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Help Ridiculous android OS data use

No shortage of threads, web pages, and/or reasons why this could be happening:

- Android OS (OTA) updates

- YouTube or other video / audio streaming

- failing, repeating, or very large app updates

- tethering

- a particular app misbehaving

- auto-uploading of images to things like Google Drive, Dropbox, Google Photos, Google+, Facebook, etc. (it's likely not always clear when an app is requesting the system to do something that it will actually be logged to the app or the system--I could be wrong re. that, though, but don't assume it's not a user app or one that you think is a use app like YouTube that is likely installed as a system app on your device)

- Google backup (backup data)?​

If this were me, I would take a baseline look at the usage graphs, monitor things throughout the day, have a peek at the system log (via the logcat utility), etc.

Monitor. Compare. Rinse. Repeat.

:)
 
How do I separate the sub-processes from abdroid.os grouping to find out what specifically is using the data? I have ruled out Adroid updates, I have no cloud backup apps or services running as it is a severe security and data-mining risk, I do not use tethering, or any sort of online photo or file backup service as Important files are sent per need to a private NAS. App updates and streaming data is accounted for. This is not a rooted device.
 
Hi,

I just started having same problem. Samsung Galaxy s6 Active, unlocked and used on Tmobile. Android version 6.01.
In my case it appears to be the native email app, though nothing has changed.
Anyone had this problem and have a solution? It ate 8 GB of data in 11 days!! 2GB in 2 days.
This is insane.
 
The problem is, there is no way to know exactly where that data is going, or coming from. This harkens back to the old svchost issues in Windows, where a core operating system coponent is actually an entire group of services and processes, that is lumped together. In Android's case, this group is called "android.os". There is no single app, or service called "android.os", it is just an obfuscated grouping of system services and other components. This is either lazy programming, or a deliberate method of hiding just what and where data is being used. Also, why are there no clear explanations of exactly what "android.os" is actually doing, and how to identify the sub-components? After numerous searches online, I find this problem seems to apply to almost any Android version, but without any exact pattern and explanation. For many people, this problem eats their entire monthly bandwidth allocation within a few days, and no way to control it. All the suggestions seem to be only guesswork and no actual answer by someone who can demonstrate how to audit this effectively.
 
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Bg260 said:
Sure. They only pay me $30/hr so......



Now that sounds completely logical.

Doors always open feel free to stop by and help. Anytime 24/7.
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Why post, if you have no actual information to add to the thread other than pure assumption and self-promotion. Your posts certainly do not offer anything other than a suggestion you may have the answer, if someone pays you ... Yeah sorry, not happening. I am fairly confident you have absolutely no idea the cause either. Everything posted I have already seen suggested elsewhere (on other threads or forums), and subsequently ruled out.

Thank you for trying, but I am looking for an answer from someone who knows they have theanswer, and can verify and explain it to others. There is nok way I'm going to throw money at someone based upon their arbitrary claims.
 
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kieseyhow said:
Everything you posted I have already seen suggested elsewhere, and ruled out.
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Well, this is a community-led enthusiast forum and not an official support site. Members here give of their time freely and can only offer advice based on their own experience, which may not match your own.

Labelling attempts at help "moronic" and those offering it "ignorant" does you no favours, and goes against Forum Rules i.e. "treat other members with respect. Please tone down the invective in future.
 
[Edit]: this was in response to Slug's comment.

I meant in general, across the Internet, not here. I thought that was clear. Sorry, I just get frustrated by the lack of technical information, and search engine's inability to find such if it actually exists. Nearly all the posts I have found are pure guesswork, rather than any definitive answers. Are we left to accept, that no one anywherre knows how to resolve this? Or, if they are, why withhold the information, unless there is something to hide?

I used to face this same lack of specific answers with Windows all the time, but that was protected code, and likely the ones who did know, were prevented by gag orders to reveal its secrets. I thought since Android is based off Linux, that there are actually people out there with some concrete answers.
 
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Yes much of an Android OS is open source, however didn't you say it was the "native email app" doing it, which on an S6 is a Samsung app. That is proprietary, NOT open source. All the Google Mobile Services and Samsung "S" apps and components are proprietary as well, just like Windows is .

