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Rapid data drain during second half of data cycle

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Sweetpea3829
Tutor

Rapid data drain during second half of data cycle

Ok, I posted about this on a similar thread, just a couple of days ago, and that thread has been deleted.  

 

Every data cycle, we start off doing just fine.  Our data depletes by about 2-3 GB during the first half of the cycle.  Then, during the second half of the cycle, the data just DRAINS.  Nothing changes in our usage from the first half of the cycle to the second half.  

 

This has been going on for several months.  

 

To answer some questions I've seen asked of others...

 

1) Wifi is never left on on any of the devices that we own that use it.  (This would be a number of tablets...all of which have their wifi turned off unless I, specifically, turn it on...only mom knows the password).  

 

2) Our phones' wifi is turned off (occasionally they are turned on, within range of our Hughesnet modem, but they are never left on, and we do not update under our own Wifi...that's what the YMCA wifi is for).  

 

3) We are not experiencing data stealing.  Our neighbors are old order Mennonite.  They do not have devices that use wifi.  Plus, we are password protected.  

 

4) My laptop is not automatically updating.  It only updates when I tell it to, and that's only during the 2AM-8AM time frame.

 

5) Our satellite TV is NOT connected to the internet.  I can connect it, but have only connected it during the 2AM to 8AM time frame.  

 

Again, during the first half of the month, I can check FB, email, news stories and watch the occasional short youtube clip and the data depletes at an expected rate.

 

During the second half...just leaving the modem turned on, and with no actual browsing, is a guaranteed half GB loss each day.  Yesterday evening, I had 2.7 GB left.  This morning I had 2.1  

 

I have today and tomorrow left in this data cycle and I'm almost guaranteed to run out of data at some point tomorrow, unless I turn off the router and browse only on my phone's data.  

 

Why is this happening?  And why has this been happening off and on for months?  

319 REPLIES 319


@GabeUwrote:

@Sweetpea3829

 

Well, 12MB in two hours is great.  I'm not sure how that game works, data wise, but maybe it doesn't use much data to play.  You can always continue to monitor it in the same way (when you can) to see if that amount of data usage is typical for that game.  And, of course, it may vary, as shown when it used a little more data the last time you monitored that game.  If it varies wildly, that's another story, and then, of course, you can check the data usage on the tablets themselves to see if a large increase corresponds, if that were to happen.  


Yeah, but remember, in the last post, there were two kids playing the game simultaneously for the entire time.  In this case, there were two kids playing for only a part of that time period.  

 

I'm going to keep an eye on that particular stat, because it's pretty much the only website that I can isolate that way, lol.  I'm curious how much data it will use after "the slide" begins.  

 

So far this month, I've been on pretty regularly and data usage on GW reflects that well enough.  But the data usage on Hughes does not.  

 

P.S. Gabe, thanks so much for sticking in here with me, lol.  This thread has been running for a couple of months now and you continue to check in and help.  I really appreciate that.  

 

All data from the laptop so far this month.All data from the laptop so far this month.Chrome so far this month.Chrome so far this month.All data according to HN so far this month (this would also include the data that GW does not account for, from the tablets).All data according to HN so far this month (this would also include the data that GW does not account for, from the tablets).image.png

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@Sweetpea3829wrote: 
 

So far this month, I've been on pretty regularly and data usage on GW reflects that well enough.  But the data usage on Hughes does not. 


Unfortunately, the data amounts not matching is one of the drawbacks of Gen4's data compression.  But, of course, at the same time, it's great that you get more bang for the buck, so to speak.  I'm envious of my folks' Gen4 for that very reason, and that's the one thing that I miss with Gen4.  Their data usage is so incredibly low.  I've no doubt that I would rarely exceed 10GB with Gen4, whereas I'm regularly pushing 20GB or more with Gen5.  Then again, another drawback to the data not matching is the difficulty in trying to figure out why the data slide is occurring.  

 

And you're very welcome.  I'm happy to help as best I can.  Hopefully we'll be able to figure it out.  🙂 

What's so weird, @GabeU is that it seems like that compression goes backwards during the latter part of the cycle.  I know we touched on this before and it doesn't appear that HN does it purposely, and we can't figure out the WHY.  Hopefully we can get some better data this cycle and get to the bottom of this.

