• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

"Android System" Used 2 Gigs of data in 3 hours(!!)

Q

quants

Lurker
Hi Everyone, I have a concerning issue.
This morning, I plugged my Nexus 4 into my wall charger and came back within a few hours to find it completely discharged (??) and extremely hot to the touch.
After reconnecting the charger and letting it charge up again (it got cooler), I powered it on and discovered this:

"Android System" used 2.03 GIGABYTES of data within the last few hours... This is extremely concerning to me and I fear my phone has been compromised. It is rooted, I have avast antivirus and I only install apps from the Google play store. What can I do to get to the bottom of this?
image:
C1wt3ut.png
 
Welcome to the forums, quants! :hello:
Can you scroll down through that list and find any other data hogs? I see FF is next and far smaller. On my G2, I don't even have "Android System" at all. I have Android OS (someone can let me know if that's the same or different), and in a 10 days' period it has used hardly anything. Have you looked into the battery settings to see if Android System is draining your battery as well?
 
Just a FYI and for the benefit of the thread, this is my cellular data usage for last week. There's Android System here but it's just below 9MB . This is on a Chinese OPPO Find 7a with Cyanogenmod 4.4.4 Kitkat. I've had Play and G+ having data consumption wobblys in the past, but I've now removed G+ and disabled background data for Play.

1405853078095.jpg
 
breadnatty08 said:
Welcome to the forums, quants! :hello:
Can you scroll down through that list and find any other data hogs? I see FF is next and far smaller. On my G2, I don't even have "Android System" at all. I have Android OS (someone can let me know if that's the same or different), and in a 10 days' period it has used hardly anything. Have you looked into the battery settings to see if Android System is draining your battery as well?
Click to expand...

Android OS is the kernel, Android System is the collection of services called by other apps.

OP, you have a runaway process somewhere.

Do a backup, factory data reset, and restore.
 
I don't have an "Android System" listed either (Nexus 4, stock KK).

I have an "Android OS" (431kB) and a "Google Services" (2.02MB) but no "Android System" listed in data use.
 
John Bean said:
I don't have an "Android System" listed either (Nexus 4, stock KK).

I have an "Android OS" (431kB) and a "Google Services" (2.02MB) but no "Android System" listed in data use.
Click to expand...

Nexus.

Most OEMS categorize with Android System.

Very commonly seen with Gsam Battery Monitor screen shots.

And yes, Google Services is listed separately, because there's an app associated with the service, regardless of phone brand.
 
Thanks for the input everyone, I didn't know that Android System was a catch-all for other apps. Scrolling through the data usage list I see Firefox at 852mb (thats okay) and browser at 254mb, all other apps (including Android OS) under 50mb.
I think I'll go through the apps list and take note of which ones are granted network access, and which ones show up as distinct processes in the data usage viewer. My objective is to find the misbehaving app so I don't install it again!
 
Looking at your status bar, it appears that you're running a custom rom and thus there's a possibility it could be linked to that. Which one are you using and what version?
 
@EarlyMon, from my understanding, apps spawn services, so if I find every app with network access and compare them to the apps listed on the data usage list, whatever apps aren't listed (they have network permission but weren't shown to be using any data) are candidates for this runaway service?
 
jhawkkw said:
Looking at your status bar, it appears that you're running a custom rom and thus there's a possibility it could be linked to that. Which one are you using and what version?
Click to expand...
Sorry for not making this clear in the post. I'm running cyanogenmod 11 milestone 7 (june 6th). I think I'll be re-flashing stock android though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom