Very creepy to see it clearly is sending something at night. (if it was billing, turning Cell Data off wouldn't have the effect removing these night transfers I'd assume). Also nice to see there is a way to stop it but it's kind of annoying I'd imagine as well to have to remember to turn Cell Data off. Apple is a little awesome every year.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mysterious data transfers on my iPhone
- Thread starter derek4484
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
One thing I found out is that even though it shows on your account as a transfer of data at a certain time during the night that doesn't mean it occurred during the night. The amount of data you see is the total amount that was transferred between the two times.
But if there was no data transferred, then there shouldn't be anything showing up on billing. And indeed, last night, there was. I had cellular data off all day, therefore not using it at all. At bedtime I turned my phone off, then back on (to reset any multitasking apps I didn't know about), I plugged in my phone to charge, turned on cellular data and noted the time (10:43 p.m.) This morning, I checked the usage. Transfer at 10:43 (!) and another at 1:30 a.m. I believe the first transfer was from the fact it didn't get a chance to do one the night before, because I had had my cellular data off for a couple of days. (One thing I noticed: if I had my phone on overnight, the transfer was around 1:30 a.m.; if I had my phone off, it happened a few minutes after turning it back on.)
I turned the cellular data off again, before I used the phone at all, and will go through the whole thing again tonight to see what it does.
There's likely only a tiny data transfer in the middle of the night. Around 1:30 AM is when AT&T does a short push data network disconnect, causing the billing for any and all of your Push services (email, app notifications, mobileme calendar, etc.) in the previous 24 hours, or since the last network reconnect, to be summed up and accounted for in one big chunk.
Close all Safari pages, turn off all email and other push services, turn off all notifications, turn Airplane mode on and then back off to force an immediate billing summary to date, and then see if you get any more big data transfers during the middle of the night after that forced billing summary. You might get a small one as data services tries to reconnect and find your phone.
Then turn on email and push, get some email pushed to you in the middle of the day, and you might see that amount turn up in the accounting after midnight.
Close all Safari pages, turn off all email and other push services, turn off all notifications, turn Airplane mode on and then back off to force an immediate billing summary to date, and then see if you get any more big data transfers during the middle of the night after that forced billing summary. You might get a small one as data services tries to reconnect and find your phone.
Then turn on email and push, get some email pushed to you in the middle of the day, and you might see that amount turn up in the accounting after midnight.
Funny you guys mention this. But when I had my 3G i didnt have a data plan with it. And for some reason every morning i would wake up to 1 or 2 messages for Rogers Service saying that "I cant access the internet and to contact them because i dont have a data plan" now I had wifi but i guess the phone tries to use the network connection specifically.
And this happened between like 2:30am and 3:00am. Which is the time that most of you seem to be mentioning in previous posts.
And this happened between like 2:30am and 3:00am. Which is the time that most of you seem to be mentioning in previous posts.
i have had the same problem..so i have turn off all notifications and i turned off "location services" which is located in settings>general...and i checked the data usage and no data has been used...
I just want to say "me too" basically. I've noticed this problem in the past but I never cared or worried about it too much basically because I had an unlimited data plan on the iPhone 3G. However, now that I upgraded to the iPhone 4 about two months ago switched over to the 2GB plan, now it has become a problem. Last month I paid $20 in overage charges ($10 for each gigabyte my iPhone went over). On a good month I rarely hit 500MB and I do audio streaming while driving and use youtube sometimes, but most of the times I am in WiFi coverage, either at home or at work. I keep WiFi on 24/7 so I should only be using cellular data when I'm on the street. However, after midnight, I am home sleeping so there is no reason for the huge amounts of data my phone is using overnight. This month I started watching my daily usage online, and I was doing pretty well until one night I got an alert from AT&T saying I've gone over 65% of my data plan allowance. I was thinking, how is this possible if a few nights ago I only had used about 300MB. When I checked my account, I saw that just last night after midnight my phone used a whopping 971558KB!. That's just about ONE GIGABYTE of data in one night! My phone was just in the charger all night and with WiFi ON all the time. How is this possible? Now, my billing cycle is almost over and I have used 1.2GB of the 2.0GB I am allowed. If by the 17th I go over 2GB and AT&T charges me $10, they are going to hear me out!
When I had my iPhone 3G, I was not complaining of overage charges because I had an unlimited plan, the problem was that the constant data transfers drained my phone's battery. I did a huge investigation on this issue and I discovered that it was the email client going haywire sucking all the data and battery life. So I deleted email accounts I didn't need and set push to off and the problem went away. But now I am not sure this is the same problem. Maybe it is, who knows? I have to experiment with that, but who wants to experiment when you have a limited data plan? My suspicion is that some application (or applications) has a bug and it is not successfully disconnecting from the network and transferring large amounts of data. As stated earlier, data usage gets recorded when that data session ends, so if I was using, say, Pocket Tunes to listen to internet radio around 6PM and only use it for about 30 minutes and close the app, but, as we know the app goes to the background but you also have to stop the audio manually. What if you do stop the audio, but the app fails to pull the plug on the network connection and it is still streaming without your knowledge? Sounds like a buggy app. The phone could go on streaming data all night and maybe stop streaming hours later, maybe around 2AM, who knows? So the billing system records a data transfer that started at around 6PM and ended around 2AM (you only used it for about 30 mins though but the phone kept on streaming behind your back), so that's probably why the data transfer shows up in your bill at around 2AM, because it actually disconnected at that time.
