Huge phantom data usage on Mango.

[mihai.vladan]

Hey guys,

Ive upgraded my HTC Mozart to Mango about 3 weeks ago and after the update i keep getting some random / phantom data spikes . Everything works fine for 4-5 days ( 1-4Mb data usage per day ) and suddenly BOOM!! 80-140 mb in one day!! without doing anything that could account for that kind of traffic.

For example yesterday i had a 79 mb usage, and the only thing that i did different was to look at someones photo albums form the people hub and make a soft reset because i keep having GPS problems ( the phone cant find my location when im at home ).

I have everything turned off ( feedback , search for updates background App...etc ) except for email push and Chat witch are always on .Also I don't use that many live tiles .

Unfortunately my Carrier doesn't offer a detailed data usage to prepaid customers , so i have no idea at what time this happened.

Anyone else encountered this problem ?

Thanks!
Mihai

 

[selfcreation]

First things first:

WELCOME TO WP/WPCentral


did you download some apps? some apps i think u can download apps up top 25MB without them telling u , u need to connect to WIFI.

i know uploading pictures from FB can hurt too ( 1-2 MB a picture ) depending on quality and size......

if you open up Attachments in E-mails (depending on the file ) ....

i do about 1.5Gigs a month and i barely use the Internet. (mostly from E-mails , RSS feeds and app downloads)

 

[mihai.vladan]

First things ffirst:

WELCOME TO WP/WPCentral


did you download some apps? some apps i think u can download apps up top 25MB without them telling u , u need to connect to WIFI.

i know uploading pictures from FB can hurt too ( 1-2 MB a picture ) depending on quality and size......

Hmm...i did downloaded 2 apps : "Bingle maps" and "Im a WP7 too " but they have ~7Mb in total and i installed them trough Zune not form the phone .
Regarding the photo uploads ...none ( i have the upload to skydrive / facebook option disabled )

 

[selfcreation]

this is the MOST recent info i could find on it.... do you happent o have YAHOO e-mail??

Excessive phantom data usage - Microsoft Answers

if u read in the comments there is allot of explanation and tips to lowering data .... just read on it ..

hope it helps

 

[FriendOrDafoe]

I have had the same problem since mango. I think its from all those damn apps running in the background. I keep my 3g off now unless I want to look at something.

 

[KingCrimson]

Does Mango have a data cap monitor like ICS just came out with?

 

[Apoc]

It's since the Mango update, haven't figured out what part of the update is doing the buffett eating of data. I've uninstalled every app I had on the phone and it was just the barebones OS, still was eating data. I've seen on a few comments from users on other sites, the fix was to reinstall in the Mango update, just haven't been home long enough to try it yet. Will let everyone know, once I do get it done and tested again.

 

[Apoc]

Does Mango have a data cap monitor like ICS just came out with?

It's on the phone itself or option of downloading your carrier's app to monitor it.

 

[aubreyq]

I have also noticed my data usage go up, based on the notification I get from my carrier (AT&T, I'm on the 200MB/mo. plan). I'm still going to give it another month or so, but my initial impression is my data usage went up after the Mango update, even though my day-to-day use of the phone has remained the same.

 

[palandri]

It's not phantom data usage, something has to be eating it. I would guess it's an application you installed.

 

[Apoc]

It's not phantom data usage, something has to be eating it. I would guess it's an application you installed.

I took every application off the phone, turned off all location based services, went to Background Task and turned everything off(which was nothing more, since I uninstalled every application). Game settings was never set to connect with Xbox LIVE. IE is not allowed to access my location. Maps was shut off and also not allowed to use my location. FB & Group Chat/Text was both kept off, just in case it used any type of Data. Music & Videos is not allowed to connect to Zune either. Only Tap screen to take a picture option is left on for camera usage. Search is not allowed to use Location, unless I manually turn it on. Feedback is disabled. Now I do notice that under the "Find My Phone" setting, I have neither options selected, but when I back out to the main screen, it shows "connected", but even before Mango, it didn't use up data like now. Still was trying to figure this out, before having to redo Mango.

 

[selfcreation]

- opening People hub = data usage ( FB + twitter EVERY TIME some one updates )

- Opening XBL HUB = data usage ( use to be bad with XLB extras , now its build into the hub. so it loads all ur XBL info every single time u click on XBL HUB )

- Opening marketplace = data usage. (Uploads like 10 apps at a time , more than that requires more data to be loaded)

- bing map = UGE DATA , ( every 5Km/ or miles it uploads another 5Km/5Miles of the map )

- Bing search = UGE DATA ( it finds ALL the sites/maps / pictures related to your search )

And obviously any other apps RSS , location base ( * WHO HAS WP7 * app PWNS ur data as much as BING MAP and MORE )

and now that MS integrated MORE into does hubs its most likely what is using ur data.


using 90% of the features on your phone will use data... 60% more iish sints MANGO )

 

[jfa1]

I dont have to worry about this as I have an unlimited data plan grandfathered in and thats one of many reasons why the iphone whatever is not in my future!

 

[Apoc]

Se1fcr3ation- I've turned all of those options off and still something is sucking up data. I took the "People" hub and any type of "Live" tiles, that may cause data usage. So on the main screen I only had "Phone", "Messaging", "Mail"(which is manual sync only), "Calendar", "Calculator", "Settings", & "Pictures", nothing else, all of which are not "Live" tiles. I would turn "Data(3G)" on and just let it set there for a couple of minutes, then click "Data" off, sure enough, depending on the time I had it on, it sucked up more data.

 

[Apoc]

Think I might just be better off doing a "hard" reset, then reinstalling Mango.

 

[Jay Bennett]

I have had the same problem since mango. I think its from all those damn apps running in the background. I keep my 3g off now unless I want to look at something.

Yes this is possibly part of it, for instance our app's background task will attempt to download approximately 69kb of data at most every 30 minutes (more likely every 45 minutes). If you have the phone on all day this is a maximum of about 3mb of data that could be downloaded in that day - assuming that each download attempt is successful. Of course if you happen to be in a WiFi area the background tasks will use that connection.

 

[palandri]

Think I might just be better off doing a "hard" reset, then reinstalling Mango.

That's what I would do at this point.

 

[mattpga]

ive noticed a sudden jumpin data usage. from about 300mb a month to 96 in 2 days. cant explain it. always download over wifi, and Orange caps downloading to 20mb anyway, any apps/games over that will only download using wifi. I've turned everything off, which is a shame. Why have a smartphone if you have to lobotomise it.

If anyone has found a cause or solution to the data muching please let me know.

 

[mattpga]

Think I might just be better off doing a "hard" reset, then reinstalling Mango.

did you reinstall? has it made any difference?

 

[gentry33]

My data usage

Something peculiar has to be going on with some of these data consumption numbers. I'm 10 days away from the end of my billing cycle and I haven't used even 10% of my 2gb. I have 1/2 a dozen live tile apps that have mango upgrade. I get notifications from BBC News, play a gps based game frequently, open Twitter daily, occasional Foursquare, people hub, gmail, Weather channel during the day and usually on 3G with AT&T. Location is on, find my phone is connected, wi-fi networking on and feedback is on. I also have screen timeout set to never, not to mention 5 apps running in the background. I think something is wrong with your service or you are streaming too much music or video, those are the real data hogs.