A problem with the Audible Android app is causing a huge headache, as a bug seems to be burning up enormous amounts of people’s cell data.
According to a number of comments on the problem, data used by the app has ballooned from mere megabytes to tens of gigabytes, without people changing their habits. Worst of all, there seem to be a few reasons as to why this might be happening.
Bug is using up cell data and causing extra charge headaches
Cell data is mercifully cheap these days, and it’s not hard to find a plan that comfortably supports your needs while not charging the earth. But most of those plans can’t stand up to a rogue app using up gigabytes of data within only a few days.
Users on Reddit are reporting that data used by their Audible app has jumped up massively, jumping to 15GB or above 20GB, despite no changes in common use. Unfortunately, this bug seems to be overriding the option to download on WiFi only, meaning a lot of people are wasting their cell data.
As you might expect, this is causing problems with carriers, as people’s limits are quickly being hit, and extra charges are being levied by carriers — especially galling when none of this is the fault of the users paying the bills.
Audible support has not been particularly helpful, though it has been reaching out on Reddit to seek details on the titles being listened to and the update number being used. At the moment, it appears very much that version 26.19.13 is to blame.
Good E-reader is reporting that a problem with cloud syncing and license verification is to blame, and is causing Audible to redownload multiple titles, one after the other, wasting data. This seems like it could be a likely reason for the problem, though it doesn’t seem to have been confirmed anywhere else.
One user hopes the issue has been fixed for them. They blamed the animated Harry Potter poster on Aubible’s launch screen, claiming that their data use has been back to normal after Audible disabled it.
However, the sheer amount of data being used makes that explanation unlikely. Instead, it’s far more likely that Good E-reader has this right, and there’s some bug causing Audible to redownload already downloaded audiobooks.
Whatever the cause, Audible is aware of the problem, and will hopefully have a fix pushed out soon.
