Unknown data usage early morning

My large usage seems to be down. It's still using data I'm not always using. I downloaded the DataMan app and it tells me that I've used 8.0 MB so far, with 19 days to the end of my billing cycle. 61.1 MB on Wi-Fi. I leave both of those on. But leave 3G off until I want to use it.

Anyone else use the Pro version of DataMan? If so.... how do I get it to stop alerting me that I've used 0% of my monthly allowance multiple times a day? (or whatever percentage I happen to be at) I only want to be alerted to the percentages I set them to.

Thanks for the great advice, Neil! Much appreciated!

Hi there Jes42 and sorry to hear your're having those issues as well. Is there any chance you could check for the extra settings in:

Location Services > System Services > Diagnostics and Usage and iAds ?

The Diagnostics and Usage settings here are additional to the ones most people change in the General > About

Also, if you're using Dataman Pro and Onavo, please keep a watch out for apps that relate to any names called Pinch Media / Flurry as this is yet another usage-mining apps that's been created to send your usage info back to out. It more than likely runs updates on the apps that are coded with Pinch Media / Flurry programming tags to update your ads and usage / location stats too.

I hope we can piece by piece figure out what's going on and sort this out for you.

Calineil

http://you-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-along-on-this-jou rney.html

HI Broooz and sorry to hear about your problems as well. Great news though that you've found a work around.

Just a thought that's come to mind. Would it be possilbe to have all your incoming emails diverted to one main address such as a Me.com account and have this running as your primary email to avoid IMAP sync issues and do you have your phone or automatic push or manual fetch ?

I've seen a large number of posts in various places stating the issues with IMAP sync failing and constanly re-trying which is something we maybe need an Apple Tech to sort out as it's something a large number of people are getting issues with. Typical that it takes us the user so long to get a resolution from those that SHOULD be doing more to help but just going through some ideas to see if there's a way to smooth things out too.

Nice work on the work around though 😉

Calineil

http://you-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-along-on-this-jou rney.html

Hi there ddsuresh and nice work on getting rid off Textfree.

In the realms of apps it's always a good idea to find out as much as you can about what "tags" and programs the app itself is associated with. There are an enormous number of great apps out there but also an even bigger number out there that use add-on software such as iAds or Pinch Media to report usage and stats and download updates whenever they feel like it even after you've turned your app off.

It definitely pays to check out all the information you can get from the app info or the developer themselves before adding something to you phone. 😉

Calineil

http://you-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-along-on-this-jou rney.html

Hi there again thezonie and that REALLY is great news for sure. Thanks for the update too and here's hoping we get more and more cases like ours to start knocking back un-known data usage.

I've had very, very little data usage over this past two weeks since I changed my settings. It's gone from seeing up to 75Mb over night to not even 100Kb of data if any that I can't explain and during the day I'm using up to approx 60Mb with only approx 300Kb of that using 3G data when I'm out and about. Not taking into account any surfing or social network access though as usual. Lol.

GREAT news for sure thezonie and please, if it starts to show up again please can you let me know even if it's a quick note on my blog or here ? I'll gladly try and help out some more as I'm constantly doing checks and research on what's happening with data usage and apps. 😉

Thanks thezonie. 🙂

Calineil

http://you-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-along-on-this-jou rney.html

Hey there DanceForce77 and welcome along again too.

In regards Dataman Pro, I've got that running and so far so good, it seems to line up with AT&T usage stats and the phones' main data stats. I'm lucky I guess that we ended up having to get my data usage increased to 3Gig as I was having those major issues with over-usage before I sorted out my settings as well but I still like to monitor my phone as if I'm still on a 200Mb plan just in case for now.

Just curious, have you tried resetting all the Dataman Pro settings at the bottom of your settings screen ?

One that's done you should be able to change the settings back to what you like. I've got mine running at 50% first, 70% second, 90% third and 100% fourth but so far I've not had any warnings show up at all that I didn't need to know about. It's weird it sends you that amount of notices but it may also be that it's primarily set up for a 3G check so if you have your 3G turned off it's thinking it's monitoring your Wi-Fi ? Not sure I'm afraid and could be something to ask the developer about ?

How would it go running a test with leaving your 3G on for a day and a night and see what your usage and monitoring notifications do then ?

Hoping we all have a GREAT week ahead too.

Calineil

http://you-are-all-you-need-to-be.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-along-on-this-jou rney.html

Awesome broooz and I hope it settles down again soon too.

Definitely keep trying and I'm going to dig around some more on the IMAP issue and email sync fails. There's got to be a way to sort this out from a few settings changes.

Have a GREAT week too broooz.

Neil.

Do you guys think it could be the apps secretly uploading whatever they are uploading? And it seems to me only the up-to-date apps do that, at least it appears so on my phone. When I first got my phone, and when I updated some of my apps, I notice the spike in my data usage. I havn't been updating any of my apps since two months ago, and the usage has been about normal.

I have 45 apps, 43 are out of date, some are really out of date.

