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System Services/General is transferring tons of data! Help!

B

botolo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
A few days ago I got a text from my carrier telling me that I used all of my monthly data. I immediately checked and saw that System Services/General had transferred tons of GBs of data.

I started investigating, removing apps, removing access to cellular data to some apps, restarting the iPhone, resetting network settings, but System Services/General was still transferring tons of data, something like 1 GB every 15 minutes.

I brought the iPhone to an Apple Store, they checked it and said everything is fine. They suggested restoring it.

I did a clean restore, not from backup and installed only a few apps. The problem is still here.

I have chatted with Apple Support and I had a Senior Advisor call me and have me do a bunch of nonsense stuff, and the issue is still there. I called them again and now they hung up on me twice.

It's like the iPhone is stuck with transferring tons of data from System Services/General! The iPhone is also always warm and the battery is draining faster than normal. Battery health is 84%.

iPhone 13 Pro Max

iOS 26.6
 
Very odd. Does turning off Mobile Data completely stop it. Everything including iCloud can still work over WiFi.

By “clean restore” do you mean Erase all Content and Settings?….which puts phone back to factory out of box state, but leaves the installed operating system in place.

The most drastic thing you could do is put it in DFU mode, and then wipe the operating system and download and restore a new copy. You could even roll back to iOS 18.

Since “System Services” must be related to the Operating System I would definitely do this…..I am surpised Apple hasn’t suggested this.
 
I know you use iCloud (we all do), but you can't temporarily turn it off just to test?

Well then...

How about putting the phone in Airplane Mode and only using WiFI data? How recent was the update? Do you have your phone set to a metered connection? Do you use cellular data to restore all your apps/data after the restore?
 
My restore was done through the Mac and I did start clean, no restore from previous backup. Yesterday I have been on the phone with a two senior advisors at Apple Support and none of them was able to figure this out. They have now escalated to their engineers and we will see what they say.
 
Hi! I have a similar issue where “Accesibility” and another service are consuming a lot of data from my plan.

I have found a Reddit thread where is stated that removing downloaded languages from Apple Translate can make the trick for reducing this consumption.

I have just done it, but if you want to give it a try 🙂
 
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