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kong85

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 28, 2011
41
7
Singapore
Hi,

I've run into a strange problem. My iPhone 5S is generating lots of data usage on both mobile and wifi, whichever it's connected to. If I leave it connected to mobile data, it uses around 100MB/minute, on wifi I haven't monitored but it consumes all the bandwidth of my home wifi. Today it used 400MB in an hour, during which I wasn't using my phone at all.

I've rebooted the phone, disabled background app refresh, iCloud backup was done last night so that's not it, App updates are on wifi only, iCloud photos is disabled.

I reset my mobile usage stats to find the offending app, but while the "Current Period" shows the data being chewed up, it doesn't show in the app breakdown below, nor in system services. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:

kong85

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 28, 2011
41
7
Singapore
So after speaking to Apple support they recommended to "Reset all settings" which seems to have done the trick. They said it could've been a glitch in the settings, but unfortunately couldn't get anything more specific.
 

kong85

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 28, 2011
41
7
Singapore
OK so that was a false resolution. The issue came back after not long and I eventually found out it was WhatsApp chat backup which had been set to auto. As this falls under iCloud drive (which has cellular enabled) it was trying to backup even on cellular and chewing up 100s of MB. Anyway, hope this helps anyone who comes across the same issue!
 

C DM

macrumors Sandy Bridge
Oct 17, 2011
51,390
19,458
Generally speaking going to Settings > Cellular would show you which apps are using how much of cellular data and can help identify those that are using a lot. Then you can certainly check the settings for those apps and so forth to see what might be causing it.
 

kong85

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 28, 2011
41
7
Singapore
Generally speaking going to Settings > Cellular would show you which apps are using how much of cellular data and can help identify those that are using a lot. Then you can certainly check the settings for those apps and so forth to see what might be causing it.

Thanks C DM. I did check that, but the data wasn't being shown under WhatsApp. It showed in the stats for "Current Period" which was, shortly after resetting the stats over 100MB. Going through the list of apps, however, showed nothing. WhatsApp had around 100KB only, and the same for other apps. Seems like there might be an issue with how stats are calculated, i.e. if the apps are using iCloud Drive in the background like WhatsApp was for its backup, maybe that data doesn't get included in the App cellular usage stats.
 
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