Forum Discussion

ozPJ's avatar
ozPJ
New Contributor
3 years ago

High data usage, and weird behavior

I'm on Gigablast with an additional 500Gb of data so my monthly cap is 1780Gb

Computer is an iMac Retina 5K, running Monterey 12.0.1

After adding the additional 500Gb, I still went close to the new cap most months

I have an ASUS RT-AC3200 router that has some reasonably good traffic analysis tools on it.

Last month I went over my 1780 cap, so I looked into the stats from the router

I found that there was a huge amount of data downloaded from MTV.COM (over 100Gb in a month), even though I have the URL blacklisted at the router level.  I noticed MTV downloads running constantly as well as SSL/TLS downloads overnight when no one was using the computer.  

https://imgur.com/cLmdKmk

I know there can be some data overnight as devices update etc..  However all of this data was from one computer that no one was using.  I shut it down and restarted and the downloads stopped for a period of time, but then restarted.  I then tried just shutting down Chrome, and the downloads also stopped.  Since having Chrome shut down, I haven't seen any MTV.com downloads at all

https://imgur.com/kA7XbaO

I look in Chrome and don't see any history of MTV.COM at all.  So I assume it is some spyware or similar.  I googled and couldn't find anything.

Anyone else seen anything like this?

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III
    3 years ago

    100 GB in a month isn't very much per day...about 3.33 GB per day.  This wouldn't be HD content, unless it's only downloading 2 hours per day.

    Have you changed your network encryption key?

  • CrystalS's avatar
    CrystalS
    Former Moderator
    3 years ago
    Hi @ozPJ,

    I am so very sorry to learn of your data troubles and I'd like to help. You have to take into consideration that no matter what is done on your Mac because it is 5K, it will use more data than any other device with a lower definition. Also, I have included two links that I can think will assist you in educating yourself on how we do data caps.

    www.cox.com/.../data-usage.html -learn about data

    www.cox.com/.../understanding-data-usage.html -understanding data

    Crystal S.
    Cox Support Forum Moderator
  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III
    3 years ago

    Have you previously Chromecasted MTV from the Mac to a TV?  Although idle with Chrome launched, Chromecast could be enabled, downloading but not broadcasting.

    • ozPJ's avatar
      ozPJ
      New Contributor
      3 years ago

      No haven't accessed MTV.com ever.  And I also now have it blacklisted at the router.  That is the key to this.  No one has accessed MTV.com from this computer, yet it was downloading continuously according to router logs.

      • Bruce's avatar
        Bruce
        Honored Contributor III
        3 years ago

        Any MTV-like apps come bundled with the Mac?  I'd launch Activity Monitor and Chrome then keep an eye on which process is consuming the most resources.