This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

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

  • 3 uphendule
  • 1 inale nkinga
  • 11 views
  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu Paul

more options

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)

more options

Hi

What is the make and model of your Android device?

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

more options

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.

more options

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.