Database Info

Memory leaks?

My Cappy starts with about 165mb of free RAM, but it quickly goes away as I use apps. I have Task Killer installed and set to kill apps every 30 minutes, but once I get down to about 90mb of RAM it is impossible to get anywhere near what I boot with free. I'm used to memory leakage on my WinMo phones, but this is way worse. I had CleanRAM on my Tilt 2 (from XDA) and it worked pretty good and allows scheduling. Is there a similar app for Android?

I'd get rid of Task Killer, you don't need it.

its not leaking memory...it handles memory differently than windows of yore....stop fretting about how much memory you have available and just reboot your phone once every few days....thats not needed, but if it makes you feel better to look at useless numbers...

Yeah you need to stop looking at this as either a windows pc or an old device (think g1). Get rid of the task killer and never look at how much free ram you have again. Its not important at all. I've had this phone for months and I literally have no idea how much ram it uses on average because I have never checked or cared. My phone has been running smooth since day one. Yours will too.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Available RAM is a useless number? Having unused apps continue to run in the background is nothing to worry about?
Does anyone have anything usefull to respond with?

Miami_Son said:
Available RAM is a useless number? Having unused apps continue to run in the background is nothing to worry about?
Does anyone have anything usefull to respond with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you look at Window 7, there is a concept called pre-fetch. This allows the OS to load the programs into memory based on past usage, and frequency of usage. This lets us open the program much faster, than fetch when requested. This info is loaded to memory, and kept there, until some other program comes in that needs more memory.
And just 'cos a program is present in RAM doesn't mean it would use CPU.
And, based on my observation of android, I see that I have close to 180 MB free when the phone boots up. But this quickly reduces to around 120-150 in less than an hour based on what I use. After like a day this I see that free RAM is about 80-120 MB. And even after 3-4 days of no reboots, the free memory is still present at the same 80-120 levels. I am not sure what kind of memory management android uses, but its very effective, and never caused any noticeable lag in the system.
And, I do not use any task killers, not free up RAM in task manager.

Your concerns are flawed in the fact that the Linux kernel handles memory different than what you are used to. Simply speaking, Linux keeps memory used by applications on need to basis. It keeps it loaded until something else needs to use it. It will take from something else at the required time. A system actually performs faster when there is less memory available because that means that applications are able to be recalled quicker. It's not like it can only load from what is left available.
You will also notice that many applications take up memory but are using 0 CPU. This speaks to the fact that it simply loaded into memory and not taking up resources required for other operations.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?

Miami_Son said:
Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I got my android phone, the first thing I did was put up things like task killer, start up auditor, etc. But as weeks passed, I realized these were more of deteriorating performance, than improve it. So got rid of them. Android can handle itself.

Autokiller optimises memory by changing values in android rather than kills apps. I reccomemd it, definately makes the phone faster. Set it to agressive.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Miami_Son said:
Lot to learn about this Android, I see. So, why are there so many task killers on Market and other RAM-related programs if it is not important? Should I really not be concerned when I see a program I hardly use being shown as running on startup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It started with the combination of old versions of android (think cupcake and doughnut) and phones like the G1. Older versions didn't handle ram as well as they do in eclair and up. If you combine this with the fact that those older phones had less ram, and likely didn't use any gpu acceleration (unsure of this though), then task killers and other programs were considered necessary to get a fluid feeling experience.
They are still in the market now for 2 reasons.
1. Because some people still have those old phones and still run old versions of android. (less likely)
2. Habit. If people are used to using them and tell others they are necessary because they've always worked, why would a developer pull his money making app from the market? (much more likely)

So when Pandora or Grooveshark freeze, which happens all the time, and leaves my phone utterly useless until they're done doing whatever it is they're doing, how is using a task killer to...kill the process...not useful? It's much faster than rebooting the phone. I also think it's much faster than going into each application's individual settings to use the 'force stop' command. Is there a different way to kill a stuck app other than these methods?

