Database Info

Managing Memory

Hi all,
One habit I've developed with the Captivate is using Advanced Task Killer to kill apps that otherwise would just be hanging out in memory. I do this probably because I'm anal retentive like that, but also with the thought that it save me battery life if I do.
This has led to two questions of mine (excuse the noobiness to Android if these have been discussed):
1.) Why do so many applications start automatically when the phone boots up? (browser, gallery, etc etc). Is there a startup ini somewhere I can edit to prevent this or do all the apps just wake up? It's easy enough to kill, but I find some of the apps that start up very odd.
2.) Over the course of the day, even with Autokill on and security set to "Low", eventually my memory is consumed and it only gets back to its full state until the phone is rebooted. After all obvious apps have been killed the memory usage will will go from ~170mb (after a reboot) to as low as ~130mb (at the end of the day). Does anyone know why that happens and if there is a better way to manage memory/apps?
Thanks.

I used to use task killers, but I have uninstalled them and just let android do its thing. The only reason I'll end a program is if the program has an exit function or has froze, which is rare. With this method I don't have any slowdowns and great battery life. On the flipside I don't install poorly developed apps. Thats just me though.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

[Q] new to andriod....i hoped il love it.... not so sure now:(

so i installed advanced task manager and for example i have google maps opend and i select it and kill it via advanced task manager BUT if i go in settings>aplications>running services google maps is still there whit 1 runing process......
is there any program that wil clouse for good every process a program has?
also sometimes if i check battery use, google maps is top of the list but if i check it in running proceses or whit advanced task manager google maps aint running
whit normal use my battery barely lasts me tru the day i had it 100% at 8 am now its 3 pm and i have 62% left with 15 mins of navigation use....thats all noting else

How long have you had the device? Mine lasts a day so far and I bought my NS on the 27th. I might have to calibrate the battery. You do not need the task killer. Nexus S has the manage data where you can force stop running services you don't need. Also Android does garbage collection which will manage your memory.
GB is supposed to improve battery life and given time you find your battery will improve.
Search on the threads for battery Calibration or goto
http://hemorrdroids.net/how-to-make-your-battery-last/
look at point 9.
Hope this helps
Tom

You need to get out of the iPhone Jailbreak poor memory management frame of mind where more free memory is a good thing.
Android (2.1 and higher) is very efficient at handling memory; it will do much better than you with a task manager will.
It's pointless to kill apps with a manual task manager, except in the very rare case that the app has run amok and is actually using up juice/cpu, because Android will just re-open those apps. You're actually hurting battery life (some will argue) by killing an app that you didn't need to because Android will just re-open it.
The mantra in Android is "free memory is wasted memory." In theory the apps are just sort of pre-loaded to have them ready and waiting to use in the background when you want them. They'll load faster that way. In the meantime, they're just sitting there not using any juice.
On your laptop/desktop you generally don't go into the task manager and kill everything off, there's no need to, and on the Androids it's the same thing. Leave it alone unless there's a really good reason to muck around with it.
That said, your battery life doesn't sound like most reports in the Nexus S community. My Nexus S, and the reports of others, is getting TERRIFIC battery life. This is by far the best battery life on any Android phone I've owned, and it's on a par with my iPhone 4 and 3GS devices.
Are you using Google Latitude? That seems to be a battery killer via Maps for some. Go into Maps settings and make sure it is off.
I use my phone a lot, it's on for hours each day with me reading twitter, text messages, looking up things on the web, dictating myself notes, etc, and I've only once even gotten the phone down to the 15% battery warning in 18 hour days.
funstuffalex said:
so i installed advanced task manager and for example i have google maps opend and i select it and kill it via advanced task manager BUT if i go in settings>aplications>running services google maps is still there whit 1 runing process......
is there any program that wil clouse for good every process a program has?
also sometimes if i check battery use, google maps is top of the list but if i check it in running proceses or whit advanced task manager google maps aint running
whit normal use my battery barely lasts me tru the day i had it 100% at 8 am now its 3 pm and i have 62% left with 15 mins of navigation use....thats all noting else
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

