[AccessD] A sad tale of wifi hotspot interference

John Colby jwcolby at gmail.com
Sun Oct 2 08:40:01 CDT 2022 

LOL, really.  Or someone just set up the scheduler wrong.  But yea, 5 times
a day.  Only one app did that but MANY did it every day.  MANY did it every
login.  Several did it "when idle".  What does that even mean?  It doesn't
sound good to me!!!  How often does an "When Idle" event occur?

And GMail appears to be sending data every time I type.  That could sure
chew up data.

I used to use Thunderbird.  I might have to go back to it.

On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 9:23 AM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Wow, five times a day? That suggests that the programmer(s) of said
> software are not all that confident in their latest build. 😀
>
> On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 9:13 AM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Not the point my friend.  The point is that I had to find them as
> > problems.  And most of them I actually use, absent Edge and OneDrive.
> >
> > I found an article pointing to the scheduler, and from there I started
> > looking at what all the tasks were, at which point I discovered that
> dozens
> > of things are pinging servers to check for updates.  I mean it is obvious
> > that they would (once I thought about that subject). What was not obvious
> > is that they would ping them so often.
> >
> > But how often are they pinging, and how do I change the frequency.  The
> > answer to that was the scheduler.  All the jobs to cause the server
> checks
> > are right there in one place.  Dozens and dozens of scheduled jobs which
> > check for updates.
> >
> > From there I had to decide if checking every time I log in is insane,
> what
> > would be a sane frequency?  And some of these things have many tasks
> which
> > do the exact same thing.  Check in every time I log in.  Oh yea and every
> > day.  And when the computer is idle.  And every day of the week?  Some
> were
> > even 4 or five times a day!!!  REALLY?
> >
> > So I had to just go through these scheduled tasks and do a major culling
> of
> > them.
> >
> > So the point is that most of these things are actually useful and
> > occasionally used, but checking for updates 5 times a day is insane.  And
> > yes, I found one doing that.
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 7:27 AM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Dear John,
> > > (Golly, I never thought I'd write a Dear John letter in my life, but
> when
> > > you're 75 you'll never know what'll happen next.
> > > Why don't you simply remove these bothersome pieces of software? It's
> not
> > > difficult.
> > >
> > > On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 7:00 AM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Wow, just wow!!!  Things are never as simple as we expect.  Much more
> > > > startup data usage.  Tracked down a TON MORE, which are startup tasks
> > for
> > > > everything that runs.  Pretty much every app that wants to update
> > itself
> > > > sets a startup task.  Many of which run every day, every login, or
> even
> > > > whenever the computer is idle.  Google, Firefox, Edge, VS CODE,
> > DropBox,
> > > > OneDrive, Office etc etc ad nauseum.  All of these going out to check
> > if
> > > > they have any updates.  These are scheduled tasks, the task created
> by
> > > the
> > > > installer (or Windows if it is a windows app).  It's no damned wonder
> > > there
> > > > is a 10 minute burst of activity on my WAN connection every time I
> log
> > > in.
> > > > Which is my hotspot when I'm on the road.
> > > >
> > > > This activity is (at least when throttled?) about 600kbit/second,
> which
> > > > translates to about 4.5 mbyte / minute.  Which goes on for a loooong
> > > time.
> > > >
> > > > Office for example checks every time I log on.  On a day to day
> basis I
> > > may
> > > > not even use Office.  but hey, it is checking.  I NEVER use Edge.
> But
> > > hey,
> > > > it is (was) checking.  I NEVER use OneDrive, but hey, it WAS
> checking.
> > > In
> > > > truth, over a wired internet I never cared.  But over my hotspot,
> which
> > > is
> > > > my norm now, I very much care.  We shall see how much of a dent I
> have
> > > made
> > > > in my hotspot usage.  As I mentioned previously, I was hitting my 15
> gb
> > > cap
> > > > midway through my billing month.  All so Google etc could make sure
> it
> > > had
> > > > the latest updates 10 times a day.
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Oct 1, 2022 at 1:34 AM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > As some of you may know, I use my phone's wifi hotspot a lot.  I
> have
