iCloud Documents & Sync, and Data/Cellular Drain

[Cassady]

Hello all,

Popped up a reply over on the Apple Support threads over here, but figured I would test things here as well.

Since July last year, my data usage has increased exponentially.

I have read up on as many of the various "save data/diminish data costs" website, and am very certain that I have correctly disabled and toggled all that needs to be done, to not use Cellular over that of Wifi.

Since my reset on Monday, I have used 78mb's of cellular on/in my usual apps (Fantastical; Omnifocus; Outlook; Feedly; Phlo; Safari etc.). Over the same period of time, 267mb's of data has been used by Documents and Sync. Unbelievably, that number was sitting at 214mb's 1h45 minutes ago, and all I have done in that time, was browse Feedly, and bump up its cellular usage by 2,4mb.

iCloud is borked.

Anyone experiencing the same?

[Edit:] In the time it took me to write the above, Documents & Sync have now climbed a further 3mb, to 270 in total. The phone is sitting on the desk next to me, doing nothing.

 

[Cassady]

308mb's used in Documents & Sync since this afternoon.

What the heck? I've been in a 2h25 minute meeting, and it's just climbing. No other apps are even open...

Anyone?


[Edit:] 319mb. 30 minutes later?!!

 

[jonjp]

I've had the same problem in the last couple of days, Cassady (large usage reported on my iPhone in Settings/Cellular/System Services/Documents & Sync). I have been playing with Photos beta, but thought I had settings correct to stop any mobile syncing. In the end I went to settings and turned off anything that looked like it might be downloading in the background. That stopped it - but I am not sure exactly what was the fix. (I still have iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream on.)

One thing I did notice was that in Settings/iTunes & App Store "Use Cellular Data" was turned ON - it used to be OFF and should be OFF. Maybe that did it - not sure.

Usage seems to have slowed down now - I find the app "DataManager" really useful to keep a check on these things. It shows on a map where and when you had downloads - even lets you set a timer so that you can see what has been happening recently. I notice that I often get strange cellular usage over night when I am in my home wifi area!

 

[Cassady]

I've had the same problem in the last couple of days, Cassady (large usage reported on my iPhone in Settings/Cellular/System Services/Documents & Sync). I have been playing with Photos beta, but thought I had settings correct to stop any mobile syncing. In the end I went to settings and turned off anything that looked like it might be downloading in the background. That stopped it - but I am not sure exactly what was the fix. (I still have iCloud Photo Library and Photo Stream on.)

One thing I did notice was that in Settings/iTunes & App Store "Use Cellular Data" was turned ON - it used to be OFF and should be OFF. Maybe that did it - not sure.

Usage seems to have slowed down now - I find the app "DataManager" really useful to keep a check on these things. It shows on a map where and when you had downloads - even lets you set a timer so that you can see what has been happening recently. I notice that I often get strange cellular usage over night when I am in my home wifi area!

Thanks for the reply!

I'm a bit b'twixt and b'tween at the moment, since things have seemingly returned to (more) normal, but I'm not convinced yet.
Between 06h30 and 14:43 today, Documents and sync are sitting at 36,5mb – and I haven't been doing much – but at least it's not burning up like yesterday. So will wait a few days before calling the all clear.

Solution? I signed out of iCloud, and logged in again. I completely reset the phone on Monday. When I checked the Apps in iCloud, there were only a handful of them. After signing out, and then back in again – there were suddenly a whole bunch, presumably what used to be in there BEFORE the reset.

I can only surmise that iCloud was constantly pinging in the background, trying to "restore" the list of apps, somehow... I don't know – either ways, data usage is down now.

As an aside – I had all the toggles switched off properly – which has me thinking that iCloud somehow overrides those settings – if it needs to call the mothership, it does, regardless of whether you are on wifi or not.

Thanks for the tip re DataManager – will check it out!

Will pop something up in a few days.

 

[Stuke00]

One thing I did notice was that in Settings/iTunes & App Store "Use Cellular Data" was turned ON - it used to be OFF and should be OFF. Maybe that did it - not sure.

Pretty sure that setting is only for automatic downloads and iTunes Radio, Match.

You want to go to Settings > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Use Cellular Data.

 

[Cassady]

So went the whole hog and created a new iCloud account. Logged out on my MBP and MM, and all devices, and then logged back in to new iCloud device.

All problems instantly solved. Not sure how/why the corruption happened, but this is a definite fix.

 

[Ol!ver]

I'm experiencing something very similar - Documents & Sync used 1.5GB of data in three days.

I *think* I may have narrowed it down to one app. I'm using a Testflight beta of it and thought that was the issue, but now I seem to be having it with the App Store version too. Simply disabling iCloud Drive for that app does nothing.

At this point I'm convinced it's related to iCloud Drive, though I'm not quiet sure in what capacity. I'm relatively sure it's not iCloud Photo Library, but I wouldn't want to say for sure.

