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Android OS using high amounts of data via wifi? 184mbs!

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Elwood42

Member
Noticed today on my wifi logs, that the program "Android OS" has used 184mbs of data in the last month. My previous four months have all read less than a mb, or at most, five mb's for January to February. Why the sudden jump up to 184mb? I've not downloaded anything specific and besides, the data shows it all as background data.

184mb's of background data for the android OS, via wifi. Help please?

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Have you installed - or enabled/amended sync'ing -on anything new recently?

Things like news and weather feeds, e-mail, facebook, google plus (I guess) etc could potentially be downloading quite a bit of stuff if you have them sync'ing frequently in the background.

I had an issue on my old Desire where e-mail and maps used masses of data. I amended the sync options on e-mail (check less often, download a smaller proportion of the message) and started killing maps after use (this was on something like 2.2 so almost certainly not necessary these days).

Could also be an app that's continually downloading ads in the background either coz of poor coding or to earn advertising bucks from Google.
 
SiempreTuna said:
Have you installed - or enabled/amended sync'ing -on anything new recently?

Things like news and weather feeds, e-mail, facebook, google plus (I guess) etc could potentially be downloading quite a bit of stuff if you have them sync'ing frequently in the background.

I had an issue on my old Desire where e-mail and maps used masses of data. I amended the sync options on e-mail (check less often, download a smaller proportion of the message) and started killing maps after use (this was on something like 2.2 so almost certainly not necessary these days).

Could also be an app that's continually downloading ads in the background either coz of poor coding or to earn advertising bucks from Google.
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Nope, neither one of those at all. Only real recent change was renabling the youtube app, but I tested it by watching a video, and all the downloaded data went to the youtube title in the wifi data charts, rather than the Android OS charts.
 
When You Use Youtube, data is also being used to play the video. I Had a Similar Issue. When I Played Youtube videos, i would see my android os data go up while youtube only uses like 2mb of data
 
nehalpatel said:
When You Use Youtube, data is also being used to play the video. I Had a Similar Issue. When I Played Youtube videos, i would see my android os data go up while youtube only uses like 2mb of data
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I gave this a try earlier when watching a video. The youtube data went up about fifteen mb, while the Android OS remained at the same number. I'll keep an eye out all the same, but I'm not entirely sure if that is the case or not.
 
Anyone know? It's worrying me, and weirdly when I turned on my mobile network it started using data on android os, getting up to 6kbs before I killed it, but it doesn't seem to use any more when switching to WiFi.

Help please?? I don't want to run up a massive bill due to this unexplained process using up my data!
 
Anyone know? It's worrying me, and weirdly when I turned on my mobile network it started using data on android os, getting up to 6kbs before I killed it, but it doesn't seem to use any more when switching to WiFi.

Help please?? I don't want to run up a massive bill due to this unexplained process using up my data!
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I assume you mean Kilobytes and not kilobits. Regardless, that's really small. It's a smartphone and so it's going to use data. I wouldn't worry about something so trival. Your phone is likely syncing with the network and your accounts.

As for the 184MB, perhaps Android OS is the sum of everything below it? I don't know how Android monitors data and I don't know why it wouldn't count YouTube either, but...

Internet = 170MB
Google Play= 13.93MB +
Removed apps= 512KB +
Google Search= 413KB +
Google Services= 210KB +
Media(rounded up)= 43KB +

Total = 185.08MB

Android OS = 184MB

Assuming there's some round off error from the OS and me, they come pretty close to each other. Also, your pic says 189MB for the background and it appears you didn't show all the apps that used data. So then there's even more room for error. Android OS is about 4MB short of that 189MB and since I don't know what the manager counts into its calculations--this could all be wrong.
 
How about this, my Android OS has used a whopping 1.4GB of data this month!! It's driving me nuts. And it's almost constantly keeping my phone awake when it's idle. Check these out:
 

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lightsleeper23 said:
How about this, my Android OS has used a whopping 1.4GB of data this month!! It's driving me nuts. And it's almost constantly keeping my phone awake when it's idle. Check these out:
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"Removed apps 472MB" what's that about? If an app has been removed, i.e. un-installed, it shouldn't be using any data. I've never seen anything like that before.

