Avast Battery Saving using large amounts of data

Avast Battery Saver Avast Battery Saver for Android
1

Hi

I’ve been using ABS for some months very successfully, but this month my data usage shot up from about 100mb in a month to over 450mb in 2 weeks. Data Usage in settings says that 365mb of that is ABS. I’ve now switched off mobile data for the rest of the month and relying on wifi. I have a Motorola Moto E running Android 5.1 and ABS version 2.2.0-2607-6845e58

Any ideas?

2

Hi Kevin, this sounds like a really bad bug.

Thanks for the detailed report–we’re going to try to replicate your situation. It’s not happening on any of our regular test devices, but you’re not the only person to complain about this recently.

Are you in the US? Do you have Facebook installed? Is there anything unusual about your device, like full storage or an additional battery saver app installed?

Thank you,

Jesse
Product Manager

3

Hi Jesse

Thanks for the reply.

I’m in the UK and I don’t have Facebook installed as I don’t have a Facebook account and I don’t have another battery saver app. My phone does not have a lot of internal memory (2GB) and is typically bouncing around 90% full (I make regular use of Avast Cleanup!). I also have a 16GB SD which I move my photos too, although >14GB is free.

The Apps that I have downloaded are:

ABS
Avast Cleanup
Avast Antivirus
Call Recorder
Spotify
DaTuner
Virtual Recorder
Tesco Mobile

None of which are recent downloads.

Hope that helps

Kevin

4

I have exaxtly the same problem. Just recently I have seen ABS use more and more data. In my case it has been 3.74GB out of my 5GB monthly allowance since Sept 25th so about 27 days. Temporarily I have disabled mobile data and will stick to Wi-Fi for the next couple of days. I assume that is necessary I can disable ABS without interfering with my other Avast products (clean-up, mobile security and secure line).

5

Hi John and Kevin,

We made some progress on this and now have something to try. We can track requests from your app to our backend, which should help us narrow it down.

Could you please swipe over to the Tools menu > Settings > About > tap the version number 5 times > copy the GUID and post it here?

Thank you!

6

I have the same problem.
668MB in only 7 days.
I think the last update is the start of the problem.
This is my guid:
6fc955de-f1a6-41e0-b15d-4361ff07a3ff

7

Hi, thanks for providing GUID, we will definitely investigate that.
Can you yet specify when exactly that happened?
Cheers!

8

Hi Jesse

Sorry for the delay in replying. I had to make use of my data, so I uninstalled ABS. I then reinstalled it and in the last week it has only used 1.7MB which is fine. If the problem comes back I’ll post my GUID.

Kevin

9

Thank you Kevin, good to hear that, have a nice day!

10

I am having the same problem. What is causing this. I have gone way over my data plan - I am so upset!

My GUID is bbb3a31f-d314-4c30-84e6-fd5267c2ddb3. I am from Canada.

11

It seems like removing/installing it again solved it for Kevin.
I suggest you try the same.

12

This just happened on my son’s phone. We got a 700MB data usage spike that caused an alert to be sent out by AT&T as we approached our limit. Investigation showed it to be caused by the Avast Battery Saver. The amazing and disturbing thing is that the phone was in airplane mode when it happened. The app has been removed from the phone until we hear that the bug has been definitely fixed. Hope it is soon, the app has some nice features.

13

I just discovered the same problem after exceeding my data limit on the last day of my billing cycle. I found ABS has used 1.24gb of data in the last month, mostly in the background. I was going to post a screenshot of the data usage but it doesn’t look like that’s possible. [Edit: found the attachment option.]

Let me know if you would like my GUID as well.

14

You can attach a image if you want.

15

3.64 GB of data usage in less than 2 weeks.
I have had to freeze the app, my data is running low.
screen cap https://www.dropbox.com/s/48tebyywvfopruf/Screenshot_2017-07-19-10-29-36.png?dl=0

16

hi, thank you for letting us know and sorry for your inconvenience. Even though we are actively analyzing this issue for a long time and we still have not found any evidence that those enormous data consumptions are caused by Avast apps. We believe users that Android says them information like the on picture RCGators shared with us, but we doubt that amount data was actually consumed by Battery Saver. However we are still on this trying to find a reason, it could be a bug in some component provided by Google.

17

I’m having the same problem. It’s used 2GB of data in just about a week. I thought it was just the ads, but it’s still been doing it. Attached are data usage, Battery Saver about screen, and phone about screen.

18

Avast Battery Saver used 1.90 Gb on our AT&T network and 8.41 Gb over our WiFi over one month. We’ve had Avast installed for quite a while with no issues until today. Can anyone provide an answer for this occurring? Screenshots to follow.

19

I have just experienced this, with about 2.3 gb of data used in the last 3 weeks (1.5gb wifi and 800 mb cellular). Previous months have been 50-100mb in total and the app has been very effective.

I’m UK based but the increased data usage started following a trip to USA and Caribbean, so seemed to coincide with switching to a US or Caribbean carrier. I had data roaming turned off in US and relied on WiFi, but the high data usage showed after returning to UK and re-enabled mobile data. It continued for several weeks before I noticed it. Hope this helps diagnosis of the issue.

Based on other comments in the thread I have deleted and re-installed so will monitor behaviour for a while but hopefully it’s fixed. It’s a great app I rely on!