Mobile Data limit reached

[Melita84]

Is 1.18GB of background data unusual?

I don't listen to music through cellular and have only used 193MB of foreground data.

I had the cellular downloads turned on for a couple of days. One of which the app updated, which I'm assuming has caused my limit to be reached.

Why is so much data being used in the background? And it would only appear to be occuring with the mobile data and not wifi data.

Using a Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, Android 6.0.1

[Joe]

The most likely cause is that you have downloaded some playlists you are following which the owners have updated and this will cause the new music to download automatically. The biggest "offenders" would be spotify's weekly playlists such as Discover Weekly, Charts etc.

[kirashi]

Hello @Melita84. Thanks for posting in the Spotify Community!

To build on what @Joe has said, whenever a playlist is updated it will update on your phone too. This will happen if you subscribe to a playlist and have it set to download for offline listening on your phone, whether you're updating the playlist or it belongs to someone else and they update it.

You can reduce cellular data usage though! Make sure the Download using cellular Setting is switched OFF in the Settings of the Spotify mobile app on your phone. This way your phone will only download playlist changes over WiFi, reducing your data usage considerably.

On your phone, you should also be able to find out exactly what is using your data. Go into your phone's Setting app, then into Data Usage, and scroll down. You should see a list all the apps on your phone that used data during a certain period of time. I've attached a screenshot below as an example.

Let us know if you have any other questions, and we'll do our best to answer them. Happy Spotifying!

[Melita84]

I'm not buying that as the reason because:

1. this issue has occurred the day the app was updated.
2. I don't subcribe to any playlists
3. I haven't downloaded any playlists for offline listening.
4. I had been home during the day with a WiFi connection yet the WiFi background data is more than half what the mobile data is.

It would appear that almost 1GB of background data was used in a 24 hour period.

I think it's going to be an issue like this or this. I have cleared the cached data and disabled background data, but obviously I can't test at the moment because I have no freaken data!

Either way thanks for the generic answers.

[kirashi]

Thanks for replying back to us @Melita84. This background data usage is definitely something we'd like to help you get to the bottom of, whether it's being caused by the Spotify mobile app or another app completely, because it's definitely not cool to have your cellular data used up so quickly in a month's time.

I know I'm sounding like a broken record here, but can you go into your phone's Settings then into Data Usage and screenshot it, like I did in my phone above?

You can usually screenshot the data usage screen on Android by holding both your Home and Power buttons for about 1-2 seconds and then releasing them. When uploading the screenshot, please make sure to blackout any personal information using a basic image editor, like Paint, iPhoto, or Photoshop Express on Android.

I'm not trying to be generic here; I genuinely wish to know what is using your data so we can narrow down the problem, and ultimately, so we can prevent it from happening again.

[Melita84]

Attached are the screenshots