> > > > > Verizon and each line (phone) gets 15gb of data before being
> severely
> > > > > throttled, as in ~800kbit / second down.  Understand that my phone
> > > itself
> > > > > is not throttled, I have unlimited data directly on the phone.
> Once
> > > > > throttled, just opening anything in the browser on the computer
> > becomes
> > > > > excruciatingly slow.
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't watch youtube or other videos on my computer, doing so on
> my
> > > > > phone, exactly because of the above facts.
> > > > >
> > > > > For two months running, I was hit with wifi hotspot throttling
> about
> > > mid
> > > > > (billing) month.  WTF over?  I went on a quest to figure out why.
> > > Using
> > > > > task manager, and from inside of there using resource manager I
> > > > discovered
> > > > > that in any browser, videos often start playing as soon as I open
> > many
> > > > > different web sites.  Usually these are advertisements, though not
> > > > always -
> > > > > I browse a lot of news sites and they want to feed me video to go
> > along
> > > > > with the text.  I use mostly Firefox and so I figured out how to
> turn
> > > off
> > > > > automatic launching of video.  That helped immensely, but did not
> > > > entirely
> > > > > fix the problem.
> > > > >
> > > > > Believe it or not, Dropbox was a major contributor to the problem.
> > The
> > > > > updater (for updating dropbox itself, not the files stored in
> > dropbox)
> > > > is a
> > > > > data consuming pig.  According to folks on the dropbox forum, since
> > > 2016
> > > > > (at least) people have been complaining about this, without any
> > > > meaningful
> > > > > response to the complaints, other than "you agreed in the EULA to
> let
> > > us
> > > > > update dropbox anytime and as much as we want."
> > > > >
> > > > > According to some folks, the updater.exe can consume hundreds of
> > > > megabytes
> > > > > a day.  I can't personally validate that claim but I will say I see
> > > > dropbox
> > > > > consuming hundreds of megabits / second essentially non-stop for
> long
> > > > > periods, so I have no reason to doubt that it adds up to a number
> > like
> > > > that.
> > > > >
> > > > > Dropbox simply refuses to add any "manual update" option.  I can
> turn
> > > off
> > > > > the services and set them to manual, but the updater.exe still
> runs,
> > > even
> > > > > though it is not visible in the startup stuff in task manager.  The
> > > only
> > > > > way to disable it is to close it in task manager, then rename the
> > exe.
> > > > > Reboot and... all is now quiet on my hotspot WAN.
> > > > >
> > > > > My Verizon billing cycle starts around the second and so I will
> get a
> > > > > fresh 15gb of data.  It will be interesting to see if these
> measures
> > > > solve
> > > > > my problems.  I will say that before this investigation I had a
> > > non-stop
> > > > > 600 kbit / second of wireless data traffic, and now I have zero
> > > > > continuous.
> > > > >
> > > > > Oddly, even editing a message like this in GMail causes continuous
> > > spikes
> > > > > of data, probably due to constant crap that gmail does as I write
> an
> > > > > email.  Stop typing and the data spikes stop.
> > > > >
> > > > > I used to think that 15gb was a lot.  Not any more.  I now open
> task
> > > > > manager and keep an eye on the wan usage while on my hotspot.
> > > Throttling
> > > > > is a royal PITA.  If there is no constant data being used by one of
> > > these
> > > > > data hogs, then ordinary browsing is easy and fast.  Not so much
> when
> > > > some
> > > > > app is grabbing 600k of my (throttled) 800kbps.
> > > > >
> > > > > If any of you have run into this and have other helpful suggestions
> > > > please
> > > > > do chime in.
> > > > > --
> > > > > John W. Colby
> > > > > Colby Consulting
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > John W. Colby
> > > > Colby Consulting
> > > > --
> > > > AccessD mailing list
> > > > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> > > > https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> > > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Arthur
> > > --
> > > AccessD mailing list
> > > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> > > https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > John W. Colby
> > Colby Consulting
> > --
> > AccessD mailing list
> > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> > https://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >
>
>
> --
> Arthur
> --
> AccessD mailing list
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>


-- 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

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