Apple TV 4 data usage is unoptimal

I've noticed the issue too. Below is a screenshot of my router which has built in monitoring. The spike in the beginning was a late night for me watching YouTube. Then after putting it to sleep for the night as well as stopping all the apps running in the background, I find its talking to iCloud for some reason. I was alseep then was gone for that day. Have no idea what it was doing talking to iCloud uploading and downloading. This graph represents both. I too have a data cap. I plug my router from my provider to this router, which serves all my devices so I can monitor who is doing what in my house and can blame for causing expensive overage penalties. But to sum up, my router reports that my ATV4 when in sleep mode and no apps running in the background, screen saver updates turned off (since they say is can download 600Mb per day just adding new savers), auto updates for apps and the OS is turned off, is constantly talking to iCloud and using about 40Mb per hour (821Mb for the day).. This thing shouldn't be doing anything without me knowing, I don't think I missed any settings..

My router shows me usage by device, I put it in on the 10th and connected the Apple TV4 to the new wifi. I have not watched any shows, played any games or listened to any music. I thought the first day at 1.6GB may have been updates, so I deleted any apps I no longer used. The next two days it used almost 1GB of data, again with no activity. Actually even in standby/sleep, I can see it consuming data up/down.

Details

Status: Connected

Bandwidth Usage in Last few days - have not watched any movies, shows or listened to any music

Thanks for your reply.. yes, I have everything shut off. I use the default screensaver which is that fly by over the city at night. Instructed it not to download new ones as they tell you can range around 600Mb daily. I have a data cap, so I make sure to go through all configurations of anything I connect to my network so I don't have any expensive surprises.. Such as when I hooked up my DirecTV receiver to my network and within a day it had cost me about 15Gb doing God know what.. Anyway, after another 10 hours or so, the iCloud issue settled down and stopped what ever it was doing. Now it just talks to iClous and Apple.com about 4Mb per day.. nothing to ccomplain about, but would love to know why it has to do that when it's in sleep mode. Even after I rebooted it back during the problem, it went back to what ever it was doing with iCloud downloading all that data, so it was determined to finish and eventually did. I checked to see if maybe it updated the OS (which auto update is off) but didn't see anything there. Guessing it this may be suffering what my other IOS devices suffer from.. Eventhough I have auto update turned off, they still download the update anyway, then let you know its ready to install. So maybe it pulled down its updates and will let me know when its ready to install. If that the case, then apple needs to change some things. When I say don't auto update, I also mean DONT DOWNLOAD IT EITHER. --- thanks again for your reply and help

If you are using that screensaver it can't be turned off, you can only switch when new ones are loaded but they will still load new ones at some point. Best to use local photos via home sharing if you don't want any data usage.

I just upped my service to unlimited because of Apple. My data went from 400-500gb to 1.5Ttb a month. Only change was I switched from Amazon Fire TV to iTV. I guess I'm supposed to realize that Apple is using 3 times the amount of data for my own good.

I have Apple TV 4 since one year and now on tvOS 11.1 beta and suddenly yesterday night it started downloading 10mbit/sec constantly. Monitored it with Fritzbox router and found out by unplugging one device after the other. When it was ATV4's turn, the traffic stopped immediately. So this little sucker sucked 100GB in only one day!!!. The ATV was in desktop mode and nothing was running. How can that be?

I plugged it in again now and it seems to be good for now. I will closely monitor this and update if it this strange behaviour reappears. And stop telling people, it is their fault. It is clearly not. I have an ATV in various versions, starting from ATV2/3 and since 1 year I have the ATV4 and this never happened before. Maroons would not find out in the first place that something is eating their bandwidth. You have to have some knowledge and be mindful to find that out.

I've run into a similar problem. Something is sucking data in massive amounts, to the tune of 2-6 TERAbytes a month, every month except the one where I was gone and unplugged the ATV.

Thinking about what it could be: text is negligible in size, as is audio. The only culprit would be video or file downloads. This never happened while my two children (avid gamers) were home. Now it's merely me and the wife, with me being the primary user. Our habits haven't changed. The first month, at 2T, I changed every password including routers, in case someone was stealing. The next month - 6T.

Sure we watch Netflix - like everyone does, a few hours here or there. I use the flyover screen saver on the ATV.

One possibility could be my iTunes account, with more than 60K songs in my library - but how could any synchronization account for 6T of data?

My provider (Wave) provides no help, just a bill. And using Activity Monitor has told me nothing useful. So vazandrew's comments agree that it's due to the local process - which seems to the the ATV in some way - and not the network, since others in various settings are seeing the same issue.

You would need to take a closer look at your viewing habits, any iCloud activity and screensaver settings. If you are streaming music via the music app then that will be a factor as well.

If it were the ATV it would be happening to most users, of which there are millions.

I have been using and testing the 4th gen since launch, I also monitor my bandwidth very closely and it matches up as it should. I also haven't come across any other reports. Is your network encrypted? Are there other users? Have you used a monitor tool from the ISP? Test on another network

Same thing is happening to ours! Just got off the phone with Apple and per customer service this is the first they have heard this complaint. The only suggestion was to restore the system. We are now switching to our 3rd generation to messure our data usage differences. the past three months of owning the gen 4 has increased our data by 136%.

Having absolutely the same problem. Got the 4th Gen ATV at the beginning of Aoril 2016, and my data usage has skyrocketed, with no appreciable change iin our viewing or usage habits. Comcast has a 300GB monthly data cap which was always manageable as we do no gaming, and I shut off the live video screen saver. Apple techs scratched their heads, saying they have never seen this before, but clearly they are lying. We even stopped watching TV and used DVDs instead for the last five days of this month, and the data is still climbing to the 350GB mark. Our provider is telling us someone is stealing our wifi, but the wifi is disabled and everything is ethernet cable supplied in our home.

Going to reconnect the old ATV we have on the 1st of May, and see if things go back to normal. If they do, back the 4th generation goes. I think a ROKU might be in our future.

The issue would lie with the network, if the device were at fault it would be a widespread issue.

Hello Susan,

What you describe should not happen, and can likely be corrected.

It may be that ATV is dropping the connection to the server and repeatedly reloading the same data. Please check the following:

Is ATV directly wired to the router, which is directly connected to the internet modem? Are there no additonal routers, switches, wireless links in your network?

Is ATV network configured to get IP and DNS automatically?

Make sure to check screensaver settings and iCloud. Test on another network

Do you have iCloud photo library or Apple Music setup? Are you using photos for a screensaver? Sign out of iCloud and back in again. Test on another network