Miami_Son said:
My Cappy starts with about 165mb of free RAM, but it quickly goes away as I use apps. I have Task Killer installed and set to kill apps every 30 minutes, but once I get down to about 90mb of RAM it is impossible to get anywhere near what I boot with free. I'm used to memory leakage on my WinMo phones, but this is way worse. I had CleanRAM on my Tilt 2 (from XDA) and it worked pretty good and allows scheduling. Is there a similar app for Android?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Along with what everyone else said, remember that a memory leak is a LEAK, something that is continuously draining, not a one-time thing. So, if memory goes to 80MB free and holds, that's not a leak, that's simply memory that is being used. If free memory drops to 75, then 60, then 55, 50, 45, and so on, then you have a true leak to worry about.

Well, what we Windows Mobile users often also refer to as leaks is the bad habit of some apps to not release their memory when closed. For instance, a program that carves out 25mb of RAM when started and returns less then half of that when closed.

jaju123 said:
Autokiller optimises memory by changing values in android rather than kills apps. I reccomemd it, definately makes the phone faster. Set it to agressive.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone else know much about "Autokiller"?

i used to use a task killer with my G1, and continued to do so with my captivate but i saw a few things like this: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/ and decided to get rid of my task killers and my phone seemed actually a little faster and seemed my battery life increased.

matt310 said:
So when Pandora or Grooveshark freeze, which happens all the time, and leaves my phone utterly useless until they're done doing whatever it is they're doing, how is using a task killer to...kill the process...not useful? It's much faster than rebooting the phone. I also think it's much faster than going into each application's individual settings to use the 'force stop' command. Is there a different way to kill a stuck app other than these methods?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is useful in those situations but realistically when people give that argument they are just looking for a reason to keep it. Android has the ability to kill tasks built in. If you're on 2.1 then yeah it's buried deeper in the menu but not a big deal. I can't imagine an app freezing enough to warrant having a task killer for. If you're on 2.2 it's much more easily accessible.
When we talk about task killers we're talking about people using them to kill open tasks that aren't causing issues simply to see more free ram available.

Question about RAM

I am running Froyo from Samsung web site.
Anyways, I know froyo was supposed to free up 512 ram. I know about 100 goes to gpu. However my phone is left with 339 ram to use (as seen in task manager). However it is always using at least 220mb, even when I close everything and restart the phone. When I open up advanced task killer it says 116m free. Why so little? How can I get more easily? without having to use ROMs or kernels?
Or is this how it is for everyone? I feel kind of cheated!

First of all, you should never need to use anything like Advanced Task Killer now that you have froyo. There are legitimate uses, but its really something you can go without. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/cwovf/in_light_of_all_the_discussions_right_now_about/ for a good writeup.
Your phone, just like a computer, uses an optimal amount of RAM at all times. That does not mean minimal. Android phones dynamically allocate RAM for applications and the OS. Why have 200MB of RAM free when you can instead have 100MB free and have the phone be more responsive? 2.2+ manages memory more effectively, and if you are not using an application, will close it. Its fairly difficult with any normal usage scenario to cause your phone to run out of memory.
In short, you don't really need to worry about it because its that way on all Android devices (and generally any modern computing device), and that if is not affecting the usability then its not an issue

Completely agree With first comment. Everyone is concerned about keeping as much ram free as they can but it does not speed their phone up at all. Ram its just like quadrant scores a useless numbers if the phone is response and speedy in actual use
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

U could try reading this: Android Memory Management

your ram usage does seem a little high, you may have an app that is using a lot of it. the 339mb available is normal. some kernels will show quite a bit lower than that but the never seeing more than 116 free is odd. the rom im curently on fluctuates from about 140mb used to 240mb used. i only know that because i clear ram before running benchmarks, have you tried clearing ram in the built in taskmanager? or are you only going off the task killer? because the task killer doesnt necessarily clear ram.
all i know is task killers are pretty useless unless you have an app that freezes and for that the taskmanager built in to many of the samsung roms should be enough for that though it does not show every process that is in a saved state or system processes. task killer programs do more harm than good but i cant seem to get people off them. danm verizon store sets people up with them and poeple use them religiously. i figured out in the first few days of using android on my aria that getting better speed and battery life by killing tasts was a futile effort. there are few market apps that use resorces when running in the background and if you exit the app with the back button it doesnt save the state or run in the background. not that saved state is a problem. i only found that the phone uses more battery restarting processes that are designed to be running and has more lag than when you just use the phone and ignore the running processes.

