Very slow download transfer speeds on Android / Google Play store?

[thefairman]

hi, i just got a 2014 Moto X (thanks Cyber Monday!) and have noticed that my DL speeds are very weird at my apartment.

Speedtest says i get ~35 mbps down on LTE (Verizon). however, when i download something in the play store, my rate can be measured in kbps rather than mbps; it took ~7 minutes to download a 43 MB file. however, i went to download a file over Chrome, which was 1.05gb. it took ~5 minutes for that.

WiFi sometimes suffers the same problem, but more often than not, it is ok. I've noticed that these speeds are exclusive to the Play Store, like mentioned previously. if i download outside of the Store, i get "normal" speeds. for reference, my Speedtest says 40/40 down/up when i run it on my phone.

the weirdest thing, however, is when i go to work. i get LTE speeds consistent with 12 mbps both outside AND inside the GP store.

what could possibly be going on? why would my speeds be so bad at my apartment on LTE (when Speedtest says its ok) and sometimes WiFi but fine at work? why is the Google Play store slowing down downloads so much?

as i post this right now, it is taking ~5 minutes to download a 19 mb update over WiFi...and then 25 seconds to download a 13mb update. my old LG G2 downloads are normal, expected speeds all the time.

 

[srkmagnus]

That's odd. I can't think of anything at the moment which would be contributing to this problem. Does this only happen with the Play Store? What about other sites?

 

[thefairman]

only with the Play Store. and only at my apartment (for LTE; have not tested WiFi on another network). when i was at work today, i made it a point to test it and i was downloading stuff from the Store at speeds I would expect.

additionally, i was watching 1080p video at work no problem. here, on my home network i cannot watch 1080p video on the phone. buffering too much. anything related to Google, my speeds are extremely slow. i went to download some large ISOs just to test my speed and downloading from those sites, no problems whatsoever.

edit: i just torrented some files, and it capped out at ~2MB/s on WiFi. on LTE, it is ~1MB/s. that's not exactly how quick it should be going but it is significantly faster than what the GP store gives me

 

[Nick_1020]

only with the Play Store. and only at my apartment (for LTE; have not tested WiFi on another network). when i was at work today, i made it a point to test it and i was downloading stuff from the Store at speeds I would expect.

additionally, i was watching 1080p video at work no problem. here, on my home network i cannot watch 1080p video on the phone. buffering too much. anything related to Google, my speeds are extremely slow. i went to download some large ISOs just to test my speed and downloading from those sites, no problems whatsoever.

edit: i just torrented some files, and it capped out at ~2MB/s on WiFi. on LTE, it is ~1MB/s. that's not exactly how quick it should be going but it is significantly faster than what the GP store gives me

I've been experiencing the same problem at the Store over the past few days. It's going to take me 2 hours to download Lets Golf 3 via wifi. Speedtest records my phone speed as 40 mbps.

Very annoying but I'm hoping it's just a temp glitch.

 

[thefairman]

just to add more to this thread, at work today, where my LTE signal is significantly weaker than at my apartment residence, i was getting perfectly normal speeds. ~12mpbs at work on Speedtest, which translated to the Google Playstore, YouTube, et cetera just fine.

that is the most curious part of all to me.

 

[maxman1]

I had a similar situation once - solid high-speed connection but the Play Store was agonizingly slow. I tried a bunch of stuff to correct it but what worked for me was "forgetting" my WiFi connection and doing a full reset (power cycle) of my modem and router - in that order. Speed & snap instantly returned once re-logged in. I think sometimes the radio can be connected and run some functions fine while others will struggle to get throughput although, linked. Worth a shot - other than the single occurrence it's never happened again. I might add I discovered this by checking the Play Store while on a good 4G connection which was very fast & normal so, I knew it was WiFi related - easy way to test.

 

[Citizen Coyote]

I've never understood why Google Play will sometimes crap out and take forever. It's happened to me on several different devices however, including my Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and the Moto X. It's very random for me, though. Is there something in your apartment that might be causing interference?

 

[thefairman]

this may be the cause for my WiFi connection, but what about the LTE connection? Outside of the Play Store, I get good speeds. but in the Play Store, i get nothing, LTE included.

my work connection is a lot more stable, ironically despite the weaker signal, but even then, it crapped out at the end of the day (could not stream music or download ****).

 

[mosi76]

this may be the cause for my WiFi connection, but what about the LTE connection? Outside of the Play Store, I get good speeds. but in the Play Store, i get nothing, LTE included.

my work connection is a lot more stable, ironically despite the weaker signal, but even then, it crapped out at the end of the day (could not stream music or download ****).

I have to say that I am experiencing the same thing. Today it was taking an incredibly long time to download apps from the Play store or downloading APKs from ApkMirror. I am getting 60Mb/s+ on Speedtest so I know its not a problem with my connection. I had the same painfully slow downloads on LTE and Wifi.