So if it's having problems like that, stop using it maybe, and try another email app.

"something to hide" that sounds like we might be moving into "it's a conspiracy!" possibly. Like tin foil hats etc.
 
mikedt said:
Yes much of an Android OS is open source, however didn't you say it was the "native email app" doing it, which on an S6 is a Samsung app. That is proprietary, NOT open source. All the Google Mobile Services and Samsung "S" apps and components are proprietary as well, just like Windows is .

So if it's having problems like that, stop using it maybe, and try another email app.

"something to hide" that sounds like we might be moving into "it's a conspiracy!" possibly. Like tin foil hats etc.
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This problem is not associated with the email app, but with the Android OS itself, and affects multiple Android versions and several makes and models of device. I have seen this on many forums pertaining to phones and tabets, with different carriers, and for wifi-only tablets.
 
Frankly I've never heard of it happening before, like you describe. And I've been around Android devices for a long time now. And not just in China.

You did say "in my case it was the native email app", which is a Samsung thing on an S6. I guess it was having a wobbly or something, repeatedly trying to ping the servers possibly
 
mikedt said:
For information, someone else is reporting same problem here.

http://androidforums.com/index.php?threads/1085037/

Native email app also on a Samsung S6 using excessive amounts of data, 1GB a day.

So it's looking like a Samsung issue with the S6 current firmware, that they need to fix ASAP, with another update likely, or could be a server side problem.

@kieseyhow is your S6 also on T-Mobile?
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I don't have an s6, I never said I had one. That was someone else. I have a 12" Samsung business tablet, running Android 5.02. I use the AquaMail app, and it is the best, and most powerful, email app there is, I tried them all.

I have had the tablet use more than 26Gb of data in a single month. It is absolutely insane. I track all the data used for updates and I have an app that logs the data used for streaming, and it is accounted for. When I drag out the calculator and work it out, I find the "android.os" service is using 10Gb to 18Gb of data that is unaccounted for. all my apps are updated and no OS updates (tablet is too old) do not account for this data use. My entire Internet bandwidth use is usually less than 40Gb, and that included many hours of streaming movies, working, and gaming on Steam from other computers. My tablet does not do these activities, so where is this data going?
 
kieseyhow said:
I have a 12" Samsung business tablet, running Android 5.02.
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Aah. Okay. Let me relate a little story. Last year I was having periodic internet outages at home. I thought it was my ISP so I complained. They started monitoring my connection and told me I was maxing out my bandwidth and that it might be from some malware. So I shut everything off and one-by-one turned it all back on. When I booted my Galaxy Note 10.1 (running 5.1.1) it pinned the needle, as it were. When I looked at the data user it, too was Android OS, basically because wifi connections are handled through the Android services (since it's a resource shared by virtually every connected app).

What I had done without thinking about it was to insert an external 16GB that had several folders of old family photos that I have got from my brother as well as a few episodes of Star Trek (don't judge me :p) that pretty much consumed all the available space on the card. I just wanted to watch one of the episodes while I was working. What was going on was that on my phone, I had settings where all media gets sync'ed to my Google account and somehow those settings were transferred to my tablet. It must have been when I factory reset and restored from the cloud. In any case, because of where Samsung/TouchWiz mounts an external sd card, every media file was put in the queue to sync.

My Google account is just the basic account which means you get 10 GB of cloud storage. But, my tablet was trying to sync about 15 GB to my account which already contained 5 or so. So, as a file would try to sync to the cloud, the upload would fail because of space, and because I had notifications turned off for sync (because who really want's to be annoyed with repetitive messages?) I didn't know it was happening. I was just fortunate that this was a WiFi-only tablet, or I could have easily burnt through my mobile data in a day.

As soon as I told the tablet not to sync the external SD card, everything was fine. I suspect something similar is happening with you. Finding it might be might not be that easy, but it could be narrowed down. If I remember correctly, in case you want to look, the setting for syncing media was turned on with G+ but managed with Google Photos>settings>backup & sync>backup device folders. This is NOT the same as the sync under your Google account in settings>accounts which is why i missed it.

