will be collectors items.

The sky is falling! :eek:

sacedric · Dec 28, 2011

Thanks for all the replies....but I am afraid I just uninstalled it. Here is a screen shot.....as you can see almost all the data usage the last few days is because of Google Music "Uninstalled app" and I promise I have not listened to a single song. https://plus.google.com/u/0/106578175364824235611/posts/DnJ6SdJSw9k
I will try re-install and see if that helps. But not holding my breath

sacedric · Dec 28, 2011

I hear you Gapi, but the idea of all my music in the cloud and accessible whenever I want, thats a good one. Dont have this problem with Amazon Cloud Player.

drhill · Dec 29, 2011

gapi said:
Took that crap off. I went out and got good ole "Android Music Player" back. I'm not so lazy that I cannot load up my devices with my music.

I see it as an evolution towards data and cloud space sales. More and more devices are being mfg without configurable hard drives and removable storage. I feel like cattle being herded.
As soon as I seen the FREE in Google music I smelled the bait. To own and operate millions of dollars in servers and employees to maintain them out of the kindness of their heats just so we can listen to the same library across all of our devices is so SWEET of them don't you think?

Our grandchildren will have to pay to store and access any kind of personal data period. Hard drives and DVD's will be collectors items.

The sky is falling!

You could have just added them to the phone and used the same music player or just cached all of them for off-line use when on wifi.

jraskell · Dec 29, 2011

out of the kindness of their heats

They aren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. They make plenty of money doing it. It just isn't you paying them that money.

Help Google music out of control for background data

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