Windows Phone Excessive Data Use Caused By Built-In Twitter Feature

Microsoft has indeed confirmed that there’s an issue with its built-in Twitter feature and that could result in unexpected data usage. The issue is said to originate from a Twitter back-end change that has caused Windows Phones to re-download the profile images for Twitter contacts frequently. Twitter is currently transitioning its profile pictures from one server to another, and The Verge discovered the data use problem nearly a week ago and reported it to the software giant.

Their device was said to have used over 300MB of mobile data and over 3GB of Wi-Fi data in under a week. All of it consumed by one application, the People Hub. All of it consumed by one application, the People Hub. Apparently, the data drains occur even if the People Hub is not used and a start date for the issue also could not be determined. Users however confirmed even more substantial data drains, of over 500MB, which apparently is an issue for 500MB or 1GB monthly data subscribers.

Microsoft is thankfully working on a fix, but is limited in terms of methods to use for order to address the issue due to it being a backend Twitter change. For now, removing your Twitter account from the Windows Phone will certainly stop the data drainage until Twitter finishes migrating its servers. A quick change has also been implemented by Microsoft to sync the Twitter account once a day in order to reduce the impact.

For those of you who are worried about the issue and still want to use Twitter on your Windows Mobile handsets, the Data Sense application can be of help to track your mobile usage and ensure you don’t pass your data limit.

Thank you The Verge for providing us with this information.