Anyone wants to try not updating any apps and see if that helps in a month or two?

I've been having this issue for months now on o2 in the UK (iPhone 4 all software versions). It usually downloads over 200mb overnight when all apps etc are closed. Monitoring apps show this is coming from 'iOS'. ICloud and everything disabled etc.

After reading hundreds of posts, Neil's solution seems like a good option. I have changed the System Services options, loaded DataMon pro and will see if things improve. Just need to buy a bolt on from o2 to increase data this month because when I spoke to them, after explaining the issues for 15 mins their response was "turn off auto data" - I gave up with them.

So as others have said thanks Neil for all your efforts with this and your blog post makes it really clear. Just hope it works for me! Will report back.....

Hi there hhung516. I like your thinking and yes, there are data usage occurences going on we don't know about from the apps that send and retrieve info nobody seems to be able to tell us about or even give us IP addresses for but to leave an app not updated would only mean the next time you update that app, it would chew through more data bringing in the latest updates. A good viewpoint for sure but you could end up finding a massive amount of data downloaded just to update in the end I'm afraid. There seems to be more in the way of issues with email sync problems and the auto-reports for Diagnostics and Usage as well location updates and tower-pings to co-ordinate those locations. I've seen several apps that use Pinchworks and iAds to update locations and while the phone is in "sleep" mode, it still updates so it might be an idea to check out what app is being used through a monitoring program. 😉

Hi GleeSC and thanks for that article post. It sure seems like someone in the midst of their hectic schedules forgot that data roaming anywhere on this globe costs an arm and a leg, but also they seem to have missed how they have set up their email services. One problem with email is that some forget to setup the server for leaving the messages on the server or not. There are various settings you can adjust on the mail service and the phone to have the messages left on the server which would mean in most cases, your phone will only update with the newest of messages as a push notification not try and re-download the entire mailbox.

What a terrifying case of usage and re-buying though and I hope Zack finally settled on Blackberry or iPhone before his business expenses blow out his budget.

Data roaming, it sure is a costly and dangerous thing if we don't guard all our goods and settings.

Calineil

Feedback is Food.

Hi there jazzvendor and thanks for the update and feedback too.

I've ran my iPhone 3GS with those settings I've mentioned for over 3 weeks now and data usage had been amazingly low. I guess i'm lucky in the sense that we're on wifi here at home where I currently spend most of my time (especially recovering from a nasty virus just now) but even out in the 3G fields there seems to be a LOT less usage going on which sure takes a lot of my mind and others. I hope the new settings will help you kill off some of that usage as well.

I've done the same as you as a back-stop. We ended up getting a 3 gig plan for the phone once the data limits started going ballistic and am off to Lincoln, CA later this week for a work conference so it'll be interesting for sure to see what the usage ends up being like. I'm praying the hotel has good wifi. Lol.

I also got the same reply from AT&T here when I called them about these problems. "Turn off your cellular data when you don't need it" he suggested. But to make matters worse and more of a joke when I asked them about the hundreds and hundreds of reports about the phone switching to 3G from wifi once it went into sleep mode, the service tech had no idea about this ? Really ? It's been widely publicized for at least a couple of years now and something more of us iPhone users need to watch out for.

Anyway, time to hit the Dayquill and get these aches and pains out of the way for a while. I'm starting work on a new blog page this week too once my head clears and would love to hear an update back on how your data usage goes too.

A huge thanks for the feedback in here too jazzvendor.

Calineil

Feedback is Food.

Hi there again broooz, just a quick check to see how your usage is going ? Any further drops in it or still having those issues ?

I'd appreciate hearing back from someone who knows even more about IMAP and HTTP mail services so we can get more info out on how to stop all this mess these email sync problems seem to be creating.

Hoping to hear more soon.

Calineil

Feedback is Food.

Count me and the mrs as new victims in the phantom data puzzle. Both of us average about 150MB / month over the past 3 years. Last month, both our 4S iPhones suddenly hit 2.5GB according to AT&T. In the first 8 days of this billing cycle, she's used 750MB, and I've used 800MB.

On our phones, this data is not reported. At all. My cellular data usage hasn't been reset in 6 months, and currently sits at about 600MB (in + out). Hers is about the same. So our iPhones report 600MB used in the past 6 months, AT&T reports almost 3GB in just the past 30 days. Someone's lying. I just can't figure out whether the phones are wrong, or AT&T s wrong.

Opened support tickets with Apple and ATT and so far, I'm receiving blank stares. Only event I can think of that might have triggered this was an OTA update to 5.1 in early March. Odd thing is we have to iPhone 4 models at home, both were also OTA updated to 5.1, and their data usage is still fine.

Hi Calineil - my problem has been isolated to the mail app - I am back to normal usage. The only time the usage goes up is when the mail app decides it can no longer reach one of my email addresses and then the usage shoots up. I simply delete the email account and add it back again and the problem goes away. Not ideal but it has "solved" the usage problem for me.