High data usage (400+ Mb in ~10 min listening to already downloaded music)

[andy199345]

• Plan

Premium

Country

Canada 

Device

LG G6

Operating System

Android Pie

My Question or Issue

This morning when using Spotify while driving to work, I got a notification from my phone stating that Spotify has used a large amount of data. I pull over and check and it shows it has used over 400mb in about 10 min of being used.

I was playing music that is already downloaded to my phone, I have data saver on both Spotify and my phone, and I was using Waze for GPS. 

Also minor gripe, why do I need to turn off "offline mode" in order to use the integration between Spotify and GPS apps such as Waze or Google maps? I pretty much always leave Spotify set to offline mode due to not wanting to use more data than needed when I almost exclusively play downloaded and saved music when out. This morning Waze was being a major PITA so I didn't get a chance to turn Spotify to offline mode before I was driving (had to restart Waze several times before it found my cellular network and found Spotify). 

I have a 2gb limit, but I prefer to not actually use that unless I need to, and mostly save for emergencies/running it down at the end of the month. My month runs from the 20th-19th each month, so it just restarted and now I'm 1/4 use in less than a week for no reason? 

I enjoy using Spotify and would like to continue, but don't want to run up my data for pointless reasons.

Attached are some screenshots of my data usage and Spotify settings.

Thanks in advance! 

[Jenji]

I've got similar behavior, and what I think is happening is Spotify starts downloading songs (updated offline playlists) on wifi, but doesn’t stop when switching to cellular data.  I wasn't even using the app, left my house this morning, and got a notification that I had a spike in data usage, ~500MB, all of which was Spotify.

My wife has the same problem on iOS, and it's eaten all of the data on her plan a few times.  It's infuriating.

Spotify team, please investigate your song downloading code, and make it stop when changing to cellular data.

[MVRV]

I have a similar problem, but with nothing downloaded. Yesterday I burned 800 MB in total just by listening to songs with screen off during 2 hours or so. Peaking at 500 MB during one hour. I already had turned Canvas off.

How does Spotify handle song playback? I was exploring, so I found an artist, went to "Artist Radio", and then listened to the songs. For many songs, i just listened to about first 30 seconds or so, and then skipped to next, using bluetooth controls, not even looking at phone.

So I'm wondering, what is streaming behavior of Spotify when listening? Does it download the whole song for ASAP as soon as I play it? That may explain the excess data usage, because otherwise, it should be way less, considering 300kb-ish bitrate.

I'm using ExpressVPN on phone, but it shouldn't matter, as far as I know. I wasn't downloading any music and do not have any music downloaded.