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New possible leakage source (for iOS users)

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MarkJFine
Professor

New possible leakage source (for iOS users)

Within the past month or so I started noticing high data usage for seemingly no reason at a rate close to twice to three times that of 'normal' (Read: There's absolutely no reason for simple texts to use tens of MBs of data). The only common link was that it appeared to be coming from the iPhones that both my wife and I use. These are usually updated promptly whenever apps and new iOS software is released.

 

If you too are having high usage, it could be one of the iOS 11 updates that 'fixed' one wifi problem, yet caused another in the process. 'Forgetting' the wifi networks associated with your modem, rebooting the phone, then re-entering the network information may be a way to erradicate part of this problem:

1. From Settings go to Wi-Fi.

2. Get the info of any currently used or other network listed by touching the blue i in a circle.

3. Jot down the settings for this network connection - you may need it again later in step 10.

4. Kill the network by touching 'Forget this Network'.

5. Repeat steps 2 thru 4 for any 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi settings you might be using with the HughesNet modem.

6. When done killing the network connections, go back to the main Settings, and toggle Wi-Fi Off.

7. Hold down the power button until you see "Slide to Power Off", and slide it.
8. Wait about a minute for the phone to power down, then hold the power button down until the phone reboots.

9. Once the phone is rebooted (you may have to entered your 8-digit passcode first), go back to Settings -> Wi-Fi.

10. Re-enter the networks you took note of in step 3.

Hopefully after going through all this you too will see data usage return to a more reasonable rate.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
18 REPLIES 18
Liz
Moderator
Moderator

Fantastic work, Mark. Thank you for sharing and giving us steps on how to resolve this! I'm going to edit your thread title and sticky it for now.

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jillyb1173
New Poster

HI Mark, thank you for this information! Does this apply to only i-phones, I have a Samsung Galaxy, would this apply to it or any Android phone in general? How would I go about implementing this information?

This really only applies only to iPhones. I have no idea how you would do it with other phones since I don't own them, nor if it is even an issue with them. That said, perhaps others with 'droid phones could provide a procedure.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

WOW!!! You replied to me so quickly! Thank you and I'll have to see what I can find out, if anything, about leakage with Android phones! Thanks again!
BirdDog
Assistant Professor


@jillyb1173 wrote:
WOW!!! You replied to me so quickly! Thank you and I'll have to see what I can find out, if anything, about leakage with Android phones! Thanks again!

I've never had a problem with leakage on my Android devices. Most important thing to do is on each device go to Playstore settings and choose not to automatically download updates.

Hi Jilly,

 

I have an Android and use the built in data saving features, follow these steps to get to those settings: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/2819524?hl=en (This is for the Pixel 2, but they should be similar, if not, you can search the help site to find your model's instructions)

 

I have my Data Saver on to restrict my apps from using data in the background, but you can make exceptions for individual apps to get unrestricted data usage while that feature is on.

 

At the very bottom of the Data Usage settings page is the Wi-Fi settings section, which you should have a look at since you don't want your phone to use too much data on your wifi network.

 

Tap on Network Restrictions.

 

You'll see a list of saved wifi networks. You'll want to tap on your your home network and select Metered to save data. It looks like the phone will use data appropriately automatically, but to be on the safe side, I'd manually pick Metered.

 

 

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BirdDog
Assistant Professor

Fancy @Liz, my cheap phone doesn't have a metered setting for Wifi.

I didn't even know I had this option until I started poking around the settings earlier. LOL

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GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@BirdDog wrote:

Fancy @Liz, my cheap phone doesn't have a metered setting for Wifi.


Mine doesn't, either. 😛  

 

I keep my WiFi off, though, until I need to use it, and that's mostly for updating the apps on the phone.  LOL.  I update my apps about once every two weeks.  

yipeiaz
New Poster

Holy cow! I have been going crazy the last few months trying to figure out where all my data is going? Hughes folks couldn't tell me anything. I had an iPhone6 and a iMac G4 and I was going through data like water. I useed my 50 GB usually in less than 9-10 days! I had started out with a 20 GB plan, but now that I am at 50 GB, there's nowhere else to go but slow! Very frustrating to say the least! In the last 2 months I have acquired a new phone (iPhoneX) and last weekend a new iMac Pro. My data reloads on the day my bill comes in and goes out (it goes by me with a whooshing noise!) which is the 14th of the month. By the morning of the 16th I had used up my 50 GB and the 50 GB bonus data! 100 GB in just over 24 hours? This is crazy - I don't watch movies or TV and I watch YouTube once in a blue moon, most of my browsing is done on my phone while I am out and about (I have a 5GB plan on my phone and I barely use 1 GB each month), I don't do any games, a normal amount of e-mail, but I do all of my shopping online. The majority of my work is offline. I have DIrecTV but I only watch a few hours a week, if that, and only the free channels like BBC America, Animal Planet, Discovery, etc. and no premium channels. And I now have this new, blazing fast computer that is basically serving as a bookend for the next  three and a half weeks! NOw that's frustrating!

 

Now here is where I was told my data is going... On DirecTV they have the app for Pandora, which I use, as well as the app on my iPnone and my computer. I also subscribe to Apple Music, and I have had that for 4-5 years and never an issue The majority of my music with Apple Music is already downloaded both on my phone and on my computer, and I keep trying to download my music on Pandora but it doesn't seem to work. If I am going to do a large music download, I usually use someone else's Wi-Fi, such as the grocery store. Once I finish my shopping,  my downloads are done!

 

So is my addiction to music the cause or partially the cause for my severe and unreasonable data usage? I am only one peron and I am requiring the data for a whole corporation! I had to stop buying tokens as it was getting too costly - I barely would buy them and before I finished that, I could hear them whooshing by me also! I cannot seem to be able to hang onto my data! Any suggestions would be greatlyu apprediated!