This is only my understanding of how I think these mysterious data transfers are happening. Maybe I am totally wrong, but it makes sense to me. Now, if that's the case, it is not Apple or AT&T that should be held accountable for this, it is the app developers. What do you all think?
When I had my iPhone 3G, I was not complaining of overage charges because I had an unlimited plan, the problem was that the constant data transfers drained my phone's battery. I did a huge investigation on this issue and I discovered that it was the email client going haywire sucking all the data and battery life. So I deleted email accounts I didn't need and set push to off and the problem went away. But now I am not sure this is the same problem. Maybe it is, who knows? I have to experiment with that, but who wants to experiment when you have a limited data plan? My suspicion is that some application (or applications) has a bug and it is not successfully disconnecting from the network and transferring large amounts of data. As stated earlier, data usage gets recorded when that data session ends, so if I was using, say, Pocket Tunes to listen to internet radio around 6PM and only use it for about 30 minutes and close the app, but, as we know the app goes to the background but you also have to stop the audio manually. What if you do stop the audio, but the app fails to pull the plug on the network connection and it is still streaming without your knowledge? Sounds like a buggy app. The phone could go on streaming data all night and maybe stop streaming hours later, maybe around 2AM, who knows? So the billing system records a data transfer that started at around 6PM and ended around 2AM (you only used it for about 30 mins though but the phone kept on streaming behind your back), so that's probably why the data transfer shows up in your bill at around 2AM, because it actually disconnected at that time.
This is only my understanding of how I think these mysterious data transfers are happening. Maybe I am totally wrong, but it makes sense to me. Now, if that's the case, it is not Apple or AT&T that should be held accountable for this, it is the app developers. What do you all think?
Last edited:
Midnight data tranfers?
I have had the same problem with my iPhone 3GS lately. It transfers data in the middle of the night, ie. 12:30am, 1:15am, etc. The only thing that is not right in this situation is that I keep my iPhone on Airplane Mode when at home or have my cellular data off because I have wi-fi in my house. I only have 100MB per month, and am over my limit every month because of these mysterious charges.
I have had the same problem with my iPhone 3GS lately. It transfers data in the middle of the night, ie. 12:30am, 1:15am, etc. The only thing that is not right in this situation is that I keep my iPhone on Airplane Mode when at home or have my cellular data off because I have wi-fi in my house. I only have 100MB per month, and am over my limit every month because of these mysterious charges.
I took a look at my bill and on Sunday, May 22 it showed .5-8kb transfers happening about every minute for about 16 hours... No idea why but I have unlimited so I dont care and it just appears to be that one day.
My wfie's 3GS just had the same issue. For over a year, she used less than 100MB's per month - typically around 50 to 80MB's. As a result, she was on the 200MB plan.
A couple weeks ago, I received an email that she was approaching her data cap. I went to AT&T's website to check it out and there was a single entry of over 420 MB's around 1:00 am on a Tuesday. Yes, per AT&T she blew through 2 blocks of 200 MB's of usage.
After doing some research and speaking with AT&T, it seems as though the time of day that the entry is made doesn't really coincide with the usage.
However, no one can explain to my how my wife's iPhone could have SENT over 400MB's of data in a single entry. It makes no sense. She doesn't do any internet radio streaming, doesn't use Face Book. She "follows" less than 10 accounts on Twitter. She does purchase audio books from iTunes, but that would be downloading and it is done at home through the wi-fi network.
The only thing AT&T knows for sure is that she sent that much data and they are going to charge us for it. The supervisor admitted to me that she has no idea how that could have occurred. If my wife's iPhone RECEIVED that much data, then they have theories, but not for SENDING that much data.
I'm going to see if I can check her settings for sending diagnostic information to Apple, but from what I have read I don't see how that could add up to over 400 MB's in a single entry.
What a pain in the rear!
A couple weeks ago, I received an email that she was approaching her data cap. I went to AT&T's website to check it out and there was a single entry of over 420 MB's around 1:00 am on a Tuesday. Yes, per AT&T she blew through 2 blocks of 200 MB's of usage.
After doing some research and speaking with AT&T, it seems as though the time of day that the entry is made doesn't really coincide with the usage.
However, no one can explain to my how my wife's iPhone could have SENT over 400MB's of data in a single entry. It makes no sense. She doesn't do any internet radio streaming, doesn't use Face Book. She "follows" less than 10 accounts on Twitter. She does purchase audio books from iTunes, but that would be downloading and it is done at home through the wi-fi network.
The only thing AT&T knows for sure is that she sent that much data and they are going to charge us for it. The supervisor admitted to me that she has no idea how that could have occurred. If my wife's iPhone RECEIVED that much data, then they have theories, but not for SENDING that much data.
I'm going to see if I can check her settings for sending diagnostic information to Apple, but from what I have read I don't see how that could add up to over 400 MB's in a single entry.
What a pain in the rear!