Screen Time shows unknown website during night

[Belvoire]

Hi all

My screen time shows a website that I have never heard of and have never visited. Supposedly I was on this website all night. Has anyone experienced this before?

This is really strange.

 

[DeltaMac]

Someone is likely using your iPhone as a hotspot.
That would be someone that needs access to that website which supports academic papers. Maybe that will help you decide who that might be - someone who does academic research... (?) And, that person lives close enough to get a Wifi connection to your iPhone.

You might turn OFF Settings/Hotspot when you don't need a hotspot - or turn off your iPhone completely at night.

 

[Belvoire]

Hmm, I have checked the settings and the hotspot is switched off. However, I haven't had the problem since. Hope it was an isolated case.

 

[hwojtek]

Someone is likely using your iPhone as a hotspot.
That would be someone that needs access to that website which supports academic papers.

This would not occur in Screen Time. iPhone doesn't do deep packet inspection when used as a hotspot and will not display the name of a website visited using a tethered computer because, frankly, Screen Time has zero idea what has been routed through the phone when used as hotspot.
This information will come only if a browser on the iPhone (or on a computer with the same AppleID, as Screen Time displays cumulative activity from all devices using a single Apple ID, if "share accross devices" is turned on) will visit the site.
My bet is a stranded browser window, possibly from a browser-based app like Twitter or Facebook/Messenger (if you click a website link inside those they launch an internal browser window which will be included in Screen Time reports).

 

[DeltaMac]

OK? I don't know all about hotspot - BUT how would that explain a website that the OP has never visited?
Seems like a research website should make it easy to decide who is contributing to screentime on the OP's AppleID.
Would that imply that Mac or iOS device is in active use (not sleeping or standby) through the night?
(Will ScreenTime stop tracking if a device is sleeping/standby?)

 

[hwojtek]

Obviously a sleeping device does not connect anywhere - except if power napping and in this case it might ping an external site I believe (for example when backing up Safari history).
I think it has more to do with an accidental use (perhaps autocomplete - happens to me sometimes when I blindly set up the alarm on my iPhone at night - or a stranded window as I mentioned above).

 

[Krakens]

I just had this happen to me as well. Dowbor.org, which seems to be a Portuguese professor’s website. I don’t speak Portuguese and have no reason to be visiting it. Screen time says I spent 8 hours on it since yesterday, including all night while I was sleeping.

 

[humpbacktwale]

It's a common screentime bug. See posts like this, this and this. What probably happened is some website either loaded content from or used a script to communicate with mdpi, and screentime has incorrectly reported this site as being one you used and were on for an extended period of time.