Unexpectedly large bandwidth usage

placebo · 4 Jun 2004, 07:17 AM

My mother uses a free FastMail account, and she received a warning message on May 30 saying she had transferred around 11 MB in an hour. She uses her ISP's SMTP server, so the 11 MB would have had to have been used receiving mail. Yet I have found no large messages in any of her mail folders or on her computer. I checked her current month's bandwidth use, and it shows she allegedly used 8 MB on June 1. Again, there is no evidence of messages to account for this number. What would account for these numbers and the lack of messages to explain them? Or is something screwy going on with FastMail's bandwidth monitoring? Has anyone else had similar experiences lately?

jhs · 4 Jun 2004, 11:47 PM

Is this with Thunderbird? Check http://www.emaildiscussions.com/...threadid=21714

placebo · 5 Jun 2004, 06:18 AM

Thanks for the reply. My mother has been using Mail running under Mac OS X for the last few years, and we've never run into this situation before. We've only seen this spike in usage reported on the those two days.

Perhaps it's just an FM glitch, as mentioned in the thread you referred to.

kurianja · 7 Jun 2004, 01:34 AM

Placebo: I've seen this problem occasionally with a few clients.. One of these clients is a Mac client, not sure which one exactly it is.Probably Mail.app... When I check the bandwidth logs, I usually see quite a few repeating entries, which I think is caused by the client somehow getting confused and repeatedly downloading the already downloaded messgaes.

Ah. Another reason. If you have rules that silently ignores messages, you won't see the messages, but your bandwidth might show an unexplained increase. Though I feel this is not applicable in your case.

cgramer · 7 Jun 2004, 01:37 PM

I had a very strange bandwidth problem over the weekend as well, with my bandwidth usage supposedly soaring from about 4 MB up to 218 MB in one day. I had downloaded a few attachments totalling 4-5 MB, and I figure the processing involved may have doubled that, but nothing like 218 MB!

As for my rules silently ignoring messages, I've had those rules in place "forever" and never even went over about 40-50% bandwidth usage (of my 80 MB limit) by the end of the month.

Today, my bandwidth usage went back down to 1% (in my panic, I had purchased an additional 250 MB of bandwidth) at 4.9 MB, which sounds about right, and this leads me to conclude there must have been a glitch somewhere. Bandwidth *never* goes down.

Hopefully all is well!

cgramer · 7 Jun 2004, 02:33 PM

Ooooookay, now my bandwidth is right back to where it was, at 218 MB for the month. I've turned off all of my "silent" filters earlier in the evening and have only received 4-5 spam messages, each about 2 or 3K. Kurian said it appeared I belonged to some "high volume lists," but just like my silent filters, I've belonged to them for a long time and never went over 50% usage by the end of the month. And I haven't received many messages at all in those lists over the past day or so. So what gives?

And why did my bandwidth go down to 1%, then back up to 66%? Something's screwy over at FastMail.

LrdVader · 7 Jun 2004, 02:36 PM

Yeah, I've noticed some bandwidth screwiness the first few days of the month for the last couple months. It seems to straighten itself out, though, and in my case it's usually showing less, rather than more, than what it should be. *shrugs*

kurianja · 7 Jun 2004, 05:16 PM

I think the sudden wild changes happen at the time when daily bandwidth is calculated and when bandwidth is reset at the start of the month.. After it settles down, I think it generally shows the correct reading.. But then, I have never monitored my bw usage!

LrdVader · 7 Jun 2004, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kurianja
I think the sudden wild changes happen at the time when daily bandwidth is calculated and when bandwidth is reset at the start of the month.. After it settles down, I think it generally shows the correct reading.. But then, I have never monitored my bw usage!

Yeah, I suspect your right. Most of the weirdness I see happens during the midnight-1 am hour, NY time.

4 Jun 2004, 07:17 AM	#1
placebo Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 743	Unexpectedly large bandwidth usage My mother uses a free FastMail account, and she received a warning message on May 30 saying she had transferred around 11 MB in an hour. She uses her ISP's SMTP server, so the 11 MB would have had to have been used receiving mail. Yet I have found no large messages in any of her mail folders or on her computer. I checked her current month's bandwidth use, and it shows she allegedly used 8 MB on June 1. Again, there is no evidence of messages to account for this number. What would account for these numbers and the lack of messages to explain them? Or is something screwy going on with FastMail's bandwidth monitoring? Has anyone else had similar experiences lately?

4 Jun 2004, 11:47 PM	#2
jhs Essential Contributor Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Zurich, Switzerland Posts: 350	Re: Unexpectedly large bandwidth usage Is this with Thunderbird? Check http://www.emaildiscussions.com/...threadid=21714

5 Jun 2004, 06:18 AM	#3
placebo Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 743	Thanks for the reply. My mother has been using Mail running under Mac OS X for the last few years, and we've never run into this situation before. We've only seen this spike in usage reported on the those two days. Perhaps it's just an FM glitch, as mentioned in the thread you referred to. Last edited by placebo : 5 Jun 2004 at 06:29 AM.

7 Jun 2004, 01:37 PM	#5
cgramer Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Arlington, Virginia (USA) Posts: 6	Bandwidth strangeness I had a very strange bandwidth problem over the weekend as well, with my bandwidth usage supposedly soaring from about 4 MB up to 218 MB in one day. I had downloaded a few attachments totalling 4-5 MB, and I figure the processing involved may have doubled that, but nothing like 218 MB! As for my rules silently ignoring messages, I've had those rules in place "forever" and never even went over about 40-50% bandwidth usage (of my 80 MB limit) by the end of the month. Today, my bandwidth usage went back down to 1% (in my panic, I had purchased an additional 250 MB of bandwidth) at 4.9 MB, which sounds about right, and this leads me to conclude there must have been a glitch somewhere. Bandwidth never goes down. Hopefully all is well!

7 Jun 2004, 02:33 PM	#6
cgramer Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Arlington, Virginia (USA) Posts: 6	More bandwidth strangeness Ooooookay, now my bandwidth is right back to where it was, at 218 MB for the month. I've turned off all of my "silent" filters earlier in the evening and have only received 4-5 spam messages, each about 2 or 3K. Kurian said it appeared I belonged to some "high volume lists," but just like my silent filters, I've belonged to them for a long time and never went over 50% usage by the end of the month. And I haven't received many messages at all in those lists over the past day or so. So what gives? And why did my bandwidth go down to 1%, then back up to 66%? Something's screwy over at FastMail.

7 Jun 2004, 01:34 AM	#4
kurianja Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 1,395 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	Placebo: I've seen this problem occasionally with a few clients.. One of these clients is a Mac client, not sure which one exactly it is.Probably Mail.app... When I check the bandwidth logs, I usually see quite a few repeating entries, which I think is caused by the client somehow getting confused and repeatedly downloading the already downloaded messgaes. Ah. Another reason. If you have rules that silently ignores messages, you won't see the messages, but your bandwidth might show an unexplained increase. Though I feel this is not applicable in your case.

7 Jun 2004, 02:36 PM	#7
LrdVader The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: USA Posts: 2,550	Re: More bandwidth strangeness Yeah, I've noticed some bandwidth screwiness the first few days of the month for the last couple months. It seems to straighten itself out, though, and in my case it's usually showing less, rather than more, than what it should be. shrugs

7 Jun 2004, 05:16 PM	#8
kurianja Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 1,395 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	I think the sudden wild changes happen at the time when daily bandwidth is calculated and when bandwidth is reset at the start of the month.. After it settles down, I think it generally shows the correct reading.. But then, I have never monitored my bw usage!