Why is ‘General” under ’System Services’ using excessive cellular data?

So I had a thought based on my observation that it happens around spotty WiFi.

I started only enabling either WiFi or cell data but not both. So far no spurious jumps in data but it has only been about a week. Not the solution I love but maybe I can live with it.

Look at the bottom of the cellular settings and usage page below wherer it says Reset Statistice and see when it was last reset, it could be years ago and the 4.52GB may not look so bad.

Darn! Yesterday my phone did it again…. All of my data gone in a few minutes…

I'm just about ready to try erasing my phone and starting over from scratch - not even restoring from a backup…

I would change providers if you are not in a contract, or try a month on an MVNO SIM if you are, eliminate the provider as the culprit. .

If all your data is syncd to iCloud its a straightforward job to restore the phone to factory and set it up from scratch.

Whatever carp is on there will be in the backup, but Backup first just in case.

LD150 wrote:

guildfordnz wrote:

My cell phone plan has just renewed, ....

if I restart my phone while out of wifi coverage, the 1Gb of data disappears rapidly (within minutes) and the culprit is System Services/General.

Or the culprit is your provider, indicated and measured by Systems Serviced, General

I strongly recommend anyone with this problem to get a hold of a monthly rolling cellular plan and test it for a week. Divert your calls to the new number then take off the current plan fir the test.

I really do think I have fixed the issue now. I still don’t know what was causing the problem.

My fix was rather drastic - I erased my phone and did not restore from a backup. I took screenshots of the apps etc and only reinstalled those that I absolutely “had” to have. It’s surprising how few of the apps that I used to have on my phone I actually need!

Everything seems to be working just fine at the moment.

EDIT: Never mind, I see your screenshots. On my iPhone, your screenshots in original post were not displaying properly.

When you tap the arrow facing right, what System Services are listed?

BTW speed test apps and adblockers have been known to install VPN without your consent.

Only install apps you really need when you rebuild.

I spent about an hour with Apple support. They had no clue. They suggested to turn off Apple Intelligence (could be useful) and to turn off cellular data completely (it would work but then the iPhone would stop being a smartphone). So, so far no solution. I find it shocking that Apple seems or pretends to be unaware of the problem.

My cell phone plan has just renewed, so now I have more data to experiment with to see if I can find a cause for the data drain that I have.

All I have come up with so far is that if I restart my phone while out of wifi coverage, the 1Gb of data disappears rapidly (within minutes) and the culprit is System Services/General.

If I don’t restart my phone while out of wifi coverage, then everything seems to be fine and my data doesn’t disappear.

I have been dealing with this for over a year. I had just resigned to keeping cell data off. In some occasions where I need to turn data on, my phone just likes to consume 200-300mb in general for no reason. It usually happens within an hour.

i use DataMan so I can tell where it happens. I just have no idea what causes the issue. Had looked for a vpn that would log ip addresses and data amounts to see if I could find out what site is being contacted for the transfer. But could not find a suitable one. I’m not even sure it would log this anyway.

I have a new 16e since earlier this year and it is not any better over my se3. Am thinking I will erase and start fresh.

i called Apple once early on. The tech on the phone said that they (Apple tech support) have no idea what general means! They said the developers do not tell them. I found this infuriating. At least tell me what it is you are doing that’s so important you can’t wait for a WiFi connection!

My shared data plan is via xfinity so each extra gig costs $20. I suspect this bug has cost me at least $300.

I would love to have Apple tell us what consumes this data.

This absurd issue forced me to switch all our 3 Xfinity lines to Unlimited, even though only my 15 Pro Max was the culprit with huge System/General data use (more than 5GB/month). My teenage daughter has the regular 15 and did not experience these huge spikes in cell data (and she uses her phone much more than me).

Now I am testing the following: I offloaded (not deleted) almost all apps I had (about a hundred) and kept only those that are absolutely essential for me. We will see how it works out for me. I will report back later.