Music Downloaded Over Cellular Network Even When Download Using Cellular Is Off

[OzZy_RAiD]

Plan

Premium

Country

Canada

Device

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

Operating System

Android 11

My Question or Issue

I recently migrated to a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and I was out on a walk using the app.  I doubled checked that the "Download Using Cellular" was turned off, and it was.  I then tagged a playlist to be downloaded.  When I did this on my previous phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 9, it would queue the songs in the playlist to download once I connected to Wi-Fi.  But this time it just started downloading them all.  I wasted 2.0+ GB on my cellular plan because of this!  Does this setting toggle not work any more?  If not, why not?

[Novy]

Hey there @OzZy_RAiD, 

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community, and welcome 🙂 

Would you mind letting us know if Data Saver is turned on in the app's settings? 

Keep in mind that your device may have its own data saver too, so we'd recommend checking this on the device's settings. 

Let us know how it goes.

[OzZy_RAiD]

Hello,

I do not have the Data Saver setting turned on in the app or on my phone.  I did not have it turned on previously either when the playlists would correctly not download over the cellular network.  Something seems broken with the Download using cellular setting.

[Novy]

Hey @OzZy_RAiD, 

Thanks for your reply. 

Just to confirm, is the same thing happening even if you activate Data Saver?

If so, could you try performing a clean reinstall of the app? This can be helpful to get rid of any corrupted files that might be causing issues. 

Keep us posted.

[OzZy_RAiD]

Hello,

The phone is brand new. The app was recently installed. I tried what you said with the Data Saver and toggling it on and then off seems to have fixed the issue for now. This is still an egregious issue and sounds like a bug to me. I don't know why changing the Data Saver setting should have an affect on the Download using cellular toggle in the app. That setting should just override everything and prevent downloading of music while on the cellular network like it says it is supposed to do.

Thank you for the help. I will raise this issue again if I notice the same behaviour.

[Novy]

Hi @OzZy_RAiD, 

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. 

We're glad to hear that things are now working properly for you. 

If anything else comes up, you know where to find us. 

Cheers.

[memocapitan]

Same Issue here on a Samsung Galaxy S10+ (SM-G975F) ..

When I realized the app took in just 1 day 1.2GB from my data plan listening only to "downloaded playlists" and having the data saving switch on, and the downloading using cellular data switch off

It started mid January .. then on February I performed a clean reinstall and even changed the SD card for a new one .. It seemed to work for a week and then realized it took again another 834MB chunk of my data plan ..

One day while changing playlists (not won WiFi) there was the "downloading songs" notification and immediately switched the offline mode on

Attaching you the screenshots

However .. Why is the app taking data from my plan ???

[Novy]

Hey there @memocapitan, 

Thanks for reaching out about this. 

Keep in mind that the app can use data to update the cover cache, check for newer versions of a song and other general functions that normally require internet connectivity, even if you have downloaded music.

In this case, we'd recommend activating the Offline Mode as this blocks any traffic data interaction with the app. You can learn how to do this here.

If anything else comes up, we're always a message away. 

Cheers!

[MartinNZ]

I'm having the same issue recently.

Download over cellular is off. I received an alert from my carrier I had gone over my monthly data cap (2gb) and it's only the 8th of the month.

I checked usage and spotify has downloaded over 2gb using cellular. I only ever download albums when I'm on wifi so why is this happening.

Cellular data especially over cap is a significant cost and this issue needs resolving quickly.

[Ivan]

Hey @MartinNZ, 

Thanks for posting here. 

Just to confirm, have you also tried toggling on and off the Data Saver in the app settings? This step seems to solve the issue for some users. 

If this however persists, it's also a good idea to perform a clean reinstall of Spotify on your device. This will help in case the issue is caused by corrupted data left from previous installations. Check out this help page on how to run the clean reinstall. 

Hope this helps. Keep us posted.