@yipeiaz

I wouldn't expect the techs to recognize the leakage on the phones as this is fairly recent thing that I found on my own discovery.

 

Regarding the rest:

 

1. Streaming anything is going to eat a lot of data, especially if you run HD, which will not only eat your data, but impacts more than just you. We don't stream movies/TV, so not an issue for us. On occasion I will stream a match on TuneIn or listen to Spotify if I'm outside, but always at a very low streaming rate and usually for not more than 2 hours. I have no idea about Apple Music's streaming rate, but I'll bet it's not healthy for your data budget.

 

2. We realized the issue with DirecTV boxes, which uses a lot of data for more than just On Demand programming. It uses it for the guide, for firmware updates, for on-screen apps, for that "start from the beginning" thing (which is essentially On Demand)...  This is noted in many places elsewhere on this site. We disconnected our boxes from wifi a couple of years ago because of that.

 

Guarantee if you heavily engage in any of these activities you're going to run through data like crazy, not just the phone thing, which is what this thread was meant to alert for.

 

If you download a lot of music, recommend you get up before 8am (Bonus time) and do it then. That's when I do all my major updates manually as well (I have automatic updates turned off everywhere). This incudes: All phone/ipad apps, podcasts, App store updates, MacUpdate and Homebrew updates; as well as updates for Fedora and Win10 running in a Parallels VM. With 50GB per day in  Bonus time, you should be able to average ~1.7GB each day without running out.

 

Edit: I would also not recommend using the free wifi in stores... well, not unless you'd prefer your Apple Pay (or other) to be hacked. I've been burned by getting passwords stolen twice by free wifi - once in an airport, once in a hotel. Never again.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

Worthwhile to point out that this is completely unrelated to another possible leakage issue that deals with wifi on iPhones as well as other devices. That problem has to do with using a device when there exists a marginal wifi signal.

 

In those instances the lack of a good wifi signal (as indicated by less than 3 curved bars) may cause packet errors, resulting in possible packet resends, therefore using more of your bandwidth than is necessary.

 

If in doubt, the HughesNet phone app has a built-in wifi checker. It can tell you if the signal will support a virtually error-free experience as such:
IMG_0320.PNG

 


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
plazykranch
New Poster

I've been fighting with Hughesnet for 2 weeks now and this is the first real hope of resolving this problem. Thanks I'll let you know if it works for us. Exactly the same thing and the new update knocked out my FB app completely on my iPhone, can't use it at all have to go to Facebook.com for my viewing pleasure. Didn't affect my husbands phone yet since he didn't update with the 11.4.1. Maybe this will help.

No need to fight with anyone. If it's an Apple problem (and it wasn't known by anyone, I just happened to stumble upon it) I wouldn't expect HughesNet to be responsible.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
plazykranch
New Poster

So I did this. It seemed to work, kinda, but then I went on to explore something else. I recorded my mb usage every time I logged in and out of just my computer. Never turned on my phone. There is something going on with either Hughesnet or Facebook. I can get on any website or app e.g. my banking and only use a few mb of data. Log into Facebook for 10 mins, just scrolling, not stopping to watch any videos, just scrolling and I've used a half of a gigabyte. Most of the population and before the middle of June I was able to scroll, interact and find new sites on FB but since then it eats my data. I'm at a loss and want to dump this stupid Hughesnet since I can't get through to corporate to make any sense of anything. 

maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

You are assuming the problem is with the ISP, when it is quite likely the problem is something that has changed in your network, something that has changed at Facebook, or something else.  Without you working on your end to troubleshoot your system,  it is unlikely you will be able to figure this out.   The ISP can only verify some things on their side, but you need to also work on your side to find what is eating your data.  There are plenty of posts here on how to do this, and there is software (Glasswire, for instance) that can help you figure out and fix what is going on.  The ISP can't wave a wand and fix your side of the network for you, or fix the Internet for you -- you have to do some of the work, sometimes most of the work.  If you can't hack it, if doing the troubleshooting is too much for your temperament, then you always have the choice of cancelling your account. 

 

*I am not a Hughesnet employee or representative. This is a customer-to-customer tech support community, and I am a customer.

I said this was a new-ish thing that I noticed, not the only thing. IOW: Something that should be added to the list of things to check for leaks (which is actually a whole other thread that someone took a lot of time to produce).

 

That said, Facebook is the worst when it comes to keeping settings that you thought you had set, but are no longer set that way. Why? Who knows... I personally think Facebook is the most evil of all social media platforms, but that's just my personal opinion. They've done nothing to eradicate all the fake accounts that crop up, as far as I can tell from the embarrassing avitars of those "I might already know". Hint: You don't want to know, and I certainly don't. I keep deleting them but they keep coming back.

 

That said, you might want to consider using an ad blocker like Adblock Plus so all their tracking goes in the bin. You might also want to check to see if their automatic video display is disabled and mute everyone that displays lot of pictures. Lord knows what resolution those pictures are and it could be draining a lot of MB right there.

 

Having said all this, it's presumptuous of me to think that Facebook would be the only leakage problem and checking everything is the best advice.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@plazykranch

 

If your computer is Windows based, you should consider installing Glasswire, which will monitor the data usage of the Windows based computer it's installed on.  It's free, and not at all intrusive, nor resource hungry.  The "firewall" description you will see on their webpage concerns a more thorough set of adjustments for your built in Windows Firewall that Glasswire gives you, but you don't have to use that part of it, and simply installing Glasswire doesn't change anything about your Windows Firewall. 

 

Glasswire is a great tool to have, and many of us use it.  It can't tell you about your past data usage, but it can monitor your data usage going forward, so if whatever was happening with your computer, data wise, happens again, you'll be able to see just what used the data.