Using >50 MB in one minute on 3G

[dariones]

Hi,

<System: iOS 7.0 , Spotify 0.9.1.230, iPhone 5>

I've recently discovered that Spotify is using an awful lot of data when I'm online (3G/4G). I have a 5 GB plan from my telecom-provider, but the limit got exceeded quickly. I have deleted all playlists, set the streaming quality to normal, and no sync over 2G/3G.

I tested this right now (3G), and after playing a song for less than a minute, the usage (in Mobile data info in iOS is 53,9 MB). I've tried to turn phone on and off, and also reinstalled Spotify.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have had Spotify for years, but maybe this is related to the latest upgrade?

br,

Dariones

[Peter__]

It is possible the app downloaded a lot of playlist data and cover artwork in the first minute, does it continue at that level for the whole song? Extreme quality (just the track) should only be about 2.4MB per minute. 

Its also worth turning off all sharing options like sharing activity to Facebook and last.fm in the settings to see if that makes any difference?

[dariones]

Thanks for your quick reply, that's interesting.

I haven't noticed whether the data usage drops after a while, but I played 4 minutes of a song yesterday, and usage was above 100 MB.

So album art and playlist info will be downloading even though I don't play from those playlists? Is there a way I can download this non-music data locally so this doesn't happen?

I have disabled all social options as well.

[Peter__]

As far as I am aware, it should download all of the playlist information when the application launches from the Spotify servers (just once each time the application loads). If you are online, cover artwork will be downloaded when you play a track, however that being said the application does have some mean caching, so if you listen to a track once it shouldn't actually need to stream or download the cover art again. 

Do you get the same levels of usage on WiFi too? 

[dariones]

I don't know about WiFi usage, as I can't find in iOS where that data traffic is logged. Do you know where?

The strange thing is that I deleted all my regular playlists (thank God for the recovery option), and still the usage was as I described, 50 MB for that first minute, so I can't understand which data it downloads other than the current song + album artwork. Maybe "Starred Songs"?

Maybe I should cache as much as possible while on WiFi, so that when I go online, only the song itself will stream?