BTW "Android OS" in my ICS phone used just 11MB last month. My largest usages were tethering which used 810MB, a couple of IM apps used 120MB, and the browser 72MB.
 
SulkyAndroid17 said:
I assume you mean Kilobytes and not kilobits. Regardless, that's really small. It's a smartphone and so it's going to use data. I wouldn't worry about something so trival. Your phone is likely syncing with the network and your accounts.

As for the 184MB, perhaps Android OS is the sum of everything below it? I don't know how Android monitors data and I don't know why it wouldn't count YouTube either, but...

Internet = 170MB
Google Play= 13.93MB +
Removed apps= 512KB +
Google Search= 413KB +
Google Services= 210KB +
Media(rounded up)= 43KB +

Total = 185.08MB

Android OS = 184MB

Assuming there's some round off error from the OS and me, they come pretty close to each other. Also, your pic says 189MB for the background and it appears you didn't show all the apps that used data. So then there's even more room for error. Android OS is about 4MB short of that 189MB and since I don't know what the manager counts into its calculations--this could all be wrong.
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Can't be, as my overall monthly internet usage is around 780mbs, while the android os is still only 189mbs.
 
One possible cause for high "Android OS" data usage. Are these phones rooted? Maybe there's something running at a low-level consuming a lot of data and is not showing as a separate installed app?
 
Nope, not rooted, all is pretty much bog standard. It seems to have stopped the massive amounts so far, but I'm keeping an eye on it, given I've bo idea what caused it in the first place.
 
Elwood42 said:
Can't be, as my overall monthly internet usage is around 780mbs, while the android os is still only 189mbs.
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It was just a shot in the dark anyway. Also, that it's usage under WiFI and I didn't count youtube. Is the 780MB from WiFi and cellular data? Because you didn't show us cellular data usage.

Maybe give us a list of "Running" applications so we can better track this data usage down? Also, do you have a large amount of pictures or contacts saved? Perhaps they're being synced with Facebook or something else.

mikedt said:
"Removed apps 472MB" what's that about? If an app has been removed, i.e. un-installed, it shouldn't be using any data. I've never seen anything like that before.
Click to expand...

It's not that they're using data. It's that they used data. So removed apps must be counted to get an accurate total of data.
 
SulkyAndroid17 said:
It was just a guess. Also, that it's usage under WiFI and I didn't count youtube. Is the 780MB from WiFi and cellular data? Because you didn't show us cellular data usage.

Maybe give us a list of "Running" applications so we can better track this data usage down?



It's not that they're using data. It's that they used data. So removed apps must be counted to get an accurate total of data.
Click to expand...

It's all from wifi, I rarely use mobile data, but am worried for the total data usage if it's using this much via wifi.

Running apps is very few, and I only ever turn on wifi when I want to use it, it isn't running 24/7. Mobile Data I rarely/never use it!
 
Android OS is using a very high amount of my mobile data as well. I'm on WiFi most of the time so thankfully it's used more of that, but when I'm not, its using mobile data just as much. My running apps has the usual Google services and keyboard and stuff. Facebook and a couple apps are running too but all running apps have their own separate listing of how much data they've used. YouTube is low on the list. Even things I've downloaded show up separately under downloads.
 

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Do you have G+ installed? I think the default there is to sync photos to your G+ account which will use a considerable amount of data.
 
I have G+ installed by default but I never used it and kept it disabled until the last week or so, and I have it set to not upload photos. I actually have a drop box account set up on my nexus 7 and its set to upload photos but my tablets Android OS has used a tiny amount of data.

I honestly think OEMs just totally screw up Android when they mess with it. I always have weird issues with Android System or Android OS either draining battery or draining data for no apparent reason on every phone I've had. My N7 is perfect though, no issues with this kind of stuff ever. I'm getting a N4 in a few days and I never plan to purchase a non nexus device again. I like my devices to just work without having to worry about tweaking and modding and regulating and all that nonsense. No task managers or CPU spies or battery monitor apps or any of that stuff. I'm over it.
 
can anyone tell me the difference between 'internet' and 'google search', generally and/or in regards to mobile data? please and thank you !!
 
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