 

[Ol!ver]

Right, it's iCloud Photo Library. Turned it off and I've used a couple of MB in a few hours.

 

[langhert]

Hi all,

I'm having the same issues on iOS9. You guys/girls still have the same problems or did you just all stop using iCloud Photo Library? First I thought that Whatsapp auto backup was (which was set on daily) was causing all the data usage, and it was. So I stopped that and I backup my chats manually now twice a week.

For a while everything was peaches, but the problem is still going on. Less data usage than before, but still as soon as I'm outside it starts using data in "Documents and Sync". I've got around 15.000 pic in my iCloud Photo Library.

What was the final solution for you guys? Creating an all new iCloud account? Because that would mean a lot of downloading and uploading and what happens to all my purchases? Should I connect it to my family so I can download everything for free again?

 

[jonjp]

Hi all,

I'm having the same issues on iOS9. You guys/girls still have the same problems or did you just all stop using iCloud Photo Library? First I thought that Whatsapp auto backup was (which was set on daily) was causing all the data usage, and it was. So I stopped that and I backup my chats manually now twice a week.

For a while everything was peaches, but the problem is still going on. Less data usage than before, but still as soon as I'm outside it starts using data in "Documents and Sync". I've got around 15.000 pic in my iCloud Photo Library.

What was the final solution for you guys? Creating an all new iCloud account? Because that would mean a lot of downloading and uploading and what happens to all my purchases? Should I connect it to my family so I can download everything for free again?

[doublepost=1456835355][/doublepost]Mine is all happy now, langhert. I am using iCloud Drive as well as Photos (lots of them!). But I find iCloud is sometimes buggy if I give a lot to files to upload/download (they just don't always seem to upload/download). A I posted earlier, I find the iOS app "DataManager" really useful to keep a check on these things.

 

[langhert]

[doublepost=1456835355][/doublepost]Mine is all happy now, langhert. I am using iCloud Drive as well as Photos (lots of them!). But I find iCloud is sometimes buggy if I give a lot to files to upload/download (they just don't always seem to upload/download). A I posted earlier, I find the iOS app "DataManager" really useful to keep a check on these things.

Thank you so much for replying on such an old topic. I read everything in the link from the original poster of this thread. They seem to be convinced it's iCloud Key Chain. I've had that turned on all the time the past week. But I DID stop using iCloud Photo Library. My data consumption on "documents & sync" stopped since that moment. So that seems indeed the problem like the others suggested.

But what did you do exactly to make it stop? Did you remove all you picture to upload them again later? Or change iCloud e-mail address? This DataManager you're talking about, could you provide an iTunes link? Because there's more than one DataManager app in the App Store. Thank you in advance!

 

[jonjp]

I use this data manager app: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/my-data-manager-track-your/id477865384?mt=8

I don't remember what I did to fix the issue. I certainly made sure that I had "Use mobile data" in the iCloud settings turned OFF. And in Settings/Mobile I reset the stats each month so that I can monitor which apps are greedy. And check that "Wi-fi Assist" in turned off in that screen too. I certainly didn't change my iCloud address! I find iCloud Photo Library a mysterious beast - on my iMac desktop I can see little correlation between photos that I upload or edit and the amount of data that gets sent to and fro! But that is all via home ethernet, not mobile.

My message here is that these Apple cloud services seem to take a long time to "settle down", but once all uploads and syncs are done, they seem to behave well.

Good luck!

 

[langhert]

I use this data manager app: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/my-data-manager-track-your/id477865384?mt=8

I don't remember what I did to fix the issue. I certainly made sure that I had "Use mobile data" in the iCloud settings turned OFF. And in Settings/Mobile I reset the stats each month so that I can monitor which apps are greedy. And check that "Wi-fi Assist" in turned off in that screen too. I certainly didn't change my iCloud address! I find iCloud Photo Library a mysterious beast - on my iMac desktop I can see little correlation between photos that I upload or edit and the amount of data that gets sent to and fro! But that is all via home ethernet, not mobile.

My message here is that these Apple cloud services seem to take a long time to "settle down", but once all uploads and syncs are done, they seem to behave well.

Good luck!

Thanks. I was in fact using that app already! Too bad it can't tell me app specific anymore what is using how much. But the alerts work like a charm though. I turned the Library online again last night and my 16.000 pic and 1600 vids are back again. Let's see how the drive to work will be.

Thank you for the replies.

 

[Tech-Savvy]

Documents & Sync Data Burn here. Purchased my iPad Pro last week and have been using wifi exclusively until April 1st. So why would Documents & Sync drain over 700MB of data in one day while asleep in my brief case at a meeting this afternoon? For now I have to completely turn of Cellular Data when I don't need it because even when I am in range to a saved WiFi connection and the device is sleeping it will drain data hardcore!