Unusually high data usage megathread

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They all said that they could see my modem had been restarting 20 times a day

 Hay now.  This part is interesting!!

OK, so it's not an xFi or Xfinity cable modem/router.  Perhaps a Netgear of some kind -- Genie/Nighthawk something along those lines?  Got it where you can see it?  Is the Green LED with the Down Arrow blinking from time to time??  Keep an eye out.  That's the modem losing the signal lock timing.  Turn on all logging on the router.  Associated log message will be something like:

SYNC Timing Synchronization failures --->>  Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=YO:UR:xx:MA:C:xx;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Your MAC to a zero or unknown MAC address -- meaning, it couldn't find anything to talk to and sync the signal.

In the Basic --> Cable Connection tab, are there a bunch of correctable and perhaps thousands of uncorrectable packets on the Bonded Channels?  Should be 8 channels.   200+ uncorrectables isn't awful, but thousands and thousands are. 

If that's the case, I'd be looking for a bad cable connection.  Not sure why it would flip out the data counter, but it's not right.

The other thing that will tip your modem over is overheating from massive inbound traffic.  Your modem will heat up, then watchdog and reboot/restart on its own.  Look at the logs and look for [Firewall Up].  That's your restarts. 

It's why I'm looking at this in the first place.  Are the counters at Xfinity.....counting real data?  Maybe.  I don't have an answer yet.

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@FlickNFreckles wrote:

Comcast customer service has already admitted to me, and to others that there is a issue on their end.

 

Yes it seems to only be affecting certain costomers, but there isn't any "maybe" anymore.

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We shall see if they admit it when they call (like they said they were going to tonight). I bet they won't call, though, becasue they are incompetent liars. This happened to me before, I had a tech take my number and tell me I will call you at this time. Then they never did, I spend 2 hours on hold to have another tech say that in no way, shape or form will another tech call you back, ever. Now, the tech I spoke with last night did the same thing. Promised me a call tonight to see how it has been, because she knew my frustration. If she calls I will be surprised. 

Another thing to consider is that at the TCP/IP level, errors or drops are corrected by resending the whole packet.  So if some device on a bad wifi connection is doing an update it could result in much more data being sent than you'd expect because of the retries.    Still,  a TB is a lot of retries...

Comcast customer service has already admitted to me, and to others that there is a issue on their end.

Yes it seems to only be affecting certain costomers, but there isn't any "maybe" anymore.

WEll, comcast HAS admitted and YES, it is perfectly acceptable to "point the finger" at comacast when tons of customers are having the exact same issue that started happenig at the same time. But thanks for tryiing to stick up for an issue that clearly could only be from the ISP. Me, and 50 other people wouldn't be having this same issue by coinsidence. 

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@flatlander3 wrote:

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They all said that they could see my modem had been restarting 20 times a day

 Hay now.  This part is interesting!!

 

OK, so it's not an xFi or Xfinity cable modem/router.  Perhaps a Netgear of some kind -- Genie/Nighthawk something along those lines?  Got it where you can see it?  Is the Green LED with the Down Arrow blinking from time to time??  Keep an eye out.  That's the modem losing the signal lock timing.  Turn on all logging on the router.  Associated log message will be something like:

 

SYNC Timing Synchronization failures --->>  Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=YO:UR:xx:MA:C:xx;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

 

Your MAC to a zero or unknown MAC address -- meaning, it couldn't find anything to talk to and sync the signal.

 

In the Basic --> Cable Connection tab, are there a bunch of correctable and perhaps thousands of uncorrectable packets on the Bonded Channels?  Should be 8 channels.   200+ uncorrectables isn't awful, but thousands and thousands are. 

 

If that's the case, I'd be looking for a bad cable connection.  Not sure why it would flip out the data counter, but it's not right.

 

The other thing that will tip your modem over is overheating from massive inbound traffic.  Your modem will heat up, then watchdog and reboot/restart on its own.  Look at the logs and look for [Firewall Up].  That's your restarts. 

 

It's why I'm looking at this in the first place.  Are the counters at Xfinity.....counting real data?  Maybe.  I don't have an answer yet.

 

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I am at work not, but yes I have a nighthawk R7000 Netgear. I have, and have alwyas had Geanie on my desktop. I use a wifi adapter, too because the card I had in my dell stinks. 

I am at work and will try this when I get home. I just don't think it is this, though, since all of the other people are not also using third party routers. I just use the modem as a gateway and have that going to my netgear. Always have. All of my cable are new, too, but I have others I can try. I just cannot imagine it is my router, when so many other people are seeing the same thing.  I will try wnen I oam off,m but what you explained didn't seem easy to follow, after looking for a green light. 

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@flatlander3 wrote:

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Got a Netgear customer owned cable router?  So as it turns out, there's something called "ReadyShare" that's supposed to allow you to be able to stuff a USB stick in the router and share content -- Even over the internet.  It's on by default.  It's horrifying.  Yep, it's running ftp, 80-web internally, and 443 externally.  It will be intercepting traffic before you can even see it with Glasswire.  

I actually did have a Netgear router (R7000P) at one time, and I retired it in favor of my current ASUS RT-AC88U. I've never used ReadyShare, and frankly, that's a really awful security issue you've described.  Thanks for the heads up. 