 

[thefairman]

update: again, at work i had no problem with my LTE connection until the end of the day. on all 3 days, my connection seemed to crap out around 4.30pm EST.

i would chalk this up to congestion on Google servers...but it lasts me basically all day after that. additionally, some coworkers told me they were having no problems on the store. Compared to one coworker, who is on Sprint using a Nexus 5, had Speedtest results of 4mbps compared to my 15. a 42 MB file took me 7 minutes to complete and him ~45 seconds.

this leads me to believe something is strangling Google services but i cannot pinpoint what.

 

[rdaex]

update: again, at work i had no problem with my LTE connection until the end of the day. on all 3 days, my connection seemed to crap out around 4.30pm EST.

i would chalk this up to congestion on Google servers...but it lasts me basically all day after that. additionally, some coworkers told me they were having no problems on the store. Compared to one coworker, who is on Sprint using a Nexus 5, had Speedtest results of 4mbps compared to my 15. a 42 MB file took me 7 minutes to complete and him ~45 seconds.

this leads me to believe something is strangling Google services but i cannot pinpoint what.

Logged in to comment.

I've had this issue for a while as well. My progress bar goes in 0.5 or 0.75 Mbps progress. Didn't used to be this way.

I can do anything else on the device, no issues downloading software, files through chrome, netflix, youtube... It ONLY affects play store downloads.. I'm never on wifi, as I have kick *** lte speeds on tmobile. Anyone have any ideas?

Edit: just downloaded 12mb update on my home wifi in about 4 seconds.

Wifi speed test: approx 15 Mbps around 20ms ping
Lte speed test: approx 30mbps with around 50 ping

 

[Ryan Trippett]

Hi, I just bought two nexus 7s and i was seeing the same issue... what I found is that if you don't have the play store open then it downloads fast. As soon as you open it though it slows... I'm thinking it may be a "feature" that allows you to browse the play store quickly while downloading instead of saturating your tablets network connection. So try closing the app ( hit the home button ) and see if that fixes your issue

Ryan

 

[Rishab Nakarmi]

Yeah same prob here too. It used be okay several months back

 

[AdrianFloresF]

Some problem here on Nexus 5. Has anyone found the cause of this problem or a solution?

 

[Shahkar Alvi]

Some problem here on Nexus 5. Has anyone found the cause of this problem or a solution?

Umm i would suggest you to try out some proxies.. I guess that will work.. used to happen this to me in Pakistan and i used some proxy and it got better.

 

[jm101]

Have noticed this too. Has only happened maybe once or twice. Also, it claimed I wasn't logged in a few days ago or so.

 

[fatkudu]

Thanks, that helped a lot with my Nexus 6 which started having problems after the update to Android 5.1

 

[Aritra Chattopadhyay]

hi, i just got a 2014 Moto X (thanks Cyber Monday!) and have noticed that my DL speeds are very weird at my apartment.

Speedtest says i get ~35 mbps down on LTE (Verizon). however, when i download something in the play store, my rate can be measured in kbps rather than mbps; it took ~7 minutes to download a 43 MB file. however, i went to download a file over Chrome, which was 1.05gb. it took ~5 minutes for that.

WiFi sometimes suffers the same problem, but more often than not, it is ok. I've noticed that these speeds are exclusive to the Play Store, like mentioned previously. if i download outside of the Store, i get "normal" speeds. for reference, my Speedtest says 40/40 down/up when i run it on my phone.

the weirdest thing, however, is when i go to work. i get LTE speeds consistent with 12 mbps both outside AND inside the GP store.

what could possibly be going on? why would my speeds be so bad at my apartment on LTE (when Speedtest says its ok) and sometimes WiFi but fine at work? why is the Google Play store slowing down downloads so much?

as i post this right now, it is taking ~5 minutes to download a 19 mb update over WiFi...and then 25 seconds to download a 13mb update. my old LG G2 downloads are normal, expected speeds all the time.

This can be a possible solution, as it worked for me,,
Uninstall updates to Google play and Google play services. Now download latest versions of these apps from the internet(just Google it u should find the required)
Now install Google play then Google play services one by one.
Next reboot, and wala u are ready to rock...
This procedure fixed my LAVA IRIS 504Q, Android version 4.2.1, hope it would work for u too.

 

[Cedric Calinao]

Hey guys i have a same problem inplaystore and the solution . If you do alrdy the *#0011# off and then keep always wifi and then the last step make a new google acc do not sync . And download ahain it works !!

 

[leonblade45]

This occurs when Google Play Store is updating itself. The app, unfortunately, doesn't notify in a nice manner like other apps (no notifications, nothing). Should you try to download apps while the Play Store itself is trying to update, you'll notice bizarre things like not even being able to start the app download, the store is frozen, etc. Just reboot phone and try selecting Play Store again, and you should be good to go. I did it while on wi-fi to ensure fastest possible data speeds, and it worked fine.