P.S. you mentioned NAVIGATION; you're aware that Navigation runs in the background if you haven't reached your destination yet, right? Even if you go to the home screen or put the phone to sleep, Navigation is still running. You have to reach your destination, or manually exit Navigation from one of the menu key options while it's in the foreground. Could that be your problem?
Also, you can grab an app from the Market called AutoStarts, and it will let you mark any app as not being allowed to start automatically after certain events, such as booting up, but once you manually start an app, it's back in the queue for Android's memory management.
If you really feel the need to have something doing more than Android's default memory management settings, on some phones and ROMs I've had good results with the app called Autokiller; this isn't a task killer, and it's poorly named for what it does, which is tweak the system defaults for free memory. Try it on strict or aggressive if you really feel the need. I haven't installed it on my Nexus S, no need to in my opinion.

i have the phone for 4 days now yea the first 2 days i used it alot and charged it like 3 times in 2 days(let it drop to 5% then charged it to 100%)
i am not using latitude, i know that part about navigation and i always check to make sure its cloused after im done whit it and my screen brigthneess is set to lowest
il give autostart a go it sounds good if it really dose wat it seaz it dose

it may also help to not have GPS enabled when not actually using an application that requires GPS

[Q] EC10 Mesmerize Process strain

Hi guys,
I have a USCC Mesmerize with EC10 PNP w/ none of the pack addons.
I would consider my phone to be very slim. I pretty much only use the camera, sms, mms, internet, & phone.
But still after my phone has been on for a while my process is up to 295/349 MB
I constantly use the stock task manager with Level 2 clear memory option to kill the active process.
When I do this I normally close anywhere from 5-12 process's. Sometimes I will get a drop to around 245MB and other times it will stick around 282MB
On a fresh restart my phone boots up with 164MB
I immediately goto task manager and do a level 2 clearing of the memory and end up closing 10 programs with a RAM use of 131MB
Is there anything out there app or otherwise I can use to stop and prevent all non-critical process's?

uselessmidget said:
Hi guys,
I have a USCC Mesmerize with EC10 PNP w/ none of the pack addons.
I would consider my phone to be very slim. I pretty much only use the camera, sms, mms, internet, & phone.
But still after my phone has been on for a while my process is up to 295/349 MB
I constantly use the stock task manager with Level 2 clear memory option to kill the active process.
When I do this I normally close anywhere from 5-12 process's. Sometimes I will get a drop to around 245MB and other times it will stick around 282MB
On a fresh restart my phone boots up with 164MB
I immediately goto task manager and do a level 2 clearing of the memory and end up closing 10 programs with a RAM use of 131MB
Is there anything out there app or otherwise I can use to stop and prevent all non-critical process's?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds pretty normal from what I have seen. Are you having any issues or just like to see the Rom lower?

Actually android by design is supposed to run almost always at full ram/memory compacity. Using a task killer other than stock can give unwanted results. My phone runs the same as yours does. When you kill off task the systen will automaticly reload common and system apps. Its the nature of android. Unless your having really bad performance. I wouldn't worry about it.
Edit: Ninja'd.
Tap-a-Talked from my Mesmerize

I agree with akellar, that sounds pretty normal. I mean, are you actually suffering any performance issues? If you're not, then you're just worrying about nothing.

Similar stuff here. I use the level 2 clear as well, but mainly to save battery. I run the clear,just before I set it down for a no use period or prior to bedtime and it saves battery big time.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

No not really any performance issues. Sometimes but its infrequent enough that I couldn't describe it.
That was mainly my thought was saving on battery.
Why have all this crap running if you aren't using it?

Technicly its not running. It is suspended. While it is in ram it isn't using any processing power until the app is brought to the foreground meaning you are using it. Android does this so these apps are ready to go when you need them. I quit using task killers other than the stock one a while back and noticed a big jump in battery and performance. I though they were helping me when in reality it was hurting me. Take a read on android and how it handles multi tasking. It explains it really well. I wish I had a link handy hut if you google it you will find several articles on it.
Tap-a-Talked from my Mesmerize

Yeah, you are actually wasting battery by having the screen on in order to end tasks that aren't actually running.