@ComcastJessie 

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@ComcastJessie wrote:

@coles1,

 

We sincerely apologize for the confusion. The mega thread you are discussing is in reference to a proactive post I authored more than 3 years ago informing our customers about our Terabyte Data Usage Plans. Since the original post, many new posts were being merged there that were discussing individual concerns about data overages. While we can certainly understand customer's desire to communicate about this issue with other users, it can make it extremely difficult for our care teams to provide assistance to customers reporting needing assistance with their accounts and their individual data usage.

 

Since data usage is so specialized to an individual's online habits it simply does not make sense to allow speculation or the concern that one customer's data usage habits can be the same as any other customer. 

 

If you would like specifics with your account data usage, our CSA department can provide some additional insights into how data is being accounted for on your account. You can contact them directly at 1-877-807-6581 from 6:00 AM - 2:00 AM ET, 7 days a week. 

 

**UPDATE 10/1/2019**

 

We sincerely appreciate all the comments. As of today, October 1st, 2019, the data meter tool is working as designed. If there is an update to this or additional information to share we will be sure to update this message and the marked Best Answer on the mega thread mentioned in the original post. 

 

We ask that if you have individual concerns about your account's data usage and are in need of employee assistance, please author a new post here: https://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Your-Home-Network/bd-p/YHN

So our team can better assist your individual needs. 

 

 

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I spent over an hour on the phone last night, those people are clueless and just reading off a script.  My family consistently uses between 500 and 800 gigs per month.  Somehow, last month, September, we used over 1200 gigs.  I was watching our data usage closely on the Xfi app and I limit when certain devices can and cannot connect to my Wifi.  I woke up on 9/1/2019 at 9am and somehow had 21 gigs of data already charged to my account.  Ok, let's give Xfinity the benefit of doubt and say that was from the previous day, Sunday.  By 8PM, my data usage had gone up to 63 gigs!  By 9 am on 9/2, our data usage had gone up to 100 gigs!  In a 24 hour period, we supposedly used 80 gigs of data, when we normally use 25 to 30?  Using Xfinity's own data estimator tool, that would mean we watched 10 hours of 4k video,  or 80 hours of HD video.  We watched NO 4k video in the last 72 hours.  Somehow, Xfinity thinks we watched 80 hours of HD tv in 24 hours.

75% of our use is from Roku devices.  In the last 72 hours, only one has been used at a time, no dual streaming.  Our laptops and phone show very little data usage.   There are no unknown devices connected to my wifi or router.  This is an issue with how our data is being calculated.   

Data Usage Spike

There is no way the data usage calculator is working properly, as support staff here wants to claim.  Clearly, tons of people are having an issue, myself included.  

I spent over an hour on the phone last night with the data use security people, they are clueless and just reading off a script.  My family consistently uses between 500 and 800 gigs per month.  Somehow, last month, September, we used over 1200 gigs.  I was watching our data usage closely on the Xfi app and I limit when certain devices can and cannot connect to my Wifi.  I woke up on 9/1/2019 at 9am and somehow had 21 gigs of data already charged to my account.  Ok, let's give Xfinity the benefit of doubt and say that was from the previous day, Sunday.  By 8PM, my data usage had gone up to 63 gigs!  By 9 am on 9/2, our data usage had gone up to 100 gigs!  In a 24 hour period, we supposedly used 80 gigs of data, when we normally use 25 to 30?  Using Xfinity's own data estimator tool, that would mean we watched 10 hours of 4k video,  or 80 hours of HD video.  We watched NO 4k video in the last 72 hours.  Somehow, Xfinity thinks we watched 80 hours of HD tv in 24 hours.

75% of our use is from Roku devices.  In the last 72 hours, only one has been used at a time, no dual streaming.  Our laptops and phone show very little data usage.   There are no unknown devices connected to my wifi or router.  This is an issue with how our data is being calculated.   It's FRAUD!

I agree, totally. Just stopped home for a minute, not enough to do much but look since I was logged in. I used 64GB in 2 days. I disconnected my router from the modem totally and want to see when I get home if it stayed. In any case, this is a real issue, and I highly dount we are all in the same area lol 

Keep in mind that Xfinity says on their meter "Data used in the last 24 hours may not be displayed", so if you turn your modem off for a few hours, and the number went up, then that's what they're going to tell you.  Now if you turn it off for more than 24 hours, then check the meter for a baseline of data usage, then leave it off again for more than another 24 hours, and it still kept going up, then that would be much more interesting!

A lot of people are reporting this issue - but by no means all  of comcast's customers - so it is probably some sort of error in their system.   If enough people report it perhaps they will figure out what they have in common and fix it.

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@strega7 wrote:

Keep in mind that Xfinity says on their meter "Data used in the last 24 hours may not be displayed", so if you turn your modem off for a few hours, and the number went up, then that's what they're going to tell you.  Now if you turn it off for more than 24 hours, then check the meter for a baseline of data usage, then leave it off again for more than another 24 hours, and it still kept going up, then that would be much more interesting!

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I get that it can take 24 hours for data usage to show up.  However, that still doesn't explain how I supposedly used 84 gigs over 30 hours, which is almost 4 times my normal usage for that day and the previous day. 

Even this summer, when my kids were home all day watching tv all day, we never exceeded our data cap.  We consistently average 25 to 30 gigs per day.  However, that average takes Saturdays into account, when we watch at least one, and sometimes 2 4k HDR movies.  So those Saturdays are brining up our average.  There is NO WAY we used 80 gigs of data over a 30 hour period when we watched ZERO 4k movies and our total use of HD movies was only 8 hours.  XFI says 75 percent of our data use came from the Rokus.  HD movies don't use that much data!