 

On a completely unrelated note...we had some drama Monday night into Tuesday morning.  I had a midnight coughing fit (because...kids), and had run downstairs to grab a glass of water.  It was about 12:30AM...heard a bang, but thought it was just my husband rolling over in bed, or tossing the cat off the bed, lol.  About five minutes later, somebody was at our front door shining a light in!  I wasn't exactly dressed in a completely decent way, and it scared the heck out of me to see some man staring in my front door, lol.  

 

Anyways, I ran upstairs and got Joe.  Come to find out, this poor kid had fallen asleep behind the wheel and plowed into our front yard.  He narrowly missed a cherry tree stump, and our telephone pole.  Knocked his tooth out, cut his hand.  All I could see was one of my own sons in ten years.  So we brought him in and took care of him until the police, fire and rescue arrived.  Poor kid.  

 

Anyways, thought you'd get a kick out of it. Drama never ends around these parts!

 

SleepySomersWreck.jpg

One kid going on a tablet to play Prodigy, approx 4:50pm (and the second one will probably come on shortly after...he's in the shower).  Laptop is being disconnected from Wifi.  Only data source should be Prodigy from here until I reconnect.  

 

Current HN and GW stats...image.pngimage.png

Plugged back on (and Wifi off on the tablets) at 5:30pm.  

 

Stats...Only 1 MB used for 40 minutes of online play?  image.pngGW showing data used during the off time.GW showing data used during the off time.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

You got really lucky with that car.  That could have been absolutely awful, both for the kid driving and your house.  Ugh. 

 

As for 1MB in 40 minutes of game play, maybe that's normal sometimes. 

 

You might think about starting a post in the 3rd party section about that particular game and what others' experience might be with it, data wise.  If there are others who have experience with it it's doubtful that they would read through this thread and see it mentioned.   

That's a good idea. But I can't help but wonder how many Mom's with kids who play an online math game, find themselves on the HN community, lol!

I'll try and post later. We have swim practice tonight (and I need to get into the gym despite a wretched head cold). AND!!!! It's my favorite time of year!

LITTLE LEAGUE STARTS! First practice for one club on Saturday and first practice for the other club on Sunday after church.

And yes, that young man was lucky. Our house is set far enough back, and we have grape vines in front, so it's doubtful he would have hit the house.

But we have a massive maple in the front, plus the pine, and the cherry stump. He landed in the best possible place.

A bit of interesting data usage...or it will be.  The Mennonite neighbor is coming over in a few to watch an online auction.  It live updates constantly and should use a fair chunk of data.  Here are the stats since I pulled it up and got it running a couple of minutes ago.

 

image.pngimage.png

Isaac finished up about 1:30pm.  He was on Proxibid that entire time, but he also had a window up for Tractor House.  I think he was just perusing though.  

 

Stats...image.pngimage.pngimage.png

 

As you can see, not much data was used.  HN accounts for 11MB and GW accounts for 63 (with 61 being attributed to Chrome).  

 

@GabeU, as you've mentioned, that's likely due to the Gen4 compression.  So we've pretty well established that.  Once the data slide kicks in, that compression seems to be gone.  

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@Sweetpea3829

 

That's it?  11MB?  

 

My God I wish I still had Gen4.  😛  


@GabeUwrote:

@Sweetpea3829

 

That's it?  11MB?  

 

My God I wish I still had Gen4.  😛  


Note to self...DO NOT, under any circumstance, "upgrade" to Gen5.  

 

Side note...remember that email I sent to Cuomo regarding their "Broadband" for all?  I never heard anything at all.  I didn't expect a personal response, kwim?  But I did expect at least a canned autobot response.  Nada.  *shrug*  I guess us country folk don't really count for much for Big City man.  

 

I don't regret leaving the congestion of RI/southeast MA.  Not even a little.  But I do miss the conveniences, lol.  

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@Sweetpea3829wrote: 

Side note...remember that email I sent to Cuomo regarding their "Broadband" for all?  I never heard anything at all.  I didn't expect a personal response, kwim?  But I did expect at least a canned autobot response.  Nada.  *shrug*  I guess us country folk don't really count for much for Big City man. 