Either way, my battery lasts longer. I understand the logic, but in reality - my battery lasts longer.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

I've read probably 20 or 30 articles on this explaining bboth sides and hundreds of user opinions who say to use them, don't use them, use them once a day, etc and why they think that. I really think it depends on what you do with your phone, because in my personal experience I am a heavy user of my phone, constantly switching applications and loading browsers and whatnot. If I don't use a taskkiller then my phone becomes unresponsive and almost unusable at times. I know you're supposed to stay away from them and I have tried that but it is really obvious that it is useful when I can press a button and have my phone actually work again.
For somebody like the OP that just uses it like a normal phone and not a computer like I do, you probably shouldn't use one unless you are really getting slowdowns. It all depends on what exactly is using the memory and not getting killed by the system.
Sent from my CM7 SCH-i500

I agree to an extent. I use the paid version of system panel to monitor apps like that from time to time. I use the stock task killer and do a level two kill after I have been on my phone switching between programs and such. And it does make a difference is performance. Depending on what you are dping depends on whether you should use one or not. I thinl the big depate is whether you should use an auto kill function. Its one thing to kill all task here and there to improve performance but another to have an app doing it every five or ten minutes. I think that's were the big battery drains happen. Anyway. To each there own and if they see it helps them in how there phone performs and are happy with the results, then maybe a task killer ia for them. For me. I just use the stock task manager and it works fine.
Tap-a-Talked from my Mesmerize

