Spotify Android app using a LOT of data on 3G!

[licenced]

Hi there,

I didn't use Spotify yesterday until the preview app was announced and I installed it. Since installing it yesterday shortly after it was announced I've been using it a fair amount.

I have only listened to music in playlists already downloaded for offline use, but Spotify itself has been online.

In Settings 'Download over 2G/3G' is set to OFF - although as stated I have not been listening to anything requiring a download and have also not sync'd any new playlists, except while on wifi last night when I sync'd one new album.

In the two days, 19th and 20th, Android shows Spotify as having used nearly 100MB of network traffic.

This is worrying. Why is it using so much data? I am on a data plan that restricts how much 'streaming and downloading' data I am entitled to use, so am worried that I am going to get throttled due to this.

Can others with the new app please check their own usage amounts?

Dave

[Liam]

I don't really use offline playlists...

I have 3 though, so I will lookout for this 🙂

[licenced]

Specifically streaming, or downloading/syncing, over 3G is not the issue this thread is trying to address. The problem is that the app uses a lot of mobile data when the 'stream over 3G' setting is off and you are listening to an offline playlist.

[Liam]

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@licenced wrote:
Specifically streaming, or downloading/syncing, over 3G is not the issue this thread is trying to address. The problem is that the app uses a lot of mobile data when the 'stream over 3G' setting is off and you are listening to an offline playlist.

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I have edited my reply.

[Martijn1984]

Because of the data usage I created a forum account to complain about this. And luckily there are many that are complaining. Today I listened to a downloaded playlist for like 35 minutes in the train and my data counter counted 12mb! 

When this bug will be fixed? 

[Liam]

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@damunk wrote:

I had a temporary solution for this while in the beta. Should probably still work now, although I haven't tested yet if last.fm will still scrobble.

If you are on android ICS do the following:

System settings --> Data usage --> Set mobile data limit (tick this) --> find spotify in the list in the lower end of the data usage screen --> press it --> on the spotify stats scroll down and restrict background data

If you look at the stats you see you will cut about 90% of the data...  I had about 60mb currently, foreground was only 2,6...

I hope this helps those also under tyranny of their service providers. Mark as solution if this helped you.

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Just remember not to do this if you are streaming - it will force it to go into offline mode when Spotify is running in the background 😉

[Liam]

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@joenixon wrote:

I checked my data usage today and only have 50MB left of data out of a 500MB allowance - with another two weeks before my allowance resets. ICS says Spotify is what's using up all the data, even though it's set to only download songs over Wifi and I've only listened to about two songs that hadn't been downloaded over wifi (and after they'd been played once they were marked as downloaded so they shouldn't have streamed again - they were both in offline playlists). I also just switch from iPhone to a Galaxy Nexus in May, and never had these problems with the iPhone app.

I'm now having to pay another £5/month to Vodafone to increase my data tariff just for Spotify eating up all my data allowance, on top of the £10/month I already pay for Spotify premium. I'm very unhappy about this and as soon as the time I've already paid for premium is up I'm going to switch to Rdio.

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Are you on a vodafone contract? If not, you may want to google search #cough*splutter/gag (giffgaff).

[JonasL]

I just noticed today when I listened to music at work that I had used 70 Mb since midnight. I would guess that about 60 Mb is due to Spotify (rough estimate).

I listened to 48 songs (according to last.fm) and all of them are downloaded in "Extreme quality" so I can listen to them in offline mode. Usually Spotify is using negligable traffic (a few Mb?) with this kind of usage.

This behaviour was not present before I updated to 0.5.2.87.

If this continues I will not be able to run it in online mode due to it will consume all my 1 Gb/month, and I really want to be online so I can scrobble to last.fm.

Settings I use:

Offline mode: OFF

Private session: OFF

NOT connected to facebook

Streaming: Extreme quality

Download: Extreme quality

Download over 2G/3G: OFF

Last.fm scrobbling: enabled

Phone: SonyEricsson Xperia X10 mini-pro, Android 2.1.

[Liam]

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@JonasL wrote:

I just noticed today when I listened to music at work that I had used 70 Mb since midnight. I would guess that about 60 Mb is due to Spotify (rough estimate).

I listened to 48 songs (according to last.fm) and all of them are downloaded in "Extreme quality" so I can listen to them in offline mode. Usually Spotify is using negligable traffic (a few Mb?) with this kind of usage.

This behaviour was not present before I updated to 0.5.2.87.

If this continues I will not be able to run it in online mode due to it will consume all my 1 Gb/month, and I really want to be online so I can scrobble to last.fm.

Settings I use:

Offline mode: OFF

Private session: OFF

NOT connected to facebook

Streaming: Extreme quality

Download: Extreme quality

Download over 2G/3G: OFF

Last.fm scrobbling: enabled

Phone: SonyEricsson Xperia X10 mini-pro, Android 2.1.

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Like we said, very peculiar. Can you upgrade to 2.2? Android 2.1 is VERY outdated now.

[damion121]

Has anyone found any improvement after upgrading to 0.5.2.87?

[licenced]

Yesterday I was on wifi most of the day, listen for a couple of hours - usage there was only 60MB

For the brief time I was listening while on 3g before remembering to switch to offline mode Spotify seems to have racked up 40MB of data usage. Again, only listening to offline playlists!

So, no improvement so far

[licenced]

Scratch that - a recount shows 180MB on wifi yesterday

So the issue is not just with mobile data but as most people have unlimited broadband these days its less of an issue of wifi. Some people still have adsl data caps though

[Goodman]

I'm continuing this topic in here, so we can gather more and pertinent data.