It is not an inherent fault with Android, but a convergence of settings that make your, or anyone else's, device behave in an unexpected way. I'd also have to say that this is not the norm, or even very common at all. While it does come up from time to time, in a forum with over a million members we'd be hearing this much more frequently if it was common. Sure, you can search for it and come up with hundreds of hits ... or even thousands. At last year Google claimed to have 1.4 billion active users worldwide, so even 10 thousand is a minuscule percentage. It just sucks to be one of that group.
 
lunatic59 said:
Aah. Okay. Let me relate a little story. Last year I was..... When I booted my Galaxy Note 10.1 (running 5.1.1) it pinned the needle, as it were. When I looked at the data user it, too was Android OS, basically because wifi connections are handled through the Android services.......my tablet was trying to sync about 15 GB to my account which already contained 5 or so.......As soon as I told the tablet not to sync the external SD card, everything was fine. I suspect something similar is happening with you.......It is not an inherent fault with Android, but a convergence of settings.......in a forum with over a million members we'd be hearing this much more frequently if it was common.
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Thanks, but I already stated earlier the issue was not this setting. I don't sync any data online automatically at all, nor do I use any cloud backups, not Google photos, and Drive only for "public" files. Cloud services constitute a severe security risk by leaking data inadvertently to servers that are not under my direct control. It could be a workable answer, but various syncing issues are nearly always suggested on every thread I researched. I have some of Google's apps forcefully removed and blocked, so I can assure you it is not any background sync settings.

It was worth a suggestion and certainly may be a setting many people are not aware of, especially if they take photos with their device, and subsequently sending personal data onto some random cloud server.

The number one rule of IT security is that unless you directly control the hardware where data is stored, there is NO security, only the illusion of security. This is why in a proper business environment all servers and workstations are supposed to be physically locked and certain access vectors, like optical drives and USB ports, are disabled at the hardware level. Thanks again though for the suggestion. Most people have no idea.
 
I've gone from 16mb of Android OS mobile data usage a month to 1.4gb!! It pushed me over my 3.5gig limit last month. I went through everything and found the culprit! Samsung Cloud.

I went into Settings > Applications > Application Manager > More - Show System Apps then clicked on soooo many apps until I found this one which had used 1.3gig in a month! 1.08gig the month before and only 400mb the month before that.

Went into Settings > Samsung Cloud then More > Network Settings and set it to wifi only.

Don't know why it suddenly started consuming mass amounts of data, especially when the only thing selected was contacts?? Anyway, I hope this fixes the issue and my info can help someone else!
 
Here in the hopes that this issue will continue to be investigated.

I'm running an unlocked S7, purchased new, not rooted, on t-mobile. I restricted automatic sync and update on day one when I set up the phone. I run very few 3rd party apps. I have never run a cloud or back up service or app.

The only apps used on a daily basis are, Gmail, Yahoo mail, snapchat, eBay and SwiftKey. I use the native message and calendar apps. I do not sync Google Drive or photos. Yahoo mail never syncs unless I open the app.

With this, I have been consuming data at approx 2 gb / month on "Android.os". Equally if not more on WiFi.
 
3 days into billing cycle

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Thank-you Joshua. The screenshots will really help people understand this issue. As you can see from other comments, most people just assume it is some sort of backup or cloud service, and we don't know what we're talking about.
 
How about tracking actual network usage or identifying what site/sites are being contacted (and possibly blocking them)? See this thread:


for some app ideas to see who/what is getting contacted...perhaps you could track and correlate the high usage (when you see it) with a particular site? (you may be to temporarily / manually stop some apps or suspected ones to identify and/or rule them out)

Like I indicated in my first post here, it's going to take some digging and analysis on the affected person's/device's part to track down what the cause is, since it's likely / possibly not the same for all folks (especially given the different manufacturers, carriers, Android versions, and app makeup involved).
 
Thank you for your efforts scary alien, I'm going to buy netguard pro and give it a whirl.

Aside from logging data usage for this threads purpose I like the apps features. The developer also seems very hands on and pro active with users.

I like that.
 
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