Spotify iOS client using 3G although synching over 3G is turned off

[Apophis23]

Description

Let me explain my situation. I have a 500MB data plan, which is easily used up. So to conserve data I either listen to spotify on my iPhone over WLAN or I create offline playlists. I also have the 'Synch over 3G' flag set to 'off'.

In both cases (WLAN or offline playlist) I would expect the following: The spotify client does not send or receive a whole lot of data over 3G. In case of offline playlists no data needs to be sent, in case of a WLAN connection 3G is not needed. All the same spotify usually sends and receives tons of data over 3G. I am talking 100+ MB within hours! How is this possible? This can basically eat up the entire months dataplan within hours.

I tested this quite a bit. It has nothing to do with audio scrobbling, as even if I turn this off, the data is still used. And in any case, scrobbling should not use more than a couple of KB per song. I also do not send data to facebook, nor are push notifications turned on. I also made sure that the culprit really is Spotify, so this cannot be blamed on some other app.

For the last couple of months I usually turned off my cellular data whenever I listen to spotify. This of course works but is actually extremely annoying and every once in a while I forget. Why is the iOS Spotify client not able to get its connections straight? Never use 2G/3G for songs unless the according flag is set to on.

A more detailed description, using numbered steps

1. Turn off synching over 2G/3G, as well as scrobbling, facebook posting etc.

2. Connect to WLAN

3. Check 3G data count

4. Listen to music. Either an offline playlist or music from spotify servers for some time

5. Check 3G data count again

What I expected to happen

No or almost no data should be sent over 3G.

What actually happened

In a couple of hours 100+ MB were used.

My iPad/iPhone model

iPhone 4

Device’s Operating System

iOS 6.0 (10A403)

Is your device jailbroken?

No

Approximately how many playlists do you have?

40 - 50, about 20 synched for offline use

My mobile Spotify version

0.5.9.10, spotify core 0.7.1.6114

[SebAsl]

I do have the same issue. 3G data consumption directly related to spotify, even though the button is set to not use 3G in the app. The same seams also to be valid for tunigo.

[c_heesypeas]

Hi I've responded to this to move it to the top of the list again as I am still having exactly the same problem and no one seems to have answered the original post yet?

Can anyone help, it is nonsense! pay £10 a month to be able to do it, then it doesnt do it and customers end up paying additional costs to their mobile service providers for over use of data!

I wonder why Spotify have not addressed this yet...cancelling my premium account if they do not address this...

[Joe]

Hi. The app will use Wifi when it is available. If you are listening to spotify away from a wifi network, putting it into offline mode should avoid using any mobile data. The 3G switch only affects downloading music for offline mode on android and not streaming and I would guess that the iOS app is the same.

[c_heesypeas]

Hi,

It is on offline mode but still using it..

[Peter__]

@c_heesypeas - That is very strange! Can you let us know what version of Spotify and iOS you are using? 

[c_heesypeas]

0.9.0.8 spotify

iOS 7.0.3

The only way I can get it to not donut is by putting the phone on aeroplane mode...which then defeats the object of it being an iPhone and not an iPod..

[c_heesypeas]

Donut! = do it

[Peter__]

Definitely a weird one, just out of interest how are you measuring the data usage? 

[c_heesypeas]

A mixture of the app Onavo and also checking this against the usage shown on my account on the orange website