I have two RoPieee installs, one with a Pi4 using a Burson amp that works flawlessly. The second is a Pi3 using a HifiBerry HAT and after receiving notifications from Xfinity that I have blown through my monthly data using in a matter of days, I traced it to the Pi using the HAT. We are talking > 1TB of downloads in a matter of a couple hours. This was months ago, (I tried multiple updates, etc. etc.). Today, I re-downloaded the latest stable version, flashed, set up, etc. and literally within a couple of hours, >800GB of downloads measured by my router.
Any idea at all what is going on? I see no other similar reports. I have to leave it unplugged just to prevent hitting my monthly data cap from Xfinity. I really don’t want to abandon it but DAMN that’s a bit extreme.
Thoughts anyone?!?
@Kent_Miller, welcome to the community and sorry to hear about your bandwidth issues. Just a fellow user here, but not sure if the Pi3 can consume that much bandwidth in such a short amount of time.
Is the Pi3 using a wireless or Ethernet connection? The Ethernet port is limited to 100 Mbps speeds, so the Pi3 would have to use the entire port’s full bandwidth without any interruption to approach the 800 GB in two hours, a consumption that Comcast would probably recognize and flag immediately as abnormal. A WiFi connection would be in the simliar or smaller consumption range and most likely would be noticeable as it could impact your overall wireless network performance.
That said, if your home network is consuming close to a terabyte of data in a short period of time (certainly less than a month). you may have a few things in play. One is that someone may be using your network without your permission. Are you able to confirm all devices on your network are yours and yours alone? If so, it may worth it to contact Comcast and confirm your home is provisioned correctly and not shared with another account nearby.
A second consideration is that you may have a botnet somewhere in your home on another device; I mention another device because if your reflashed the Pi3, there is a smaller likelihood that it is part of the botnet. That said, the software you used to flash it, or the flashed software itself, may have been compromised.
If you take the Pi3 off the network, does your consumption return to normal levels?
Thanks for the reply. It’s 100% isolated to the Pi. It doesn’t seem feasible to me either but the Google Wi-Fi stats prove it out. If I turn it off, everything is fine. I have been using the same hardware for all other devices (wired where possible, both pi boxes are wired) and have never seen this. In a nutshell when it’s on it goes nuts, when it’s off (or even paused via the google router) it’s fine. I’m inclined to scrap it and use something else just due to the risk of the insane xfinity overage fees. Attached is the usage stats from the router showing this. Every other device is spot on in regards to usage reporting.
Something definitely is up with the Pi3. When my kids were still living at home, we never approached more than 600 GB per month on a fiber connection and lots of streaming. To do that in an hour is extremely suspicious and frankly incredible. I agree, disable or scrap it and look for an alternative.
It may be worth asking @spockfish, Ropieee’s author, if he has seen any behavior like this in the past.
I’m totally in for whatever to help with getting to the bottom of things. Roon and RoPieee are fantastic and if I can help contribute to the community I’m happy to. To me it’s incredible as well but 100% repeatable. I’m assuming there is something at an OS level in logs or something to at least point to where the problem could be. If Comcast wasn’t echoing the same usage stats I would say the google Wi-Fi was out of its mind.
@spockfish I did a “send feedback” on the Pi3 (c82eae462103e46a) I also sent feedback on the Pi4 (forgot to note the ID).
Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist in diagnosing if this is something more than an isolated situation, but considering it’s multiple versions freshly flashed on an micro-SD card, it seems odd. I’m using balenaEtcher which I have used for a long time (including Ropieee on the Pi4) with no issues.
Just curious, that your screenshot doesn’t also show any significant current rate.
Does that mean that, after starting, it consumes massive amounts with the highest possible rate, then stops doing that and behaves as normal?
Is there a chance you could replicate that and take a screenshot while it’s happening?
A few months ago, I got very close to 1TB usage. I used to have the Google mesh WiFi back then and it was showing a large amount of data used by my desktop. I checked the usage on that computer (Win11) and it wasn’t even close to Google’s figure, so I’m a bit suspicious of the accuracy of Google’s report. I wonder if it includes data transferred within the LAN, as I regularly back up my files to my “NAS”.
How about Google’s upload/download numbers for the internet, instead of the connected device? Under the Internet Speed tab, scroll down to Data Usage. Does it show download numbers close to 1 TB on certain days?
After I saw it, repeating the same behavior, I pulled the plug very quickly. In the past several months ago, yes, it does keep doing the same thing to the point where each day it’s greater than a terabyte of download. I realize none of this makes any sense, but if Comcast wasn’t complaining and it was just the Google mesh network showing ridiculous numbers And I would tend to believe it’s just erroneous data.
Here’s a screenshot of the last two times I had it turned on. As you can see the dramatic spike, and I only had it on for an hour or two at the most. The time it first happened was many months ago, which is long since scrolled off the usage chart. Both times I checked my data usage with Verizon, and it echoed the same thing. Clearly it doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, repeating it for the sake of testing will max out my data cap for the month. I’m not ready to shell out another 30 bucks a month to Xfinity for their “unlimited data“ yet.
I hear you - I’d be cautious as well, if I were you…
At this point the Pi3 is getting shelved. I’m just curious for the sake of what the hell is going on. 1+1 <> 10 but it’s saying it does.