Serious transmission bug discovered in WP7

[Lechio]

I got my Windows Phone 7 the day it came out, and as of yesterday I completed my first full month of service. With this phone I do not stream, I hardly surf the internet, I mostly have the location services turned off. I do have Facebook connected with Windows Live so I do get the updates on the people hub and pictures hub and I do play Bejeweled quite a lot as I am addicted. I do have my Yahoo mail and Outlook mail synced to the phone. Beyond those few things, I do not do much else with the phone.

On December 22nd I received an email from AT&T saying that I was close to my 2GB data limit which truly shocked me as I feel I do not use data that much. I went and looked at my AT&T account online and noticed that my phone was sending huge chunks of data seemingly in patterns. For instance on November 21-24 it sent between 30 and 50 MB of data at 10:41pm each day and Dec 1-4 it sent between 30 and 50 MB of data at 9:41am each day. On December 23rd I turned on airplane mode so my phone could no longer send data. I turned airplane mode off briefly on December 23rd and the phone sent 400 MB of data. I called AT&T yesterday, December 28th, but they said that there was nothing that they can do to figure out what was happening on my phone.

There's more, but you get the idea.

Yes, this is a curiously common problem, and I'm sort of shocked Microsoft hasn't addressed this publicly yet, either to confirm it or to offer a fix. Basically what's happening is that the phone is utilizing the 3G data connection even when Wi-Fi is available. It's not clear what app(s) or part(s) of the OS is causing this, but it's definitely widely-reported.

Coincidentally to this, I've been tracking my own data usage on the Windows Phone Secrets blog. I suspect my monthly data usage gains are tied to this same problem. I also think this might be tied to Marketplace somehow. But I just don't know for sure.

Microsoft? If this is your fault, as I suspect, you're costing people money on this one.

Source

[BGM]

wow interesting..

i'll be sure to take a look at my statement this month

[~Johnny]

Had no such usage myself on any of the 3 phones I've purchased - but I'd assume it's either problem with Erorr Reporting, or a serious synchronisation conflicts bugs o.O<img>

[mad_onion]

Yeah, it's probably feedback. You have to purposely put it on during the first set up though....

And you can turn it off in settings.

[Malisk]

Apparently, WP7 starts using your precious 3G connection even if WiFi is available when it's going to sleep. (even if WP7 is showing that it has a WiFi connection) This feature is intentional. So beware if synchronizing large amounts of mail, etc. :p

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7/thread/10f1126e-d97d-4e87-89a6-800f0a196899

[Mr. Gibs]

I do have Facebook connected with Windows Live so I do get the updates on the people hub and pictures hub and I do play Bejeweled quite a lot as I am addicted. I do have my Yahoo mail and Outlook mail synced to the phone. Beyond those few things, I do not do much else with the phone.

So you have Facebook and Email set to as arrive which is going to be quite intensive. Afaik there's no API for facebook to push out updates, so the phones have to constantly keep polling Facebook and see if anything's changed.

You probably also didn't bother reading through the setup when you first turned on your phone and left the feedback on...so your phone is regularly contacting MS servers. I would compare my data usage (since I use the data services on my phone extensively, literally everything is turned on and last.fm / jukefly is used) but I'm on T-Mobile's unlimited plan so, for some reason, they don't track my data usage.

Basically what's happening is that the phone is utilizing the 3G data connection even when Wi-Fi is available. It's not clear what app(s) or part(s) of the OS is causing this, but it's definitely widely-reported.

Apparently, WP7 starts using your precious 3G connection even if WiFi is available when it's going to sleep. (even if WP7 is showing that it has a WiFi connection) This feature is intentional. So beware if synchronizing large amounts of mail, etc.

That's because WiFi gets turned off when your phone is asleep to save battery life. If your phone is on, it selects WiFi (if available) over the 3G connection and if you want proof of that, go turn on WiFi and download something from the marketplace..delete it and then turn off wifi and try to download it again using 3g.

A lot of phones turn off the wifi when the phone is "sleeping", my tilt, n97, and hd2 all did and I believe my roomates captivate does too.

[tanjiajun_34]

iOS has alarm bug.

Android has Messaging Bug

WP7 has 3G bug.

In conclusion...

No OS is perfect...

[Rudy]

iOS has alarm bug.

Android has Messaging Bug

WP7 has 3G bug.

In conclusion...

No OS is perfect...

Alarm bug: Can be a big deal but you can always use a 3rd party alarm software

Messaging bug: Could be a huge deal but seems fairly hard to reproduce

3G Bug: Depends how wide spread this is, if it's happening to a lot of people it could be a HUGE deal otherwise it might just be something running on his phone that he's not aware of

[Dashel]

Haven't noticed it yet myself, have to keep an eye out. Why would it turn off WiFi over 3G? Seems like 3G usage uses a lot more battery than WiFi...

[Mr. Gibs]

Well according to people on a few sites, it seems there's a bug with Yahoo mail syncing. The only people that have been able to reproduce this have been the ones that use Yahoo.

[Hellacool]

Just checked my two phones, nothing out of the ordinary. One of my phones is being used by my 18 year old and he only use 108MB of 2GB, not bad.

[George P Global Moderator]

WP7 only stops using your Wifi when it goes to sleep IF it's not connected to USB or Power outlet, as you said, to save battery etc. If it's plugged in it should still keep using the wifi even when it goes to sleep.

[XIII]

Yeah, the same thing can happen on Android too if you don't pay attention to what the OS and its programs were doing. I would just turned off and lock the data connection altogether until the infrastructure improves and the data connection cost is so cheap that this problem just simply stops mattering so much.

[DeadEndAccount]

Well according to people on a few sites, it seems there's a bug with Yahoo mail syncing. The only people that have been able to reproduce this have been the ones that use Yahoo.

Hence the reason I can't stand people who complain about problems but never give the full story - what software they're running, what their settings are etc. We'll probably find out in a few days or weeks that the issue is completely unrelated to WP7 and everything to do with a third party application or customisation by the carrier itself.