TaskPanel, Autostarts, and when to use a task killer

Please dont 'quote' this as it VERY lengthy, just copy and paste the this first sentence.
I wanted to write up a definitive posting on task killers as I think they are way to often misused and misunderstood and I am getting quite tired of reposting this same information.
I use a task killer called TaskPanel XTRA (its free). BUT, I ONLY use it for killing tasks that are misbehaving (an app that has slowed down or nearly hung your phone or an app that is CLEARLY causing battery drain or sending copious data via your cellular connection). If an app continues to misbehave, switch to a different app that offers the same functionality, do NOT continue to use a task manager / task killer to kill an app continuously.
Task killers should NEVER be configured to automatically kill an app (as I will explain later in the post) and should NEVER be used to manually kill apps UNLESS it is a small emergency (as in major battery drain, copious cellular data, massive processor usage/memory usage preventing the user from using the phone normally).
Android is a VERY powerful operating system which gives YOU THE USER the control to manage your phone (hence the major reason I dont like the IPhone or Windows Phone), but with that control comes responsibility. As I will explain shortly, Android has many built-in features in place to help you manage your phone's precious memory. While there has been much nonsense one way or the other as to whether task killers should be used for anything other than a misbehaving app, I tend to listen to the creators of a product before I listen to some jackass who bases a decision on pure speculation or a 'feeling' he has. I can tell you that I have not used Task Panel in the last 4 months (with the exception of I believe Pandora which I used about a month ago and could not find a way to actually exit the app - guess what...this app is no longer on my phone - both because of privacy concerns that recently came up about Pandora AND I dont keep apps around that I cant manually exit the app cleanly).
For a VERY good write up (with a brief 'readers digest' summary at the bottom with plain English bullet points, since most of the article is taken directly from the Android developer FAQ and is very techy for non-programmers), have a gander thru this.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-b...-with-android/
And for the FAQ they quote most of the above article from (but I do recommend you read the above FIRST as it will give you some context - much of the reasons are 'cherry picked' from different areas of the FAQ to help you understand why this is important and give you the information that is relevant to the discussion as to why task killers are not a good thing). All of the relevant information is in the page that will load up (in the rightmost panel / frame) so you dont need to click any links to read the relevant article. I am only providing this link as a reference to the original source material so you dont think I am just making this up - this is straight from the horses mouth so to speak (again, for most people, dont read this FAQ, read the one above first to get context and then if you feel you want to know more, read this link below).
http://developer.android.com/guide/t...damentals.html
Alright, enough about task killers, now to deal with how to manage those pesky apps that seem to always be running (even if you never started them) and how to keep them from starting up using a method that will NOT affect Android and how it manages your memory but will keep your phone in peek performance.
For managing the conditions when an app starts up, use an app called Autostarts, do NOT use a task killer to 'auto kill' tasks. Autostarts literally allows you to control the conditions of when an app starts.
Android has built in functionality for managing the memory footprint of various apps and will manage your phones memory quite nicely. Much of the functionality of the built in memory management came in Android 2.2 (also sometimes referred to as Froyo) and is really quite good 'if' you allow the phone to manage processes rather than just quickly killing everything.
There is a reason you can no longer just 'kill' system level processes, Google wants you to allow Android to 'learn' how to manage itself.
Android has a very powerful feature, the ability for app writers to start their app when certain conditions occur. The problem with this powerful feature is, often times, apps are bloated or poorly written, many times being started for any little thing your phone does (wifi on or off, Bluetooth on or off, location changes, screen on or off, USB connected, cellular connection, headphones connected, a cow fart, a bird poops, etc.). Even Google itself has been guilty of this, Google Maps (until recently) would be started in nearly 20 different conditions as a background process for very trivial things and was a major source of battery drain (it still is to some extent). This is where Autostarts comes in. Use Autostarts to control the conditions of when/if an app will start up automatically based on a certain condition.
Most ancillary apps (apps that are not integral to the core functioning of the phone - although it is probably more appropriate to refer to these as 'user apps', it isnt quite accurate because many 'system apps' (which in the technical description are apps that are installed with the rom) are not core apps either. For example, many roms come with Youtube pre-installed (meaning you do not manually have to go to the market and install them) which is not integral to the core functioning of the phone), these apps do NOT need to ever start under ANY condition for that app to function normally. The only considerations for an app starting itself would be the widget updating, the app has a scheduled event (for example, an alarm, a podcast client downloading podcasts at a certain time of day, Titanium backup performing a scheduled backup, etc.), or an app that has to be running in the background to perform a task when certain conditions arrive (for example, an app called Sanity needs to be available to run and monitor for incoming/outgoing phone calls so that it can start itself and perform its function during a phone call).
Using Autostarts, I have disabled nearly 80% of EVERY condition that all NON-system apps start under (I havent counted but for 70 apps, this is probably 55 apps or so that I disabled EVERYTHING these apps would start under). This includes Google Maps (yep, even Google is guilty of having an app needlessly running when it doesnt need to).
By taking control of your apps (in essence, disabling as many apps from 'auto starting' until YOU the user launch the app manually) and properly quitting an app when you can (within the app, find a way to click a 'quit' or 'exit' button to allow the app to remove itself from memory) rather than just allowing apps you launch to run in the background, you can save yourself massive amounts of battery life, limit cellular data usage, AND allow Android to properly manage itself.
Think of it like this, if I were trying to learn something but you (the user) kept doing it for me, Id never learn. And if you read the above linked article, you will begin to understand why there is more to this than just allowing Android to learn.
To give you an idea, using Autostarts to disable any non-system app that does not need to be running, if I am using the stock battery, I can run my phone for 2 days pretty easily if I simply turn off cellular data, Wifi and Bluetooth when I dont need it, maybe even stretch it to 3 days.
My ram usage is almost always around 50% (150 MB free) on a fresh reboot (around 2 minutes to allow the phone to stabilize) and it remains this way during the day because I exit apps when I am done using them, even tho I have around 80 apps installed, and I dont allow apps to just start themselves because they sensed a fart in my general direction.
For those of you that use a Windows PC, you can think of Autostarts as a proper 'msconfig'. Keeping your PC clean of apps when windows starts keeps your PC running much more smoothly. Autostarts takes this to the next level and keeps apps from ever starting in the first place rather than a task killer 'auto killing' a task, the app restarting, the app getting 'auto killed' again by the task killer, the app again restarting, etc. (a vicious cycle that both kills your battery because the phone has to crank up the cycles on the processor to both start and stop the app, the power used to write and clear the data written to both ram and 'perma' storage (if an app needs to store any data), and cellular data (if an app 'phones home' so to speak when it initially launches (which is both a cause for additional battery usage to send data and also adds to the amount of data your phone transmits over the cellular network, which is a problem given most cell plans have a monthly data cap).
Autostarts is fairly easy to use but does require root.
The app is $2 and here is a brief synopsis of how to use it:
When you initially launch the app, read any dialog messages that appear and click ok thru them. Then, wait for the app to finish loading (there is a progress bar at the top that will fill with yellow - on my phone it takes about 45 seconds to a minute to finish loading in).
Once it is loaded, you need to configure a few things BUT, you might want to just scroll thru the list of things currently on the screen. These are the 150+ conditions that apps currently installed on your phone are starting up under (dont click anything just yet, just browse the list if you are curious).
Right now, the app is configured to show a list categorized by conditions. This unfortunately is not very helpful. We need to change it to sort this list by apps rather than by conditions (so that we can literally disable EVERYTHING an app will automatically start under rather than scrolling thru every condition).
So, hit your menu button and the top left most icon in the menu that appears is an icon 'Group by application'. Hit that icon and magically, you are now seeing every app. You can now click an app and see all the conditions every app starts under. Neat.
But there is one more setting to change first in order to help keep you from doing something you should not.
(Optional but HIGHLY recommended!) Hit your menu button again (if you exited out of the menu already) and hit the upper right most icon, the 'View' button. Tick the topmost checkbox, 'Hide system apps' and hit the 'Ok' button. This will keep you from disabling anything that 'may' be critical to your phone operating.
Now, exit the menu (the 'back' button on the phone itself).
If you decided not to hide system apps, these will appear in YELLOW. It is probably not a good idea to mess with these unless you know what you are doing. Messing with these can cause a soft brick or make your phone unusable in certain conditions (for example, if you prevent the phone.apk app from ever starting, you will never be able to take phone calls).
Now, start scrolling thru the list (start at the top). If it is an app that does NOT need to run in the background, expand the app by selecting it and starting with the topmost condition that app starts under, tap each condition and in the menu that appears, select 'Disable'. Do this for ALL conditions for each app you want to manage. When you are done disabling the conditions, go to the next app and decide again whether that app needs to run in the background or not.
As a brief summary, to consider whether an app should be allowed to run in the background, ask yourself the following:
Does the app:
a. ...have a widget that you are actually using on your home screen that needs to update? For example, a media player or weather widget should NOT be disabled...
b. ...have a scheduled event such as checking the weather, downloading new podcasts, checking email, etc?
c. ...need to perform a certain task or provide some extra function(s) when a specific event happens (such as recording a phone call when it comes in, an eq when audio is playing, etc.)?
My recommendation is, if you answered YES to any of the above questions, leave all the conditions that app starts under alone (unless you know what you are doing, its best not to mess with it as I will explain in a moment).
If you answered NO to all the above, DISABLE ALL of the conditions that app starts under (again, DONT mess with system (yellow) apps and certainly dont disable every condition for these).
I recommend an all or nothing approach for each app is because if an app doesnt behave properly, it can become a major pain to continue to open Autostarts and try to track down a specific condition you disabled that is stopping / preventing that app from functioning the way you want it to.
Every time you update or install an app, if you remember, try to open autostarts and review the conditions the app starts under. Updated apps often times will add something new and if you have this app completely disabled, it may find a way to start itself again.
And, dont worry, you cant permanently screw anything up (unless you are messing with system apps - get the reason why I recommend not playing with system apps?). If an app stops functioning correctly, just re-enable the conditions that app starts under. Pretty easy.
Hopefully, this is complete enough, I will now just link to this post everytime I need to mention autostarts. I am getting quite tired of posting this same information .

