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Advice please - need more speed!!

Hi, I've started this thread to get some advice from the members who are experienced in modding their phones.
As lots of G1 owners did, I greedily installed app after app until i was running low on space and ended up getting rid of a load. By this time my phone was running slowly anyway.
After recently playing with JF 1.5 then going to the official cupcake release, i have now only installed 24 apps and have 60mb free internal memory - so plenty of space for the browser/maps/youtube caches to grow.
My problem is understanding exactly how the system works though. How can I force each app to continue running in the background until I go back to it?
When first opening an app it takes anything from 0.5sec (dialer) to 17sec (maps) to go from the initial blank screen to actually drawing the app interface on the screen. This is fine when you first use an app, and if you go home then back to the app this is pretty much instant because the app is still running.
My problem however is the small number of apps the system allows to keep running before closing them, it only seems to be about 4 or so, and when you reopen an app you used a little while ago then you have to go through the painfully slow initial waiting while the app interface is drawn on the screen.
My questions really then are:
1. How many apps does the system keep running, and can this be increased? If so, then how & at what price?
2. Is there a way to force the system to always keep certain apps running and not close them (apps I use repeatedly througout the day, such as gmail, chompsms, browser)? I want the instant snappiness all the time for these apps.
3. Can I force the system to close other memory/processor hog apps as soon as I finish using them (maps, youtube, gallery)?
4. Will moving my apps and dalvik cache to a really fast class 8 microsd card help the speed of my phone in any way? Or is this just a way to increase free space on my phone memory?
Thanks in advance for any answers/advice/help!

17 sec for map? Something is wrong. I just opened my map and it took 2 sec to open up the map, another 1 sec to get my rough location. I was inside so I can't comment on getting exact GPS location but, if I had to guess, usually it's about 4-5 sec to lock onto that.
Now onto your question: Android manages it's own memory and there's no way of telling it how to manage it. You can do couple of things:
1) Get an "Open Overclocker" and increase the speed of you CPU to 384/528Mhz from stock 284/384Mhz
2) Get "Task Manager for root users" which will let you shut down programs that you don't use.
3) Reduce the number of widgets you have installed. In my experience, all of the news widgets run in the background even if you don't have them on your screen.
4) Clear you caches regularly (once a day). Very important.
5) Reboot your phone once a day.
Good luck.

borodin1 said:
17 sec for map? Something is wrong. I just opened my map and it took 2 sec to open up the map, another 1 sec to get my rough location. I was inside so I can't comment on getting exact GPS location but, if I had to guess, usually it's about 4-5 sec to lock onto that.
Now onto your question: Android manages it's own memory and there's no way of telling it how to manage it. You can do couple of things:
1) Get an "Open Overclocker" and increase the speed of you CPU to 384/528Mhz from stock 284/384Mhz
2) Get "Task Manager for root users" which will let you shut down programs that you don't use.
3) Reduce the number of widgets you have installed. In my experience, all of the news widgets run in the background even if you don't have them on your screen.
4) Clear you caches regularly (once a day). Very important.
5) Reboot your phone once a day.
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just opened my map again after rebooting the phone (and ensuring wifi is switched on, so there's no delay in downloading data for the map) and it took 7sec from hitting the icon until i had a map drawn on my screen. So perhaps the 17 sec was a one off. Even still, it feels painfully slow.
I will look into rooting my phone, and the over clocking and the TaskManager.
The only widgets i have installed are the google search bar, and a playlist.
Any thoughts on moving my apps/dalvik cache to a fast sd card? I think i read somewhere that a class 6 sd card is about the same speed as the internal memory in the G1, so would a class 8 card be even faster than this with regard to loading apps up?
Thanks for your advice so far!

There are multiple discussions about that and at this point it sounds like it does not matter where you caches are in terms of speed. Don't ask me why, I'm not that tech savy. Most people move caches to save space and to avoid clearing them every day. The beauty of this is that you can try it out and go back if you think it's not for you.
Also... look into what apps do you have on your phone, some of them may bog down system significantly. I know for sure that Phonebook from VoxMobile will, there are few others, can't remember which though, look for the thread about it from couple of months ago.
Good luck.

Thanks borodin1!

You do realize, unless the section of the map is cached, it has to be downloaded over your wireless connection right? (and cell networks has a very long latency.)
As to your questions 1-3, all running tasks are managed by the android system and non-active ones are terminated if memory is required by an active program. You cannot control this, but you can kill running apps if you want.
Also due to the slow nature of the terrible dalvik VM, you can't get much performance improvement by moving the dalvik-cache. I suppose you can get some boost by increasing the CPU speed, but the battery life will be much shorter.

billc.cn said:
You do realize, unless the section of the map is cached, it has to be downloaded over your wireless connection right? (and cell networks has a very long latency.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is why people move caches to the card and don't have that problem

but the map app does not use /cache. the latter is designed for non-transient temporary storage, not for big chunks of junk like the map.

