System services (software updates) significant data usage

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Level 1

3 points

System services (software updates) significant data usage

Hello,

I would like assistance in finding the source of a 300mb data usage in a single day for "software updates" and prevent it from reoccuring. Here are the details to my case :

I recently acquired an iPhone XR (iOS 16.1), it has been a while since i had an iPhone.

I disabled most data consuming settings that i can think of, including software updates (settings -> app store -> cellular date (off) ; automatic download app updates (on).

yet, last friday i used a little over 300 mb of data (well over my usual data usage of around 10mb/day) and am now seeing over 300 mb of data in system services -> software updates. I thought, having disabled data as pointed to above, updates would not happen over cellular network.

Thinking about it, i downloaded in game data for a game that same night, while on my Wi-Fi network (Wi-Fi assist is disabled on the phone), other than that, the day didn't have much data usage.

I am confused as to how much data was used, and for what purpose and I would like to avoid it happening again without disabling data (i like to keep imessage and facebook messenger open even though i dont use them much). My data plan is 750 mb/month

Thanks for your kind answers

iPhone XR

Posted on Nov 6, 2022 08:57 AM

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Answer 1

DerekM87

Community Specialist

Nov 8, 2022 09:46 AM in response to iBoris!

Hi iBoris!,

You can see what app or apps are contributing to your cellular data usage under Settings > Cellular. Any app toggled on there may use cellular data, even in the background. This may be relevant for social media apps.

See more info here: Use cellular data on your iPhone or iPad

Given the things that you've already disabled, we can recommend turning cellular data off entirely for a few hours and use your device as normal on Wi-Fi. If your carrier still notes data usage at that point, we'd recommend contacting Apple Support.

Get Support

Cheers!

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Answer 2

Nov 29, 2022 12:20 PM in response to iBoris!

I have been having this problem as well. Cellular > System Services > Software Updates says its using 200+ MB each day for the last two days. Not at all normal, as my usual data consumption averages less than 35 MB per day.

This happened a few weeks ago as well, so I'd disabled Wi-Fi Assist, and any other possible culprits I could find. I'd thought I'd seen the end of this issue and I'd love to know how to rectify it.

The attached screen shot shows how much data was used after resetting the statistics in the Cellular settings, then being out and about for less than three hours, barely using my phone at all during that time.

Am I missing something? This is rapidly eating up my data plan. Disabling cellular data completely while I'm away from my home wi-fi seems like an extreme measure, given what these phones are meant to do.

I appreciate any insight into this.

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Answer 3

iBoris! Author

Level 1

3 points

Nov 29, 2022 12:36 PM in response to Dan_Mitchell

This seems to be exactly my situation.

In my case, I had eaten up all my monthly data, tomorrow i’ll get some more data, so I will reactivate lte on the phone.

It would indeed be very unfortunate that the solution would be to disable data, as i purchased the phone to be able to have facebook messenger, weather widget, and apple stocks widget outside of wifi network…

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System services (software updates) significant data usage

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