topic Re: data used quickly and unusually in Get Support

data used quickly and unusually

papuaprincess5 — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 02:07:57 GMT

Normally the data I receive with my plan is more than sufficient for my phone use needs. However, this month it drained with more than a week before renewal. When I looked at the usage some of it was 1 GB at a time at midnight. I am sleeping then and not using my phone. I do not have background refresh on and mostly use it in wifi. I'm not sure if something unusual happened but I am wondering if I could be gifted some data and if this could be checked out as I don't want it to continue happening. This is the first time it has occurred and I have been a faithful customer since 2019.

Re: data used quickly and unusually

Phil_Adelphus — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 02:14:07 GMT

@papuaprincess5 The apparent night-time use is just PM tallying up the day's data use, it doesn't mean you are using it then. Have you made sure to turn off WiFi Assist or its equivalent if not an iPhone, automatic operating system and app updates? Turn off data when you're not using it. Check the data usage of your apps. Could you have done any speed tests, they use a lot of data?

Re: data used quickly and unusually

softech — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 02:27:07 GMT

@papuaprincess5

for the midnight usage issue, first, please understand that PM does not update the data usage constantly. In fact, it only update it twice a day. So, any entry you see is just a total usage between that timestamp and the timestamp of the previous entry. The early morning usage you see on the Usage log does not mean it was used in the morning but a total usage for the last 12 hours.

For correct usage reading, always use Incognito mode to login My Account to avoid reading cached old info

For unusual high usage, any chance you have download some OS or app update using the app?

Are you using Android or iPhone? If Android, you can easily track back the usage by check the Mobile usage page. it will show you how much data you used and which app used most the data. You just have to adjust teh Start billing cycle on date to match your current PM cycle start date

Sorry, if you are on iPhone, there is no way to track backward. But you can click Reset Statistics now to reset the data count and stat tracking today

Re: data used quickly and unusually

SteveQuin — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 02:49:06 GMT

The same thing happed to me. Only 1 week used up 1G. I don`t know why.

Re: data used quickly and unusually

softech — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 02:55:53 GMT

@SteveQuin

again, please check what suggested above. Best to check the Mobile data usage on your Android phone. Or on iOS, reset statistics and start tracking from now

Also, you might want to turn on Data Saver on your phone and disable background sync on your phone

Re: data used quickly and unusually

Flameotter — Sun, 17 Dec 2023 16:42:31 GMT

@papuaprincess5 I've had this happen before, usually there was some update or upload that started while I was on wifi and then continued outside or else I made an intentional update that consumed a lot of data. Some runaway process that was going on without my notice. I use Mydatamanager to try and track how much data gets used on iOS. I believe Android should has a similar app.

Very frustrating indeed. Hopefully it doesn't happen too often.

Re: data used quickly and unusually

SteveQuin — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 01:47:02 GMT

thanks for your suggestion!