Good information for people. Well done.
Sent from me to you using stuff

[Q] Why do so many Apps restart after I use Advance Task Killer?

I'm currently running Infused 2.1 and noticing that my battery life is quite poor. I haven't used the phone much today but it's clearly draining faster than it was the last couple days when I was running stock Froyo. I have my brightness manually set all the way down, GPS is always off, Wifi is set to turn off when screen is off, no sync is active except 'Background Syncing' which apparently I have to keep on for the Marketplace. Only thing I've installed is Go Launcher EX but I can't imagine that this launcher would cause such a dramatic difference in battery. But I digress...
As to my question, I just ran Advanced Task Killer and killed everything running except ATK itself. I then waited maybe 20 seconds and upon launching ATK again, I noticed that I now have the following items listed. Why have all of the below items appeared again?
Facebook
Gmail
Market
YouTube
Google Search
Maps
Superuser
Kies air
WF & Clock widget

http://kschang.hubpages.com/hub/Android-OS-Task-Killer-beneficial-or-placebo-only
read this article so you will understand why you dont need a task killer with current android devices. if you search google or even youtube you will find many articles explaining how the os works

Interesting. Good read. So it seems like it's almost counter-productive to use these programs because I'll be honest, I've been using it just about every time before I lock the screen if I've done a bit of stuff on it. If it keeps reactivating these things to make the phone run faster, and I'm having it work harder by always killing them, then I can see that I might be contributing to the problem...
Appreciate the link.