High mobile data usage from System-950 XL, why?

[Windows Central Question]

High mobile data usage from "System"-950 XL

Since buying my 950XL at launch I have experienced a periodic problem where the "System" process is using lots of mobile data, putting me over my limit for the month. The first I know about this is when i get a text warning me I've used almost all of my allowance. Data usage for other apps, particularly those which run in the background (email, Facebook etc) is fine and in line with what I would expect, but there is clearly something going on at the system level which I can't trace.

I have disabled the option to use mobile data if wifi is unavailable, turned off automatic backups, store updates and phone updates, one drive photo backup etc. It did seem that Calls+ was constantly checking call waiting status, and when I stopped this running in the background the situation improved, but I am still using a fair amount of data.

This is becoming very frustrating-is there anything any other users have found that can help with this issue? I'm on the latest insider build and firmware and all store apps are up to date.

As another datapoint, my wife has the same issue with her 950, but m ore extreme-hers is using mobile data even when this is switched off completely in options.

 

[EliteMikes]

I just had this happen to my devices. My 950xl is out for repair so I haven't noticed it on mine, but my wife's did have the issue. Also, i have a lumia 830 on the latest builds that really raised the red flag for me. Someone that barely uses 500MB was at 5GB this month. I'm not happy. I had to set my at&t plan to the next tier.

On another note. I have the latest build on my old 920 and the performance isn't too bad anymore. What is sad about that, I don't feel like the 950xl is much better than the 920 in certain areas.

I am really confused by at&t billing. I'm hoping the time frames they list are wrong because I would be home sleeping. When I'm at home, I use a microcell which wouldn't go against my data limits no matter if this bug was kicking my butt.

 

[Furocan]

It's already July and in less than a month the Anniversary Update will be released, but also with the Firmware Update yesterday and the newest Insider Build (14383) my Lumia 950 eats serveral MBs per hour :/

I was following all the hints, disabled the message sync and so on but nothing has solved this issue.

Is there really no solution for this annoying problem?

 

[Summer_Moon]

It's already July and in less than a month the Anniversary Update will be released, but also with the Firmware Update yesterday and the newest Insider Build (14383) my Lumia 950 eats serveral MBs per hour :/

I was following all the hints, disabled the message sync and so on but nothing has solved this issue.

Is there really no solution for this annoying problem?

The above listed issues in the thread should have been resolved. If you're noticing high data usage then I would take a look at both battery usage and data usage and see what the top 3 apps are that are using battery and data.

 

[Furocan]

The above listed issues in the thread should have been resolved. If you're noticing high data usage then I would take a look at both battery usage and data usage and see what the top 3 apps are that are using battery and data.

It's like everyone said "System" that continuesly consumes several MB per hour. If I look at the Battery Usage there is currently "Settings" the highest Battery drainer but only in usage and it's because I was searching for several options (while the Cellular Data was disabled). There are nearly no app that works in the background. For example "WhatsApp" is the highest with using 3% in the background.

 

[PGrey]

It's like everyone said "System" that continuesly consumes several MB per hour. If I look at the Battery Usage there is currently "Settings" the highest Battery drainer but only in usage and it's because I was searching for several options (while the Cellular Data was disabled). There are nearly no app that works in the background. For example "WhatsApp" is the highest with using 3% in the background.

Right, because some of your WhatsApp and other Background tasks are using calls that register as system (kernel). The usage graphing does its best to differentiate this data/battery, but some of this is very tricky.
If you look at the your WhatsApp battery AND data usage, you'll probably notice they cover the majority of high use, in the background. That's what they're designed to do, updating constantly, but it comes at a price.
One option (if the app supports it) is to reduce the frequency that it updates, to something more reasonable, 15/30/60 minutes, or similar. In particular "push or poll" where, it constantly receives interrupt notifications of changes is VERY data and battery intensive, but that's a choice the user makes, in order to get absolute up-to-the-minute data, when the app is opened, rather than waiting a short time to update.

You have to decide, if you want to limit your background data and battery usage, exactly what's important to be up-to-the-minute when you open an app. If you choose "everything", well, then you're also choosing to take a pretty big constant battery/data usage hit, over the course.

 

[Summer_Moon]

It's like everyone said "System" that continuesly consumes several MB per hour. If I look at the Battery Usage there is currently "Settings" the highest Battery drainer but only in usage and it's because I was searching for several options (while the Cellular Data was disabled). There are nearly no app that works in the background. For example "WhatsApp" is the highest with using 3% in the background.

I really wish the System was broken out to what is using the data, it would be so helpful. This isn't really a solution, but I use an app called Daily Data Sense that monitors your daily data. It doesn't really do much other than actually verify your data use. But it's nice to see exactly how much data is being used in a day. Just additional info that might be useful. Give it a try and see what it's reporting for your cellular data.

