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

Help Data usage help.

W

Walleep

Lurker
Hello I was wondering if I could get some help as I am very confused, I have done quite a bit of googling etc and I cannot find anything really that has put me to ease. I have not long had my Galaxy S2 (I am not tech savvy) and I have installed My Data Manager since the beginning to keep and eye on what was going on. But this month I have noticed that 'OS Services' has increased from it's usual 1-5MB a month to 141MB so far this month.
This month I have installed some games etc which I haven't before such as Draw Something and I didn't know if that was causing an issue but I also found that playing things and doing stuff on my phone while the data network mode is turned off that the OS Service data usage continues to go up, and therefore contributes to the overall data for the month :confused:, does this actually count even though it is turned off? And is there any reason why it would make such as massive leap to 141MB?
 
Welcome to the forum mate, sorry for the delay.
Android OS services is just a fancy way of saying data services(I think). So by downloading a couple of apps from google play you've used data, therefore it went up. I hope that helps. Honestly I've never paid attention to what's using my data as I've always had all you can eat so I wouldn't bet my life.
 
Downloads are under downloads.

OS services is something else, and I strongly suspect its the apps and services that are syncing in the background. Not sure what can be done other than to see if any app can detect what is using data and limit its use. Best is only on data when required I guess.

I have 3GB plan, so I also have more than enough that am not worried.
 
That's what I thought, an app I had downloaded syncing without me knowing, so I uninstalled them and I also did a factory reset in the hopes that something would change but when I finally got everything back and running (after only installed my data manager so I could see what was using what) I found that it is still using a lot more data than it normally did. Sigh.
I guess I will have to go into my phone provider store and see what can be done to help me, if anything. Thanks for your help though, I really am clueless with technology and I appreciate any help given!
 
Walleep said:
I also found that playing things and doing stuff on my phone while the data network mode is turned off that the OS Service data usage continues to go up
Click to expand...

That doesn't sound right - if mobile data is disabled then there shouldn't be any data usage (unless you have a wireless connection active). Try installing another monitor app such as Network Usage and compare its results.
 
It doesn't seem to be doing it when data isn't on any more but I did find that when I was playing things like Elemental/Fruit Ninja that the data usage number for OS Services was still going up even when I had my data set to deactivated.
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll install Network Usage when I can and see what happens from there.
 
Meh after installing Network usage and Onavo (I think it's called) and watching them for a while the OS Service one is still going up much more than is normal.
I factory reset my phone yesterday too and since the the data usage has already gone up to 3MB in a day and considering it used to be 5-ish MB in a month I dunno what is going on.
 
OK - so here's my 2 cents. I think there's definitely something more to this OS Services than just standard data. My partner and I have the same phone - Galaxy S II. Her phone uses a lot of data, mine doesn't. We've both turned off background data, etc., but her phone still has much higher usage. Most of it is on wifi, but that's not the point here - the fact is OS services is using more data than it should.

For example - over the last month OS Services on my phone has used 117MB on wifi and 21MB on mobile, whereas on my partner's phone OS Services has used 2.05GB (yes GB!) on wifi and 26MB on mobile (mainly because she's using Juice Defender to restrict her mobile usage).

I've looked at the data usage in more detail and I've seen OS Services use fairly large amounts (20-30MB) in a hour (My Data Manager hourly view) when not using the phone at all!

I'm going to install some other monitoring apps to see if I can find out any more details on what's using the data, but there's definitely something not right here.

On a side note - I went into an O2 shop today and they were absolutely useless!
 
Walleep said:
Meh after installing Network usage and Onavo (I think it's called) and watching them for a while the OS Service one is still going up much more than is normal.
I factory reset my phone yesterday too and since the the data usage has already gone up to 3MB in a day and considering it used to be 5-ish MB in a month I dunno what is going on.
Click to expand...

Do you things like emails, facebook and twitter as you may have them syncing every hour and also you weather service might be updating its self regularly which uses data.

Check your background syncing options and see how regularly apps are updating.
 
OK - so here's something interesting.

I checked my data this morning using My Data Manager and had no mobile or wifi usage. I opened up a browser, searched a bit, watched a video. 10 minutes later I checked my data usage again and "OS Services" had used 49MB on wifi. Not unexpected, but there was ONLY "OS Services" and nothing else.

So I decided to do the same thing again and saw VERY different results:
Streaming Media - 53MB
OS Services - 52MB (on top of original 49MB, so 3MB more data)
Chrome - 2MB
And a few more....

So it looks like data is sometimes lumped under OS Services incorrectly - in this scenario the usage is fairly valid, although I still think there is some dodgy background usage going on (especially on my partner's phone!).
 
You may be right Tass. I am using 3G watchdog pro and when viewing data usage by application, and I tap on "OS services+Others", it describes it as a catch-all pseudo application aco****ing for difference between global usage and sum of all installed application usage.

Guess they just can't figure out how some apps are using the data. Although I haven't had a problem of 2GB of this yet. Maybe some browsers aren't picked up properly and have to be lumped there.
 
I too have high usage for OS Services, 123MB which really eats into my 500MB on my SGS3

I am hoping that Samsung get their fingers out their backsides and get a Jelly Bean update done ASAP, this may help
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom