Uninstalled apps using cellular data in iOS

Do not believe Apple has a grip on this. Apple Support’s recent official advice related from their engineering team was to turn off mobile data when I don’t need it. W T F ?!!? Completely misses the point of a mobile device. Bunch of bozos.

As of 13.3 and all previous 13.x at time of posting), uninstalled apps counter is garbage, it increases even if resetting it to zero and not uninstalling apps.

Here’s what I’ve done that has kept my usage of uninstalled apps to 2-5 MB per day.

• turned HomeKit off on all my family account devices
• left for a couple days until all devices fell off as options in HomeKit devices and bridges (meaning don’t use HomeKit for a couple days.)
• then re-added them

I have too much invested in my setup to rebuild it, perhaps burning it all to the ground may work better. Unfortunate their are no tools to backup and restore a config, or even display it in a logical manner to allow a quick rebuild. Shame on Apple, this is not a 1.0 product, it’s been around since iOS 8. But this recent update has screwed it up.

Hope what I’ve done will work for others.

After my last post, the uninstalled apps data dropped to just KB at a time. Since my last stats reset on Nov 12 (billing date) I have just 740 KB of Uninstalled Apps data.

Don’t know what to say, other than start a conspiracy theory that upgrading to iOS 13 allows some foreign (or domestic?) security service to access your iOS device and suck data from you using a malicious app inserted on the carrier’s equipment. The initial dump is large then tapers off. I expect it would easily be done from a Surface as well.

Or it’s just a bug in iOS 13.

Because of the ridiculously high cost of cell service in Canada, for the last 10 years I’ve used a prepaid service with a low data cap (100 MB per month). I almost never exceed that cap, until I installed iOS 13. After a couple of weeks I got the 90% data usage advisory from the carrier. In looking at the usage, in addition to the usual apps usage, at the top of the list Uninstalled Apps data was over 50 MB. I had never seen this category show up before. After researching what this category was for, I too reset the stats and have not uninstalled any apps. I went for a day before checking the stats and was well over 10 MB. Now I was being billed for over usage by the carrier. The only way to stop the usage is to turn off all cellular data. I tried disabling access for all the individual apps currently installed and enabled cellular data after resetting the stats. Within ten minutes there was 512 KB of Uninstalled Apps data. In about 20 minutes it was over 1MB. I’ve disabled all cellular data until the end of the billing peri because the carrier (looking at you, Bell) charges by the MB for over usage.

If there’s not an update soon specific to this bug, I’ll try a complete reinstall of the iOS and apps. Unfortunately I’m on the road right now and not having access to cellular data is a real pain!!

Bump.

Any updates on this?

I have the same problem. Yesterday I totally nuked my phone and installed everything fresh - not even a restore from backup. And within minutes I was getting cellular data usage from an "uninstalled app." I'm already at 1gig in just 20 hours.

Not sure if this is related or not, but my "DNS Services" is using a ton of data as well. This should be very low given the size of a DNS lookup and it's already at almost 1MB in 20 hours.

I've been on WiFi almost the entire time too. I left the house for a bit this morning, but I'd say 90% of the time I've been on Wifi.

Any news on this problem?

FYI - There's another thread with the same issue and no solution - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250660254

I have found some settings that might actually be helpful. Try the following:

• Remove home from Home App (don't know if this is needed, though)
• Then go to Settings -> <apple ID> -> iCloud and disable the following: Home, Health, Wallet, Game Center, Siri
• Bonus: go to Settings -> Mobile Data -> Mobile Data Options -> Voice & Data -> de-select VoLTE ON!

My results: Uninstalled Apps data consumption: 0.1kB for the last 4 hours, compared with cca 20MB per hour.

I don't know which of the iCloud settings made the trick. I would bet on Home App & Health considering other post on the Internet. I consumed already too much data to Uninstalled Apps this month to make more test.

Note that all these apps had Mobile Data turned OFF already (as well as WiFI assist, iCloud Drive, Files, Settings, Music, Photos).

Good luck!

I'm back home and did a full restore through iTunes (I'm waiting a bit before installing Catalina). Still getting unexplained cellular data from Uninstalled Apps.

I could try to wipe the phone and see what happens before reinstalling any of the apps. If that works then it would be a matter for trying to install each app individually and seeing what happens. What a pain that would be.

I have already submitted a bug report through the Apple Feedback page. Hopefully the problem is recognized soon with a fix provided, given the number of posts online from others noticing a similar issue. My daughter has the same model iPhone and several of the same apps yet she doesn't have this issue.

Tried erasing all content and settings. Did a manual install with my AppleID but did not install any apps. Still getting Cellular Data from Uninstalled Apps. Within a few minutes there was over 2 MB.

Restored everything back from an iTunes backup. Next step, call support.

Resetting the statistics doesn't prevent continued data leakage. It just provides a new baseline to start from.