That's interesting.  Coincidentally enough, I just got a new reply from them today.  I'll PM you what I got...

Just keeping up on documenting data. Gabe, I haven't posted the specific website to that other forum just yet. I think I'll wait and see what the data does as the data cycle moves along.

So, I will have two kids using Prodigy on their Galaxy Tabs beginning shortly after 6pm...probably 6:10pm.  Wifi to the laptop will be turned off and as such, the ONLY data being shown on HN between 6:10pm and when they finish, should be the one website.  Beginning data:

 

image.pngimage.png

And, tablets off at 7:30ish, Wifi on the laptop back on around 7:35pm. 

 

Stats:  Data used during the hour and a half or so...80 MB.  Which is a lot higher than last time.  But, two kids were playing at the same time.  

 

So weird.  And it's way too early in the month for a data slide.  At least, it's never started this early previously.  

 

image.pngimage.pngimage.png

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Hopefully it's just that Prodigy used more data this time and it's not related to the data slide.  

@GabeU  Unfortunately, I *think* the data slide has started, and it started early this month.  But I'm going to monitor.  Real quick because I'm way behind on school today (due to a certain puppy getting out of the house and leading us on a two hour chase).  This is where we are.  I just downloaded an e-book to my daughter's Kindle, something I normally do during off-peak hours but she needs it sooner rather than later.  

 

Current stats as of 2:08pm on 3/12 (not including GW, I'll throw those up later).

image.pngThis was 72% literally two minutes ago.This was 72% literally two minutes ago.

Yeah, data is tanking.  It's way too early in the month for this.  I'll be out of data by week's end if this keeps up at this rate.  😞  For the record, aside from turning on my daughter's tablet and uploading an e-book, the kids' devices have all had their wifi disabled.  

 

It would be nice if somebody from Hughesnet would be able to address why this is happening every single month.  

 

image.pngimage.pngimage.pngimage.png

I will agree that this is also happening in our system.  we are still on Gen 4 and for the last several months we have been running out of data way before the end of the month.  Our cell phones are using cell data, so they are not draining our Hughes net wifi.  Last month we were gone for the first 11 days of the month.   We ran out of data on February 25th or so. Smart Browsing works so that is a plus. We are very careful at all times to not download updates unless it is between 2 am and 8 am. 

 

Right now we are looking at having only 42% of our 10GB data remaining for March.  This happens every single month, it seems.  By the middle of the month or shortly thereafter we are running out of data.  No Smart TV's here or anything.  Just the normal stuff we have been doing for years.  Not happy that we run out of data month after month when nothing has changed. 

 

Not at all itnerested in upgrading to Gen5 because that would put us on a new 2 year contract and cable has been expanding in our area and we are hopeul to have cable in the next 6 months or so.  

@Rob, the interesting thing in our case is that data loss is pretty steady and moderate for the first part of our data cycle, but then towards the middle and end of the cycle, it deletes much faster. It's so weird.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

So that's 429MB between 2:08PM and 8:21PM, but how much of that was the laptop and how much the other things?  If you can set the Glasswire to calculate the data between those times we'll know what was used by the laptop and then what was used by other things.  Make sure to set it for ALL, like in the first Glasswire pic of your most recent post, rather than for Chrome, like in the second Glasswire pic. If we can't figure out from the ALL pic what is using all of the data with your laptop and Chrome, we can also narrow the search to Chrome later, but lately the majority of your laptop data has been Chrome, and the biggest parts of what Chrome is using we can see on the hosts section of the ALL pic.  

@GabeU  Here you go.  I'm going to make a separate reply with the starting data for today.  But on this GW pic, do you see where there's that dead zone a little after 3pm?  That's where I shut down the wifi to the laptop, so that data wasn't being used unnecessarily for page reloads, etc.  Also, I can't remember what time it was that I downloaded the e-book to my daughter's Kindle.  But I think it was after 2pm.  Probably.  

 

Edit: Derp, I downloaded the ebook right around 2pm, because that's when I had posted earlier, lol.  

 

 

image.png