 

[Furocan]

Right, because some of your WhatsApp and other Background tasks are using calls that register as system (kernel). The usage graphing does its best to differentiate this data/battery, but some of this is very tricky.
If you look at the your WhatsApp battery AND data usage, you'll probably notice they cover the majority of high use, in the background. That's what they're designed to do, updating constantly, but it comes at a price.
One option (if the app supports it) is to reduce the frequency that it updates, to something more reasonable, 15/30/60 minutes, or similar. In particular "push or poll" where, it constantly receives interrupt notifications of changes is VERY data and battery intensive, but that's a choice the user makes, in order to get absolute up-to-the-minute data, when the app is opened, rather than waiting a short time to update.

You have to decide, if you want to limit your background data and battery usage, exactly what's important to be up-to-the-minute when you open an app. If you choose "everything", well, then you're also choosing to take a pretty big constant battery/data usage hit, over the course.

Thank you for your very detailed post!

It's one of the functions that amaze me at most that messages arrives nearly instantly and how push notifications works. And I understand that this could mean that a permanent connection is needed. But what I don't understand is that I'm using my Lumia 950 in the same way like my old Lumia 820. I have exactly the same apps and the messages and notifications arrives on both nearly immediately. So what is the reason that the new phone has such a higher data usage?

This is why I'm thinking there's a bug or a misconfiguration and I'm searching my a** of to resolve this issue ._.

 

[PGrey]

I really wish the System was broken out to what is using the data, it would be so helpful. This isn't really a solution, but I use an app called Daily Data Sense that monitors your daily data. It doesn't really do much other than actually verify your data use. But it's nice to see exactly how much data is being used in a day. Just additional info that might be useful. Give it a try and see what it's reporting for your cellular data.

Yeah, this is really a larger Windows (or most any OS, you name it). When data packets and similar get routed in various driver stacks, and in/out of the kernel, it's expensive and tricky to track them, with metadata, or similar.
At some point, OS trade-offs were made, against overhead, that don't allow tracking every single packet of data.
Not a Win Phone exclusive though, or Windows, Android, iOS, you name it, no one tracks every single packet or similar...

 

[Summer_Moon]

Yeah, this is really a larger Windows (or most any OS, you name it). When data packets and similar get routed in various driver stacks, and in/out of the kernel, it's expensive and tricky to track them, with metadata, or similar.
At some point, OS trade-offs were made, against overhead, that don't allow tracking every single packet of data.
Not a Win Phone exclusive though, or Windows, Android, iOS, you name it, no one tracks every single packet or similar...

Except for BlackBerry, now they have an awesome setup for tracking data... and just about anything else you want to track too - RAM, disk, you name it's there with more data, info, and graphs than you could hope for.

 

[PGrey]

Except for BlackBerry, now they have an awesome setup for tracking data... and just about anything else you want to track too - RAM, disk, you name it's there with more data, info, and graphs than you could hope for.

There's usually a cost associated with this level of granularity though, since some type of metadata has to be moved around too, or other tracking mechanism implemented. Either way, people notice "performance degradation" when stuff like this is put into place, and then beat up on the OEM for not having the dead-fastest perf.
It's a lose-lose for them, or more of a "how to make the most people happy, most of the time" equation...

I 100% agree that being able to slice/dice this type of stats is nice, and on Windows desktop builds, they have profiling builds/switches and tools to do exactly that, but when you enable them, there's a perf. hit in some areas (which sometimes can make it tricky to find your actual issue(s)). The question is, are you willing to take a performance and/or data pipeline hit, for the sake of having the stats, sometimes?

 

[Furocan]

So after a while here's a little update:
First, thank you Summer_Moon for the hint with "Daily Data Sense"! It seems to be a really great app and I checked approximately every hour the data usage. At work the average usage was between 300 to 500kb per hour, doesn't matter if I wrote over WhatsApp or not. This value isn't optimal but it seems legitim. But once up to two times a day there is peak of 3-4Mb within a few minutes!

First I thought it was a bug within Daily Data Sense but when I later checked my profile of my provider it proofs that DDS was much more correct than the normal Data Sense where the peaks wasn't counted that high! Sadly I didn't checked the data usage of each app in Data Sense before this peaks but this will be the next step.

 

[Summer_Moon]

So after a while here's a little update:
First, thank you Summer_Moon for the hint with "Daily Data Sense"! It seems to be a really great app and I checked approximately every hour the data usage. At work the average usage was between 300 to 500kb per hour, doesn't matter if I wrote over WhatsApp or not. This value isn't optimal but it seems legitim. But once up to two times a day there is peak of 3-4Mb within a few minutes!

First I thought it was a bug within Daily Data Sense but when I later checked my profile of my provider it proofs that DDS was much more correct than the normal Data Sense where the peaks wasn't counted that high! Sadly I didn't checked the data usage of each app in Data Sense before this peaks but this will be the next step.

I would be curious to know what is causing the sudden 3-4mb spikes. If you manage to figure it out let me know