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Android app suddenly used 7GB of mobile data for unknown reasons and heated up phone.

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  • Last reply by Paul

warmwhimsy
warmwhimsy
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Today I was out of the house for a bit, and towards the end of it, I noticed that my phone was really hot. I checked the notifications, and android had given me an alert that my phone had used 7 GB of mobile data (the alarm is set to notify me for anything past 1GB). This was presumably in the space of slightly over an hour - while I wasn't even using the phone actively at all. according to android's "application data usage", all but 52 bytes of that was all foreground usage. But the thing is, I'm confused what even it was using that much data on - I don't think it could have been autoplaying videos, since I think the tab it was open to was something like reddit. I'm wanting to know what could have caused it to use that much data in that short a time without me actively doing things which are that data-intensive. Could it be something to do with the fact I had quite a few tabs open? are background tabs constantly requesting data or something? could it be some kind of virus? I'm honestly not sure, but I'd appreciate feedback so that this doesn't happen again. I'm also unsure if there's any way to generate a diagnostic report of the app, or anything like that, so if there is, please let me know.

Today I was out of the house for a bit, and towards the end of it, I noticed that my phone was really hot. I checked the notifications, and android had given me an alert that my phone had used 7 GB of mobile data (the alarm is set to notify me for anything past 1GB). This was presumably in the space of slightly over an hour - while I wasn't even using the phone actively at all. according to android's "application data usage", all but 52 bytes of that was all foreground usage. But the thing is, I'm confused what even it was using that much data on - I don't think it could have been autoplaying videos, since I think the tab it was open to was something like reddit. I'm wanting to know what could have caused it to use that much data in that short a time without me actively doing things which are that data-intensive. Could it be something to do with the fact I had quite a few tabs open? are background tabs constantly requesting data or something? could it be some kind of virus? I'm honestly not sure, but I'd appreciate feedback so that this doesn't happen again. I'm also unsure if there's any way to generate a diagnostic report of the app, or anything like that, so if there is, please let me know.

All Replies (3)

Paul
Paul
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Hi

What is the make and model of your Android device?

Where you viewing any tabs that had games or video content?

warmwhimsy
warmwhimsy Question owner
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Paul said
Hi What is the make and model of your Android device? Where you viewing any tabs that had games or video content?

Hi Paul,

The phone is a Galaxy A8 (2018), model SM-A530F.

It is possible that one of the tabs had some video content, but I don't think it was the currently active tab. Would that still use up that much data despite being a background tab? Even then, that was a huge amount of data, and it made the phone run quite hot.

Paul
Paul
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Hi

For that level of data and for it to have an effect on the device in the way you describe, it suggests that there was some kind of rich media playing in an open tab.

Alternatively, it may ha e been one or more other apps or possibly an Android system update that was processed during that time.