Personally the only time you should be ever worried about ram is when watching a flash video or viewing a webpage with a lot of stuff. Other than that, as said, if the phone runs smooth, who cares about ram?

Autokiller memory opimizer (not a task killer)

What is the verdict on these memory optimizer type apps?
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/faq

I can't recommend Autokiller highly enough on Samsung Froyo phones. It was a must use, even with Voodoo, on my old SGS i9000, and the same thing on my Droid Charge.
True story: just this morning I was ready to throw my Charge against the wall in frustration. Ever since upgrading to EE4 the damn thing was LAG LAG LAG city, even with Voodoo. Phone was snappy as heck after a reboot, but after a couple of hours use, it started to lag, and then would get so laggy it was almost unusable. Seriously, opening apps would take 10 second. Auto-rotate the screen took 4-5 seconds.
I enabled Autokiller, set it "aggressive" and the phone's a speed demon again.
Try it, can't hurt your phone with it, might help it exponentially.

waiting for the phones built in lowmem killer is useless, use autokiller and you will notice an immediate improvement in phone response time. heres a point for ya, without it installed i have 78mb ram free,,,with installed 158ram. thats huge. for a phone. plus they dev just updated to reduce memory usage of the app itself, plus there are tweaks in the settings menu to make the IO scheduler more aggressive, improve sd card reads, battery life, wifi, networ,...its layered man. and free....whats more to love. the only other way i have found to improve phone speed feelwise is with kangfucius kernel and set that terd up to 1500hz with cfq. shazaam.

elucid said:
What is the verdict on these memory optimizer type apps?
http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/faq
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically what you're doing is tweaking the settings for how Android frees up your memory. In theory, it should be good, because the defaults that were picked with the Android release aren't going to be appropriate for everyone. Just be careful not to be too aggressive or you might start losing functionality you want, such as alarms or background email checks.

chadness said:
Basically what you're doing is tweaking the settings for how Android frees up your memory. In theory, it should be good, because the defaults that were picked with the Android release aren't going to be appropriate for everyone. Just be careful not to be too aggressive or you might start losing functionality you want, such as alarms or background email checks.
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Click to collapse
Good point on not being too aggressive. The higher you set it, the more sticky sports ate pushed out of memory, so with the settings I have right now the phone kills some things that in the oat would have been running when I went back to them. I'm going to drop down from aggressive to strict and see if that's a better balance for how I use the phone.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Call me crazy but...
Android is linux based right? I.E. it uses a linux kernel? I was under the impression that was true. If so, unless you're running into the problem of completely filling RAM and having to wait for stuff to be cleared, this kind of thing will not help you!
Linux intentionally leaves commonly used items in RAM in order to decrease access time. It is perfectly normal for such a system to run at 70-80% memory usage. It is, in fact, a GOOD thing, because it means more memory is actually being put to a potentially useful purpose.
That being said, if you're actually running out of RAM I suppose something like this could help.

slight23 said:
Android is linux based right? I.E. it uses a linux kernel? I was under the impression that was true. If so, unless you're running into the problem of completely filling RAM and having to wait for stuff to be cleared, this kind of thing will not help you!
Linux intentionally leaves commonly used items in RAM in order to decrease access time. It is perfectly normal for such a system to run at 70-80% memory usage. It is, in fact, a GOOD thing, because it means more memory is actually being put to a potentially useful purpose.
That being said, if you're actually running out of RAM I suppose something like this could help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, yes, I frequently give the "in linux free memory is wasted memory" whenever people want to use some taskkiller app because they want a lot of free memory. This isn't about shooting for some high free memory number because we're Windows minded and think we need a lot of free memory, this is about finding the right settings for Android's own memory manager to keep the phone responsive. There's been something about my Samsung phones (except the Nexus S) where they just get laggy as hell with the stock memory manager settings.
As described above, my phone was almost unusable after a couple of hours booted up until I enabled Autokiller. Maybe something I'm running has memory leak; could be, but I pretty much run the same apps on all my phones, and the HTCs and Nexus S don't get laggy like the i9000 and Charge do.
This app, or the one named MinFreeManager really help. In the early days of the i9000 on MoDaCo site we were using the cat command to tweak the settings manually in our efforts to find a way to stop RFS lag before Voodoo came along.

