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Level 1

9 points

What is 'Media Services' and why is it draining all my data?

Hi,

In the last few months I have realised my data is being munched at an alarming rate. I have and Iphone 5s (16gb). So much so I try and turn all my data for apps off when not in use.After monitoring it for a few months and keeping location settings and everything else turned off the majority of the time. Today I noticed on my journey home from work (approx 1hr) that under Settings > Mobile > System Services there is a Media Services section. This went up in the space of 20 mins from 110kb to 98.1 MB. Now this clearly cant be correct, it is also nothign to do with any apps as they have seperate usage next to each icon on the page before. Does anyone have any ide what 'Media Services' is? I have looked at friends iPhones and their total 'Media Service' usage is minute in comparison and most havent reset thei data counters in months, if not ever. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Jamie

iPhone 5c, iOS 7.0.2, 16gb

Posted on Sep 4, 2014 7:29 AM

Best reply

Lars Vader

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Nov 4, 2015 2:23 PM

I figured out what is is.. the hard way thou. My Iphone 6S was restored from an older 6 which carried several Gigs of Music.

THis morning I started Apple music for the first time on the train again and it asked me to switch on Icloud music services.

I thought this is just to see and stream my music. The following hours the phone killed 90% of the battery and munched through

vast amount of cellular data although data usage for the itunes, music and appstore app were deactivated (I deactivated data usage of apple music when

I noticed the battery drainage). The activation of icloud music in fact moved all songs which were downloaded on my older iphone 6 into the download list in itunes although the dada usage was already deactivated. The data usage was entirely assigned to media services in the system services section.

So there you go.. (and so did my 7GB of free cellular data) Media Services is responsible in case you make your music offline available.. I hope this helps some of you guys to avoid my mistake. Cheers...

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32 replies

jcjc44

Level 1

0 points

Jan 25, 2016 3:43 AM in response to bman123

My settings were just as you described, 1, 2, 3 & 4...

I Recently downloaded the new 9.2 software, while I was connected to a wifi network, I decided to make a playlist from Apple Music available offline. I didn't realise that there was a problem downloading two songs, for some reason there was a hiccup with these 2 songs, & hours later they kept trying to download, then I left the wifi network! In the next 5 hours media services trying to complete the download for these two songs chewed thru 21GB of data!! Apple need to recognise that there is a problem and fix it!!!

your post helped me work out what the problem was & how to stop the data drain, once I deleted the two songs, and turned off wifi assist and stopped apple music from having access to cellular data, my data usage returned to normal. Now trying to negotiate with my carrier over 21GB data usage, which is 3 times my limit.

Jun 16, 2016 1:03 PM in response to jcjc44

I'm experiencing this problem too, but don't have Apple Music Chewed through 3.9GB in 90 minutes. It seems to NOT use wifi, just data. Overall it used 28GB in 6 days! I smell a class action lawsuit.

What is 'Media Services' and why is it draining all my data?