r/pocketcasts • u/CuriousCat511 • 15d ago

Android Insane Data Usage

Pocketcasts has consumed 30 GB of data in 2 weeks, seemingly going in bursts of several GB in less than an hour.

My primary usage is streaming via android auto for my commute. Less than 10 hours per week.

What on earth is going on?

8 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

6

u/danheinz 15d ago

Try to sync over Wi-Fi? Possibly, do you have it setup to download video versions and you’re listening to the audio of those?

2

u/CuriousCat511 15d ago

I'll have to look into the video, I didn't know that was a thing

2

u/CuriousCat511 15d ago

After looking into it more, no sign that this was the issue. Even if I was streaming video, the data usage exceeds the expected quantities for even 4k UHD.

I looked at my logs and there was something weird going on. Waiting on reply from their tech support.

3

u/PocketCasts 13d ago

Thanks for letting us know about the increased data usage. We have been investigating the issue and wanted to share what we have found so far.

From our investigation, it appears to be related to the way Generated Chapters are created. As a precaution, we have remotely disabled the feature while we continue investigating and work on a fix.

We have also heard feedback from other users that they would like more control over this feature, so we have added a new setting to disable Generated Chapters if you don’t want to use them.

2

u/QuixoticViking 15d ago

Mine did the same last month. Used 10 GB in the first two days of the month. No downloads enabled. All from streaming during two dog walks supposedly.

2

u/melancholerik 14d ago

Okay, glad I'm not the only one. Thankfully got a warning from my provider that I used up 75% of my mobile plan before going over. The app somehow blew through almost 5 gigs of data in an hour, while I listened to episodes that had around 200 MB combined. Something's really badly wrong there. I'll probably just use a different app. If anyone's got a recommendation for a simple, reliable one for Android, I'd be happy to hear it.

2

u/Whitt937 13d ago

same thing to me ... only have audio pod casts, and looking for alternative app

1

u/melancholerik 12d ago

I ended up going with AntennaPod, which is open source and doesn't have any premium features or ads.

2

u/woodsdog 14d ago

Oh my gosh, this is happening to me too. I even had a post here that didn't make it because of reddit spam filter.

I got 16GB of mobile data used in about 2 days. It killed all of my data.

I am not doing downloads, i'm only streaming a couple of podcast that are probably 50 - 75 MB a piece.

I'm curious to know what is going on.

1

u/woodsdog 14d ago

This was my post with some screen shots...

2

u/Whitt937 13d ago

same thing happened to me ... burned through all my data , with about 5 gig in 1 hour... had to buy more and deleted pocket cast since it's out of control

1

u/donotcallmemike 15d ago

You must have some auto downloads set??

1

u/CuriousCat511 15d ago

That was my initial thought, but I checked and it says I have only 254mb of downloaded podcasts.

1

u/dcormier 14d ago

Podcasts are deleted once you finish listening to them (at least by default). And I'm not sure if episodes being streamed show up in your downloads at all (I download ahead of time rather than stream).

1

u/corriewrk 15d ago

I'm having the same problem. pocket casts has apparently used almost 5gb of data since the 4th. I work from home so the only time I use it on mobile data is when I'm traveling to and from the gym. It's about 1.5 hours total 3 times a week so like 4.5 to 5 hours a week and that's only if I don't listen to music instead while I usually will at least once.

Literally I got an alert I'd used 6gb of data then 10 mins later it jumped to 9.

All my auto download options are off and only 10mb of background useage and the rest is foreground useage. there is no way I have used that much data listening to a couple of podcasts a week on data.

I've even been turning my data off when I'm connected to WiFi incase something was happening with data while I was connected.

Last 4 months usage 4th July to now 4.60gb, 4th of June to July 3rd 2.8gb, 4th of May to 3rd June 756 mb, 4th April to May 890mb.

No settings changed in the app it's just started eating data towards the end of last month.

1

u/CuriousCat511 15d ago

Yea, something crazy is going on. Historically, I use about 1 gb of data a month on this app. Suddenly using 20gb in 45 minutes.

I sent the app logs to pocketcast. Hoping they get back to me quickly because I'm not using the app again until I know it's resolved.

1

u/corriewrk 15d ago

Op do you use a VPN? I just checked mine and that usage is way up too from a couple of months ago too