9/1/18
Original Poster
J J FGoogle News used 7.65GB of background data overnight
1 Recommended AnswerHi,
Have a problem this morning where I woke up and Google News used 7.65GB of background data overnight. I was connected to wifi but the signal was weak so its possible it was connecting/disconnecting. Even still...have no idea how google news would have a way to use that much in such a short time unless there was a problem. I haven't had a problem like this before with large amounts of background data being used (let alone putting me near my monthly cap). It's possible that there's an android issue not a Google News issue, but either way it's Google so I'm hoping someone can help. I like the Google News app otherwise so I'd prefer not to have to be paranoid and turn off background data etc...if you have any insight as to what may have happened or how to investigate further, would greatly appreciate it.
I'm using Galaxy S8+ in Japan with Android 8.0.
Best Regards,
Jordan
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Recommended Answer
11/15/18
Lisa WangMany thanks for your patience throughout this process and letting us know about the issue. We appreciate the efforts provided by a number of people in this forum to help us rectify the problem. We can confirm that this affected Android users only and has now been fixed.
If you believe you were affected, please get in touch by completing this form to help us understand the impact. In the form, we will request information related to any unusual data usage you experienced and may need permission to contact your carrier to further investigate the impact.
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All Replies (157)
9/18/18
Geoff GauntJust experienced the same issue with Google News gobbling up 1.32gb in background - have unchecked the Enable Background data usage option in app settings
9/19/18
Paolo AmorosoUpdate
September 19, 2018, 17:20 UTC - The Google News team is aware of the issue and is looking into it. To help investigate it would be very useful if you could answer as many of the following questions as possible:
- In the Google News app, if you navigate to Settings (account avatar -> Settings > scroll down to Downloading), which settings are enabled?
- Were you previously a Google Play Newsstand user?
- Are there any magazines in Favorites?
- About how many saved stories are in Favorites? (Looking for ballpark, e.g. 0 / 10 / 100+)
- Are there any news sources, topics, or magazines that have the "download" icon in Favorites? It's a small blue checkmark that appears on those icons.
- Is there a specific time of day this seems to be happening?
- Is the Daily Briefing notification enabled?
- Have you noticed specific network circumstances under which this happens? (E.g. is the device normally connected to WiFi, but then unexpectedly disconnects in the middle of the night; or only when have wifi off)
thanks for your reports, I passed them along to Google. If I have any updates or suggestions I'll let you know here.
As a workaround, as Jordan suggested, you may turn off the use of background data for the Google News app in the Android system settings under Settings > Apps and notifications > Data usage > Allow background data usage.
I'm going to mark this post as the best answer so that it stands out in the discussion and other users can see it. However, this doesn't imply the answer is satisfactory or the issue is resolved.
9/18/18
Paul Lenihan-LeveilleHi
The problem may be that videos are playing automatically.
The problem may be that videos are playing automatically.
Check the setting and turn that off
9/18/18
James ReinhardtI'd like to add my same experience to this list. 1.6 gb of background data on my cell data in less than an hour on September 12th.
I've disabled background data but would like to better understand what all could be using background data. What functionality does 'background data' provide?
9/18/18
Shaun CreightonI just noticed the exact same thing ... got a text from T-Mobile saying that I had burned through all of my high-speed data, which I thought was weird because I just checked yesterday and still had about 4GB left. When I checked my data usage on my phone, I saw a huge spike in the last 24 hours, and noticed that Google News seemed abnormally high:
When I tapped on the Google News data usage, it said there had been 4.10GB of data used in the background since August 27. I clicked on the previous 3 months, and the highest background data usage for Google News for the entire month was 46.07MB, which is about 90x less than what I've used in just the last few days! I have not changed my Google News habits, so something is obviously very wrong ... even as I was checking my settings, the data usage kept going up.
I did turn off the Allow background data usage for Google News, but this obviously shouldn't be a long-term solution. Clearly something is very wrong and needs to be fixed.
For reference, I have a Pixel 1 running Android 9.0.
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1/10/19
Shaun CreightonI've heard nothing.
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