I just installed this yesterday and configured it for strict mode. I also enabled all of the advanced system tweaks and so far I haven't noticed much if any difference, perhaps it depends on your individual usage and what apps, launcher, etc you're using. I'm going to leave it on and see how it goes though.

Any still using this? Any want to share what settings they use?

[Q] Is adanced task manager good for our xt720?

I've seen a lot of debates abt whether advanced task manager is good for the phone or not but im not sure if it has a positive effect on our xt720 with very little ram, so does it make more sense to use advanced task manager?? Btw im talking abt the 2.1 version of xt720 not the dexter's froyo or anything else. any help would be appreciated!

Advanced task manager is an app and task killer. Although discussion is varied it is safe to say a majority of very computer literate people tend to think task killers are bad for your phone and actually cause more battery drain in the end.
It is important to know how android handles memory. When you open an app for example the browser, and then move to gmail android puts the browser in an idle state. If after that you open say google maps and your phone has no more free memory android will kill your first process the browser to make space. The apps which are idle take no memory resources and just sit there. Killing idle apps, which usually reappear as soon as they are killed drain more juice, and are slow to launch.
A better app to use is the Autokiller memory optimizer. It uses a script to change androids own parameters at boot. So you can specify at what ram you want android to kill the idle apps. It does not involve killing apps and lets android handle everything. Ive been using it for quite some time and my phone is snappy fast and has around 60-70MB ram free all the time. I use the strict settings anything about that free's too much ram. Ofcourse your phone needs to be rooted for this to work.

sohrab.naushad said:
Advanced task manager is an app and task killer. Although discussion is varied it is safe to say a majority of very computer literate people tend to think task killers are bad for your phone and actually cause more battery drain in the end.
It is important to know how android handles memory. When you open an app for example the browser, and then move to gmail android puts the browser in an idle state. If after that you open say google maps and your phone has no more free memory android will kill your first process the browser to make space. The apps which are idle take no memory resources and just sit there. Killing idle apps, which usually reappear as soon as they are killed drain more juice, and are slow to launch.
A better app to use is the Autokiller memory optimizer. It uses a script to change androids own parameters at boot. So you can specify at what ram you want android to kill the idle apps. It does not involve killing apps and lets android handle everything. Ive been using it for quite some time and my phone is snappy fast and has around 60-70MB ram free all the time. I use the strict settings anything about that free's too much ram. Ofcourse your phone needs to be rooted for this to work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im trying the app now so far so good. After i put it in strict level, there is nothing else that i should be doing with the app rite? i can just continue with the normal use of my phone rite? thx a lot! oh and i already uninstalled advanced task manager.

Nopes, just use your phone as you would Use the lowest settings that make your phone feel fast. How much free memory are you getting now? Also reboot your phone once. I've used the strict settings makes my phone feel great lemme know how it works out for you.

You should also use milestone overclock to overclock your processor if you dont already. Its available on the market for free. I use 1 Ghz, 74 Vsel!

