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Huge data uploads on WiFi even when phone is idle

I have an iPhone 6+. The current iOS version is 8.4.1


When travelling I connect to the internet using a MiFi device. The MiFi is effectively a WiFi router which connects to the internet via the cell phone network. Thus, while the phone communicates via WiFi the actual internet communication is via an expensive cellular data connection.


I have used a MiFi for more than 2 years, with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 Plus. Until recently this has worked satisfactorily, typically using around 500MB of data per day. I am a fairly heavy internet user so have not been surprised by this amount of data usage.


However, on our most recent trip I have experienced much heavier data usage. I first noticed this when my internet data allowance ran out earlier than expected. When I then bought an additional data allowance I noticed that I had used about 1.5GB in the first day, a large proportion of which was in the form of uploads. In particular I noticed that nearly 1GB was uploaded overnight while the phone was idle.


Since noticing the problem I have been careful to disconnect the phone from the MiFi when not in use. Even so, uploads have still been hundreds of megabytes per day greater than I would expect (sometimes I have noticed 30MB or so being uploaded within a few minutes of connecting).


I have downloaded the DataMan app to supplement the information provided by the MiFi device itself. However, DataMan only reports total data downloads and uploads and I have not been able to find any app that will analyse these totals.


I do upload photos to Facebook, but (a) the total uploads are far, far greater than the total file size of the photos concerned and (b) the uploads happen even when the phone is idle.


I have tried to consider possible culprits:

- iCloud is turned off

- I have not subscribed to Dropbox or any other cloud storage service

- I have turned off Background Data Usage

- I have turned off automatic app (and OS) updates



What can be causing these excessive uploads?

How can I identify which app or apps (or which part of the Operating System) is causing them?

What can I do to limit the amount of data uploaded?


(Since returning home, I have checked and the unexpectedly large uploads still happen when the phone is connected via WiFi to our home router. So the problem seems to be related to the use of WiFi in general rather than to our specific MiFi device.)

iPhone 6 Plus, iOS 8.4.1, null

Posted on Aug 17, 2015 8:54 AM

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4 replies

Aug 24, 2015 12:23 AM in response to Buff E

Thanks, BuffE

I've just wasted a week trying to find what on my home network was drawing down 3G/hr and only just realised it was my iPhone 5c - recently updated to iOS8.4.1


So far, the only correlation I've found was after I installed a data manager on the iphone and saw that it's wifi consumption matched the hourly data record from my ISP. The phone doesn't use excessive data via the cellular network. It just draws down data via WiFi while doing nothing. I'm not seeing much upload - all download. The amount of data far exceeds anything I have in the cloud. Everything else in the house is locked down or off - my modem and Wifi network is secure, but I redid the passwords and reconnected everything, anyway, as soon as I saw the rogue data downloads via my ISP data record.


I also recently signed up to Apple Music via a deal from my phone-carrier (separate from my home ISP). I've not used the service, yet, but am now highly suspicious, seeing as there's a lot of chatter about odd results from the combination of Apple Music and iOS 8.4.1


This started happening soon after the iOS 8.4.1 update which was after signing up to Apple Music.


Any suggestions welcome!

Sep 2, 2015 2:27 AM in response to captainfluoro

I think (I hope!) that we may have fixed this problem by restoring the phone to factory settings.


By using iTunes to make a backup first and then restoring from this backup the phone emerged with all of its apps and all of its settings (apart from a few such as fingerprints that we would not expect to be stored) as they were before we started the process. This was straightforward but very slow (the whole process including installing iTunes took nearly 5 hours!)


See Use iTunes to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to factory settings - Apple Support


After restoring iOS, using DataMan to watch how much data was uploaded via WiFi we noticed very little uploaded at first (only about 4MB in the first 30 minutes or so) but after 4 hours about 500MB had been uploaded. Investigating possible causes we checked that iCloud was disabled but then found that Dropbox photo uploads had somehow become enabled and Dropbox had uploaded about 230 photos from the Camera Roll. This would probably account for most or all of the unexpected/excessive upload volume. Why dropbox had "only" uploaded 230 photos out of the much greater number on the phone and why it waited before starting (and then appeared to pause) remain mysteries. Anyhow, since turning off Dropbox photo uploads we have seen no further upload activity ... yet! I shall report back in due course on whether the underlying problem really has been fixed.


Captainfluor, I am sorry I didn't respond to your post earlier. I wanted to wait until I had found time to do the factory reset before commenting. I am afraid I know nothing about Apple Music. My only suggestion (based on my own experience, and reading on the internet that users sometimes find that a factory reset can solve intractible software issues) is that it might be worth trying a factory reset.

Sep 2, 2015 3:10 AM in response to Buff E

Much appreciated, thanks, Buff E


Sorry I didn't follow up, myself! I ended up posting another message:

Re: Massive background data downloads over wifi

Which has most of the detail I found.

The short story is I did a full reset/restore, too ;-)


My phone has been behaving, but I'm still not sure I'm out of the woods, as when I turned my macbook pro back on, it started doing the same thing with phantom downloads. It's now off, and I'm playing catchup with my Uni work using my Win10 machine!


Haven't had time to follow that up, but I'm really convinced it's to do with Apple Music, now, as I've now signed up twice via my Carrier, and still haven't got an acknowledgement from them or Apple.


I'll post any more updates on the other thread.

cheeeeeeers 🙂

Sep 16, 2015 1:36 PM in response to Buff E

A further progress report.


The Factory Reset seems to have fixed the problem. In the last two weeks total uploads have been less than 600MB which is much more like what we used to experience and seems fairly reasonable given that the phone has been used a lot (including uploading a few dozen photos).


We still don't know what caused the problem, but we hope that it has been fixed for the time being.

Huge data uploads on WiFi even when phone is idle

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