5.3 keeps turning mobile data on

[WarrenJB]

I just bought a Nokia 5.3. It seems to be working fine, except for two things: I have to drag the thing out of my pocket and swipe, to turn an alarm off; and the more pressing problem - my mobile data keeps turning itself on.

I like to keep it off except for occasional use, but something keeps turning it on. I've fiddled with sync settings, notifications, data saving, even the google assistant button. The phone still turns mobile data on without my knowledge or permission and, strangely, only when it's in my pocket or the glove compartment of a moving car. Sitting to one side on a table, it's as good as gold.

Any explanations or hints, anyone?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Check your Developer Options and see if there's an option for Cellular Data Always Active. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/every-android-user-tweak-developer-options/

 

[WarrenJB]

Blimey.

Okay, I've found that switch and turned it off. I'll see if that fixes things. Thanks!

 

[Fintimlinbin]

I'd love to know what, if anything, you discovered about your mobile data turning on issue.
I've had (and still have) what sounds like the same annoying problem with my Nokia 6.2.

Nokia / HMD tech support were pretty hopeless in resolving they issue. They weren't interested in understanding the cause of the problem, they just checked that I have all potentially related mobile data settings set to something that should limit or prevent mobile data automatically turning on, which I do (and which didn't resolve the problem), and after that, they just wanted to flail at possible workarounds and hope the problem goes away; things like doing factory resets, removing all apps, using different phone SIMs, and eventually just giving up, saying to reduce mobile data use with a firewall app.... which is what I'm left with at the moment.

So now, I have to travel around with aeroplane mode switched on if I want to guarantee mobile data wont turn on.

I kind of gave up on ever understanding and fixing this problem and swore never to get another nokia again, but stumbling upon this thread made me wonder if others have figure out what's causing this and how it's truly fixed (as opposed to marginally supressed, as I have it now).

 

[B. Diddy]

I'd love to know what, if anything, you discovered about your mobile data turning on issue.
I've had (and still have) what sounds like the same annoying problem with my Nokia 6.2.

Nokia / HMD tech support were pretty hopeless in resolving they issue. They weren't interested in understanding the cause of the problem, they just checked that I have all potentially related mobile data settings set to something that should limit or prevent mobile data automatically turning on, which I do (and which didn't resolve the problem), and after that, they just wanted to flail at possible workarounds and hope the problem goes away; things like doing factory resets, removing all apps, using different phone SIMs, and eventually just giving up, saying to reduce mobile data use with a firewall app.... which is what I'm left with at the moment.

So now, I have to travel around with aeroplane mode switched on if I want to guarantee mobile data wont turn on.

I kind of gave up on ever understanding and fixing this problem and swore never to get another nokia again, but stumbling upon this thread made me wonder if others have figure out what's causing this and how it's truly fixed (as opposed to marginally supressed, as I have it now).

Welcome to Android Central! Did you already try my suggestion above?

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Sorry, I should have said: Yes, that specific setting ('Mobile data always active') is off and has always been off.

Another interesting quirk of the behaviour is that it seems to be related to travelling around - perhaps cell tower switching - since, so long as I stay in one location (i.e. at home or very near home), mobile data will reliably stay turned off for ... for days. Then often (but not 100% reliably) as soon as I drive more than about 30 miles, I'll arrive at my destination and see that mobile data has turned itself on again.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok, and how exactly are you turning off mobile data? Are you going to Settings>Network>SIMs>Mobile Data and turning off that toggle?

 

[IsHacker]

Sorry, I should have said: Yes, that specific setting ('Mobile data always active') is off and has always been off.

Another interesting quirk of the behaviour is that it seems to be related to travelling around - perhaps cell tower switching - since, so long as I stay in one location (i.e. at home or very near home), mobile data will reliably stay turned off for ... for days. Then often (but not 100% reliably) as soon as I drive more than about 30 miles, I'll arrive at my destination and see that mobile data has turned itself on again.

This is probably happening because of "evenwell" apps, which are present on nokia phones. These are suspicious Chinese apps which slow down the phone and exhibit various malicious functionalities, and are probably collecting and sending your personal data to China (spyware + malware). I would recommend you to remove all the apps whose package name starts with "com.evenwell" through ADB, except for these ones:

com.evenwell.fqc
com.evenwell.SetupWizard
com.evenwell.fmradio

Then see if the problem persists.

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Well, once it's quitely turned mobile data on, I'll eventually hear a data limit warning, which is something I set so that I don't end up paying for too much mobile data, since I'm a low usage, 'pay as you go' user who's almost always able to use free wifi instead. After the notification, the 'mobile data' will be turned on in the drop-down, which I simply turn off again.

Additional settings I've checked are -
- Settings > Network & Internet > Data usage > Data saver: On
- Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile network settings: Has 'roaming' disabled (and no sign of 'VoLTE' service anywhere, which was something I was asked to check).
- No apps have 'Unrestricted data' enabled
- Settings > Network & internet > wi-fi > wi-fi preferences > switch to mobile data automatically: Off
- Settings > apps & notifications > [each and every app] > mobile data and wi-fi > background data: Off
- Location is also disabled.

I think that mostly covers everything checked.