After using the memory app, I have also 60-70mb free oh and I also use milestone overclock my settings are 1ghz 62vsel. What are the advantages of increasing the vsel value?
Sent from my Milestone XT720 using XDA App

I find that having a higher vsel keeps the system more stable during memory intensive tasks. Also I found no difference in battery life thats why I use the stock presets. Before I used 56 vsel 1 ghz but when I opened up the camera or something the system would hang and reboot. Try it out, its also much faster

More vsel actually drains the battery faster. From my experiance and recomnendations I found out that 1Ghz @ 66vsel is my optimal setting.
About ATK and Autokiller memory optimizer - crap! I preffer Running service and Manage application to deal with programs if I need to, but I mostly let Android decide for himself. My phone always have around 60MB free memory and ROM is fast and very responsive.
Also you may wanna try JuceDefender. Awesome app which saves you battery and clears RAM, if you are not feeling comfortable doing it yourself.

eSu.Matix said:
More vsel actually drains the battery faster. From my experiance and recomnendations I found out that 1Ghz @ 66vsel is my optimal setting.
About ATK and Autokiller memory optimizer - crap! I preffer Running service and Manage application to deal with programs if I need to, but I mostly let Android decide for himself. My phone always have around 60MB free memory and ROM is fast and very responsive.
Also you may wanna try JuceDefender. Awesome app which saves you battery and clears RAM, if you are not feeling comfortable doing it yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Umm, I think you're confusing autokiller memory optimizer with the normal task killers. Look it up, it isnt a task killer but changes androids native application management parameters. Which ROM are you on?
Also ive used ultimate juice for sometime. It doesnt clear RAM, it just toggles your data and wifi according to options you set. I also noticed that without juice defender my phone works just as much so dont know how much that helps.
Battery calibration after new ROM flash has always made my battery meter more accurate and lasts longer.

I very well may and I apologize for that.
Actually I use recovery mode options to set the aggressiveness of the running service and I'm more than satisfied.
Sent from my XT720 using XDA App
P.S. StealEpicBlue with some little tweaks from me (few deleted system apps).

eSu.Matix said:
I very well may and I apologize for that.
Actually I use recovery mode options to set the aggressiveness of the running service and I'm more than satisfied.
Sent from my XT720 using XDA App
P.S. StealEpicBlue with some little tweaks from me (few deleted system apps).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do that. I am running steelblue also and can always tweak it more. Is it through Androidiani recovery that you set the aggressiveness. I might start a thread tomorrow about all the things Androidiani does and how to use them. Haven't been able to find too much on it, but I know alot of people use it.

Available RAM Dilemma on the Droid Charge

I'm currently running EP1F Debloated with Gummy Charged
The phone typically says that, out of 312MB of accessible RAM, there is 60MB or less of free RAM.
i'm running GO Launcher EX, and on it's RAM meter, it's almost always in the Red (signifying that it's almost Maxed out in available RAM)
is this normal?
of course, any time i quit all open applications, the usuals always reload, but then sometimes odd programs will run in the background (i.e., netflix, google+, music, amazon appstore, picasa, ustream, etc). These are programs that I haven't even loaded or ran. they just like to load themselves up and run in the background. so because of this, my available Free RAM tends to sit at 39-55MB. that seems VERY low to me. and may be the reason why my phone tneds to bog down a bit and lag every now and then, when i'm going from app to app.
I know EP1F doesn't have voodoo lagfix yet (like it did on EE4), but this unusually high consumption of RAM seems odd to me.
does anyone have any input on this?
appreciate it

If you havent ran, and don't run those programs just get rid of them

no no no... I definitely run them. but it's probably a few times a day, sporadically.
but i don't need them to be running in the background, hogging RAM. whereas, i'm totally fine with an app like Gmail to always be running, since i check that all the time.

I use Autokiller Memory Optimizer, set to "optimal" preset. It's not a task killer, it just changes Androids settings to close programs at different trigger points. Keep some free ram and keeps the system from bogging down.
I also use Autostarts, which disables programs from starting up at startup or for other notifications that are set. Some programs still start themselves but it helps.

Why do you want free RAM? Unused RAM is doing nothing for you, Used is holding a program ready to launch so it's faster and needs less CPU to launch. Ideal RAM usage is 100% because the system will automatically make room for a new program to run.
Have you ever gotten a message that an app can't launch due to low RAM? Using RAM doesn't mean using CPU or battery. It just means ready to run faster.
Sent from my (currently) stock Verizon Fascinate ed04 using XDA App.