Unexplained Overage - Data Sense says Streaming Media

[Thomas A]

Spent a day in the N. Georgia mountains with phone in airplane mode. On the way home the next day, about 45 min north of Atlanta, I get a message saying I've exceeded my data limits. Data sense showed 2.74GB of data on the generic "streaming media." I've included screenshots. The overage happened in a very short amount of time. I was listening to a 53MB podcast in Podcast Picker that I had downloaded earlier from WiFi. Got up to tier 2 with Verizon support, on there end it just showed "VZW Internet." They were great and gave me a free one month bump to 5GB, but basically shrugged their shoulders as to the cause. Anybody know what might have caused this?

 

[rockstarzzz]

Streaming Media = Xbox Music or Online Movies/Songs via IE10.

Either way none of that should happen if the phone was in Airplane mode.

 

[bigboy29]

I don't understand that spreadsheet. Are they saying that your phone downloaded ~2GB of "something" between 2:41 and 2:45 or between 2:45 and 3:46?

 

[Thomas A]

I'm not sure about the spreadsheet's timing. It looks like it downloaded nearly 2 gig in a few minutes. It wasn't in airplane mode, I had it in airplane until a couple of hours before this happened. Just added that detail in case in case it was pertinent.

Wouldn't data usage in Xbox Music or IE show up under those apps in Data Sense?

 

[James Portelli]

Hey I have the same problem. 803 Mb were downloaded over a couple of days on my mobile data connection. 3.9Gb were downloaded over WIFI. Thanks to Data Sense I got to know straight away. It saved my day. I didn't stream any video this past month. What is sucking up all this bandwidth ?

I'll post screenshot and log when I get wifi access.

 

[psiu_glen]

The NSA tech responsible for your phone says thanks, btw.

 

[James Portelli]

Ohhhh almost forgot about that!!! LOL

 

[YOLOsaurusRex]

I actually had this problem too! The timing was weird because I was streaming something on MetroTube over my data connection and then a few hours later I got a text from Verizon saying 75% of my data was being used. Then a minute later, I got another one that said I used 90%. I only have 2GB allotted to me per month so I panicked and turned my phone off and back on. It seemed fine but I had to make do with about 75MB of data for two weeks. My university wifi is horrible (2 megabits downstream max) and overall a pain to use, so it was pretty annoying. I didn't get an overage or anything so I never had to call Verizon. I chalked it up to MetroTube being weird.

I must've deleted the screenshots because I can't find them, but it just said streaming media for me as well. Very odd.

 

[James Portelli]

I'm suspecting a similar cause.... MetroTube or myTube or Pluralsight...
Probably some app streamed video in the background without me knowing. Not happy with the situation however. If an app was consuming data, the culprit should have been pinpointed in DataSense, not under a generic "Streaming Media".

 

[Anders Lund1]

I am experiencing the exact same thing on my phone Lumia 620 - for the last couple of days I've burned through 3GB of data which I normally wouldn't even manage to use throughout an entire month and the battery get's drained within few hours. I don't have any auto backup running - the phone is constantly on battery saver. As mentioned by other users Data Sense also claims that the Streaming Media is the big user. My phone is now complaining about 'limited space on the phone' which I would think is also an indicator that it's obviously not online backups being uploaded rather it's something unknown being downloaded.
I have tried using a program called Fiddler2 to track the phones connections via wifi through my laptop Monitor Windows Phone. Which works and shows any connections you might have. The problem however, is that the huge data consumptions and battery drain only occurs when when the cellular network is 'on' and the wifi is 'off' - the opposite does not cause any huge downloads via wifi.

Now I've consequently turned the wifi 'on' and the cellular 'off' waited for a day then vice versa the next day. When only the 'wifi' is on no alarming data consumptions is going, though when the opposite is the case the data streaming media began downloading again until no more space was left on my phone.

I've uninstalled quite a few apps trying to pinpoint the causing app as well as releasing some much needed space on the phone. The problem however still persists and I have not at any point had any video streaming applications installed like metrotube, youtube ect.

If anybody is familiar with an application or software that can track the usage of the cellular data that would be very helpful. I've called my carrier (a danish company named 'CallMe'), though by law they can't track any information of the actual data being sent and downloaded, so no help there.

Should it be that some cloud downloads might be the cause of it - I have recently updated my windows 8 OS on both my computer and laptop to windows 8.1. I don't know if Skydrive/Onedrive now has some odd syncing going on.

 

[tk-093]

Are you using the XBOX Music/Video hub or the new standalone Xbox music app? Maybe uninstall the app and see what happens?

 

[radmanvr]

This has happen to me before also I spoke with the dude and he said that it does seem weird because he was looking and the prior 3 months and said that its not normal behavior for me so he will make a note and if it happens again they will escalate it.

I am not sure what exactly happen but apparently I used about 3 gigs in 2 hours for streaming media but i was asleep at that time.

 

[Saksham Sharma]

This is amazing ! I remembered on reading this thread that i too have noticed sometimes that the streaming media consumes a lot of data. I checked right now, and saw that it is at 350MB used in the last 20 days. And surprisingly, i hadn't watched any videos via the default streaming way (clicking on video on youtube), opened all via mytube. And those seem very few. Mytube itself has consumed just 17MB, which seems a bit less (it should've been about 50-60 MB), but what is the rest ? I dont have Xbox video, and i dont stream any audio, keep all on my sd card, and no videos either.. Seems strange..

 

[Calvin Millerbis IV]

Streaming media is everything that is streaming. For example every video you watch inside of your YouTube app is considered "streaming media" you are streaming it from YouTube. The data sense has a spot for these individual apps because they do have adds and loading of their own but as soon as the video starts to play , or song from Pandora, it considered streaming media and is recorded as such. That's why of you watch a ton you YouTube videos or use Xbox music those apps raise slightly and streaming media rises high. Take it from me I work tech support on these guys.