It does seem baffling how there may be multiple ways by which mobile data might get quietly turned on, yet there's no setting to definitively stop/prevent all mobile data usage. I'd have thought that simply my explicit manual enabling/disabling of the 'mobile data' tile in the tiles drop-down would be the definitive and only method for outright enabling/disabling mobile data use... but that's clearly not the case, since something is turning on this 'mobile data' dropdown tile. What's not entirely clear to me is whether this kind of quiet 'mobile data' enabling is truly by design (if it is, this strikes me as a terrible design decision and there should at least be a single, prominent "hell no mobile data" setting), or whether it is a genuine bug and the 'mobile data' tile on the drop-down really should be the definitive and explicit, manual choice of the user as to whether mobile data is enabled.

 

[Fintimlinbin]

remove all the apps whose package name starts with "com.evenwell"

I will look in to this and report back. Thanks very much for the suggestion.
Because it's not 100% reliably reproducible, it can take a while (and weirdly a bit of travelling around) before I can be more confident as to whether the issue has been fixed.

Is there a way to enable some logging that would definitively show the true source of the quiet enabling of mobile data or is it only ever identified though a process of elimination, like you described?

 

[IsHacker]

I will look in to this and report back. Thanks very much for the suggestion.
Because it's not 100% reliably reproducible, it can take a while (and weirdly a bit of travelling around) before I can be more confident as to whether the issue has been fixed.

Is there a way to enable some logging that would definitively show the true source of the quiet enabling of mobile data or is it only ever identified though a process of elimination, like you described?

I'm not an expert with logs, but I think logcat should do the job. I will wait for your feedback.

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Regarding evenwell: 'evenwell' doesn't appear in the long list of packages listed by -

---

adb shell
pm list packages -s

---

However, there are a bunch of '...hmdglobal...' packages that I wonder if they might relate to one or more suspect evenwells pkgs. E.g. -

---

package:com.hmdglobal.app.puredisplay
package:com.hmdglobal.app.swfp
package:com.hmdglobal.app.activation
package:com.hmdglobal.app.customizationclient
package:com.hmdglobal.app.activation.overlay
package:com.hmdglobal.app.fmradio
package:android.autoinstalls.config.hmdglobal.starlord
package:com.hmdglobal.app.setupwizardext
package:com.hmdglobal.app.camera
package:com.hmdglobal.app.midtest
package:com.hmdglobal.support
package:com.hmdglobal.enterprise.api
package:com.hmdglobal.app.midfm
package:com.hmdglobal.app.omacp
package:com.hmdglobal.app.sarauth
package:com.hmdglobal.app.bokeheditor
package:com.hmdglobal.app.legalinformation
package:com.hmdglobal.app.cdfinger

---

 

[IsHacker]

Regarding evenwell: 'evenwell' doesn't appear in the long list of packages listed by -

---

adb shell
pm list packages -s

---

However, there are a bunch of '...hmdglobal...' packages that I wonder if they might relate to one or more suspect evenwells pkgs. E.g. -

---

package:com.hmdglobal.app.puredisplay
package:com.hmdglobal.app.swfp
package:com.hmdglobal.app.activation
package:com.hmdglobal.app.customizationclient
package:com.hmdglobal.app.activation.overlay
package:com.hmdglobal.app.fmradio
package:android.autoinstalls.config.hmdglobal.starlord
package:com.hmdglobal.app.setupwizardext
package:com.hmdglobal.app.camera
package:com.hmdglobal.app.midtest
package:com.hmdglobal.support
package:com.hmdglobal.enterprise.api
package:com.hmdglobal.app.midfm
package:com.hmdglobal.app.omacp
package:com.hmdglobal.app.sarauth
package:com.hmdglobal.app.bokeheditor
package:com.hmdglobal.app.legalinformation
package:com.hmdglobal.app.cdfinger

So no evenwell apps, not even with pm list packages | grep "evenwell"? I swear they were there on my Nokia 3. HMD Global doesn't seem malicious to me.

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Yeah, zero evenwell.

 

[IsHacker]

Yeah, zero evenwell.

And what about FIH? FIH is another name for evenwell.

pm list packages | grep "fih"

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Zero 'fih' also.

 

[IsHacker]

Zero 'fih' also.

Looks like I don't have anything else to say here then. It will be good if you can do a logcat when that happens. The LogFox app would be useful in this case. But now, you should wait for others' reply.

 

[Fintimlinbin]

Thanks very much for offering advice and suggestions anyway.

 

[steffi]

it can be from an application that keeps enabling it (which has been granted permission to enable mobile data)

 

[Fintimlinbin]

it can be from an application that keeps enabling it (which has been granted permission to enable mobile data)

Thanks for the suggestion steffi.
I don't see any obvious permission category in the permission manager that would relate to turning on mobile data (quietly or otherwise).
The entire list of app permissions are -

body sensors
calendar
call logs
camera
contacts
files and media
location
microphone
phone
physical activity
sms
car information
read instant messages
write instant messages

Perhaps 'phone' encompasses the ability to turn on mobile data but its description says, "Apps with this permission can make and manage phone calls", which doesn't sound like it includes the ability to turn on mobile data... If it is, then the description really needs improving.

If I figure out how to view suitable system logs on the phone (that is if there are any at all that can tell me what program is quietly switching mobile data on) along with if I can reproduce it and check the logs in time, I'll report back here.