Downloaded Playlist Still Uses Mobile Data

[mbrosius02]

Server Version#: 4.100.1
Player Version#: 9.23.0.1746(80d0211)
Mobile Device: Pixel 7
Android Version: 13

I created a music playlist and I downloaded the playlist on my Pixel 7. I want to play the downloaded music and NOT use mobile data however that is not happening. My mobile provider is Google Fi and it will notify me when I am using an unusually high amount of data and will also let me know the application which is using the most data. I noticed the app which uses the most data is consistently Plex even when I only play my downloaded playlist.

I turned off Wi-Fi on my mobile device and played my playlist and noticed there was no dashboard activity from the Plex server. This is good.

Nex, I used the 3rd Party tool Tautulli and noticed I’m not steaming music. This is also good.

Android has the ability to enable/disable mobile data in the background. I toggled this off and yet Plex is still using mobile data according to Google Fi data.

Next, I turned off mobile Internet so there would be no way Plex could reach out to the server. This worked as expected however, of course, my phone is pretty useless if I can’t use any Internet whatsoever so this isn’t an option.

Based on these tests, I can only surmise the Plex Play for Android will, in fact, play downloaded media without using mobile data as expected but I suspect Plex is reaching out over mobile networks for other purposes which I can’t explain. Plex Players are not accessing my Plex server to stream music but the player must be doing something else.

How do I prevent the Plex Player from using mobile data entirely?
What activity is the Plex Player app doing that is causing it to try to reach out on mobile networks even though I have that option toggled off?

[tom80H]

@mbrosius02

What activity is the Plex Player app doing that is causing it to try to reach out on mobile networks

I suspect what you see is Plex sending updates about what you’re listening/watching to your server. 125 kB certainly isn’t sufficient for any media streaming.

IIRC the option not to use mobile data in the background doesn’t disable data usage in general… just when the app isn’t actively used.

[mbrosius02]

Thanks for answering.

Correct, that small amount of data is negligible.

I just took a new screenshot. Notice the date range is the same as before but the Foreground data jumped to 104MB. The Background data is 146kb

Then I wanted to compare the amount of data Plex is using versus the other apps. You can see it is nearly twice the amount of data as the next app (YouTube) even though I am trying to play downloaded music and I turned off background data collection

So what is Plex Player doing? I have tried clearing the cache and the saved data. Then I need to download the playlist again but this keeps happening. I’ve tried uninstalling Plex Player but again, nothing changes. Is this an issue with Plex Player on Android? I would expect Plex to use zero (or near zero) mobile data since I’m playing music from a downloaded playlist and that is simply not the case.

[mbrosius02]

Can anyone from the Plex team provide some details to this issue?