Since the last post, I tried swapping SIMs with my wife in case it was related to the carrier account. No change. Today I enrolled in the beta program and tried 13.2 beta 2. The amount if leakage was significantly reduced, KBs instead of MBs in short time periods, but still occurring, even with all apps disabled for access to cellular data. I've not uninstalled an app in weeks. I submitted several logs to the beta program at the times the leakage occurred. Maybe they'll see something.

In the meantime I'm restoring back to 13.1. There's the new release 13.1.3 and it's take a long time to download. I'm hoping it may have an impact on reducing the leakage. Otherwise my options are 1) keep cellular data off (which means I have an expensive iPod Touch with a phone), 2) call support and see if I can swap out the phone with an identical replacement (SE), 3) pay for a higher data cap (at least $30 more a month), or 4) get a whole new phone and hope that clears up the issue (might be cheaper in the long run that option 3).

Or maybe my beta test results will result in a fix in 13.2.

Same problems as others except that my uninstalled apps explodes. At times I use 25 extra MB a day, not happy about that as that's about 25% more than I usually use (I use approx 100 MB a day). At other times I've gone through 1.2 GB per day!!!

I've jumped through all the hoops, downgraded to iOS 12.4.1 but couldn't stay there due to Apple Watch upgrading to watchOS 6 and not able to pair with iOS 12.4.1 (they stopped signing it now anyway). Set iPhone to recovery mode and reloaded iOS, no difference through 13.0-13.1.2 (I'll try 13.1.3 tonight). Apple swapped phone and SIM, still having freaking problem. Am in Canada with 6 GB limit and went over last month thanks 100% to Apple's lousy quality control. So done with this kool-aid. Give me tools into my phone so I can see what's actually occurring. How difficult is that. Super ticked!

Since I did the beta install and then a restore back to 13.1.3, the Uninstalled Apps data has been fairly benign, although I’ve kept cellular data turned off until I need it (I made the mistake of turning off Wi-Fi after the restore of 13.11.2 to see if the restore cured the issue, forgetting that apps were still updating which burned a lot of my data cap). it wasn’t that much work and by sending logs to Apple after a major data burst it might help find a fix.

A few days after my last post, I turned cellular data back for good on with all apps (except Find My) disabled, enabling apps only when I need them then disabling again. There was one burst of 1.2 MB of Uninstalled Apps data near the beginning and since then, nada.

So, was it installing the beta then restoring to 13.1.3? Other than a few app updates I’ve not made any other changes.

Or was there some strange interaction with the carriers resulting from iOS 13 that caused this strange data leakage that has since been fixed at the carrier end?

I just realized the Uninstalled Apps thing was using data. I have an Ipad Pro 10,5” . I use a lot of data running business on ipad. When I upgraded to ios13 ipad, which I did not really intend to do. I wish, I pray I could go back. My indispensable tool that made everything fast and easy is now just the opposite - slow and hard. In fact, I hate it. This ipad is the worst part of my day now.

I am seriously considering the Surface7 or whatever that is. I mean, all it would have to do is actually work. Today, I was on cellular only all day, used a ton of data. The ipad was running so slow, so slow that I thought, I must be down to my last few megabites of data.

i wanted to check, but Verizon said “device error” we can’t tell you anything, call them. I called, and got nothing. I have never seen the message “device error” before. I wanted to check and see what was using all the data. Frequently, my ipad shows 5 bars of Verizon LTE - faster than my home wifi. In fact, so much faster, that I cancelled my home Broadband Cable internet today.

what has started to happen, since the new IOS 13ipad, is that the ipad will go from 5 bars of cellular signal to 2, and go real slow.. real, real slow, but that data wheel is spinning like mad.

so I hard close all the apps.

There is no change. The little wheel still spins like mad, and shows only 2 bars of LTE, AND if I open an app and try to do something or open safari, it does nothing, just drags real real slow.

If I shut the iPad off and restart it, then, all of a sudden, I am back to 5 bars of LTE and the ipad functions much better for a while.

Today, I noticed uninstalled apps using data. SO did a reset of cellular data.

Uninstalled apps went to zero. But then it used 3 mb. It was the only cellular data that was used.

How can an uninstalled app use data?

Answer. When it is not an uninstalled app and is instead some kind of code doing something.

Right now, on this this ipad pro 10.5” Uninstalled Apps is using 10% of the gross data usage.

10% Of data is being used by something “not on the ipad”?

right.

Me and my wife are also having this problem. A week ago my wife lost over a gigabyte in a day to uninstalled apps and triggered her data limit warning - which was how we noticed.

i thought mine has settled down and was ok now, so I put mobile data on again. Just noticed though that it has used over 200 mb today.

I have also had occasions where it has been using up cell data even when connected to WiFi. ( I have the WiFi assist set to off ).

I spoke to Apple support over a week ago. While the guy there has been really helpful - running tests etc ( he was able to run a live rest on the phone while uninstalled apps was using up data ) we are now over a week down the line and no fix.