Galaxy Tab continually pauses during gameplay

Guys,
I have a very weird problem that started a couple of days back with my Galaxy Tab.
I was running a game (game name does not matter as the problem happens in all games) when all of a sudden the 'Pause' screen came into effect.
After hitting any key to continue it played for around a further 20 seconds then it happened again... and again... and so on.
Some games simply pause whilst others will flip back to the reload the game screen then flip to the press continue to play screen.
Whatever it is it only effects games.
I have tried several reboots and looked at all my recently installed/updated Applications but can not ascertain what is causing the issue.
Further, whilst browsing through my installed Apps using the App 'System Panel' (to see if I could locate the offending App) I also noticed when I scrolled down through my installed Apps every few seconds the list would jump back to the beginning of the list.
No matter how many times I scrolled down after a few seconds it repeatedly jumped back to the beginning.
After about a minute or so it stopped doing this.
It's almost as if something is paging the system every so many seconds ~ which may also explain why when playing games it drops the game into Pause mode.
Anyway, the Galaxy Tab is a stock Tab unaltered. It is not rooted nor had a ROM change.
At this stage I do not wish to update the ROM nor perform a factory reset.
As a surgeon you investigate the cause of the problem and not simply give the patient a tablet to mask the pain and send them on their way..... I wish to do the same with the Tab, find out what is causing the problem and not just do a system reset.
Any ideas ladies & gentlemen?

Same problem
I have the same problem on my stock ROM tab.
It's nerve wrecking to reinstall everything again.

Killerpint said:
I have the same problem on my stock ROM tab.
It's nerve wrecking to reinstall everything again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As the OP that reported this I feel for you.
I have no idea what caused the problem nor do Samsung.
All I can say is I switched the phone off one night because it was playing up that bad and used my Galaxy S that evening.
The following morning I switched the phone back on again and mysteriously the problem simply vanished.
All I can think is whatever was causing the problem must have been memory resident.
Killing the phone for a long period must have cleared the issue.
I have not come back and reported it is fixed yet as I want to do further tests just to make sure it has gone but more importantly try to find out what caused it in the first place.
In a way although I do feel for you I also am pleased someone else has the problem.
This proves it is not a totally isolated case and may crop up again.
The tests I am currently trying are with the external SD card.
Do you have an external SD card and did/does the problem happen only with games installed to the card?
I have found that all but one of the games were installed in this way.
The one game not installed to SD that when run pauses behaves in a slightly different manner in that it does not pause every 20 seconds or so but every 1 minute or so.
I am beginning to think the problem may be something to do with timing, memory and the external SD card.

SK4G Software FLAWED!

What the hell is going on. I tried resetting and everything, even exchanged the device and the new one is doing the same thing! Also vibrating and force closing it is getting on my nerves! The followig seems to happen after a while I am TIRED of having to turn of my phone and turn it back on! ~ I go to play a .mp3 it says " FIle type not supported"...My .mp3 ringtone does not work the phone just vibrates the selected ringtone doesnt work. I got too take a picture or record video it says "Camera Failed"....I get a visual voicemail....the "play" button is grayed out and I have to turn off phone turn it BACK On just to check my voicemail. Also occassioally my sms wont work either. I turn my phone off and on every morning and throughout day I notice this and its getting REAL annoying !

Well first off, this isn't a software flaw, this is specific to you, as we have many users here including myself who are using these phones daily without the issues you are describing.
You had said that the issue was with an mp3, can you upload that somewhere for us to test on our phones?
As far as the camera and visual voicemail, I've never heard of that issue before, perhaps you ended up with a bad phone again?

I am getting the frequent force close with messaging. I also have had problems with the camera and idk about the mp3 stuff I haven't put any ringtones on the phone yet. This is getting really annoying I agree.

I don't have any issues with mine? Have you guys done anything like rooting or flashing anything?

Nope, completely stock. The most I have done is take a screen shot lol.

hmm maybe some have a defect? It's not all SK4g's though, as some of us have no issues at all. I would suggest getting it replaced by T-Mobile, as this is a factory defect. not sure why that happened to you guys. has anyone else had these issues and found any fixes?

That's kinda tough the hearest t-mobile is like 4 hours from here /:
One of my friends who went with me on the trip to get the SK also got one and he says he's never gotten a force close so you may be right. But could it have anything to do with the amount of texts I send/receive? Because I have to admit it is pretty excessive. The failing to send messages when I am receiving one simultaneously is expected, but not the force closes in my opinion.

It shouldn't force close on you. I know mine fails to send every once in a while too, as I text a lot (kinda the reason I got the phone). failing to send isn't as big of a deal, as it notifies you and you just have to click resend. Not entirely sure why it's force closing though? I wonder if a logcat might help? if you have adb installed, you can try adb logcat and see what shows up when you force close? if we can find the issue there, it might be fixable from our end. all depends on where the flaw lies/if it's just a bad apk somehow or if there's an actual hardware issue or something.

I'll do a log next time there is a fc, I'm having another issue or it may be related, but this one is with WidgetLocker I believe. Sometimes when I go to unlock the phone it'll freeze up and then I dont know how to explain it, but it almost seems like it resets but it really doesnt. The phone will blackout for a little then the homescreen will pop up and service will gone for a while until the cards are read just like if I rebooted.

That might be a function of WidgetLocker, I used it on my old G1 and it always hung and black screened at me.

sduvick said:
That might be a function of WidgetLocker, I used it on my old G1 and it always hung and black screened at me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I know it does that from time to time, but on my previous phone it wouldn't do that reboot thing where it would lose connection then resend my latest text messages once it reconnected.

I'm not sure why it's doing that. My guess would be that the issues are caused because the SK4G doesn't use a normal lock screen. widgetlocker uses some modification of the system file for the lock screen, and perhaps it's not sure what to modify? just my 2 cents.

sduvick said:
I'm not sure why it's doing that. My guess would be that the issues are caused because the SK4G doesn't use a normal lock screen. widgetlocker uses some modification of the system file for the lock screen, and perhaps it's not sure what to modify? just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I was thinking too, I'm gonna uninstall it for a bit and see if anything changes.

is anyone else having an issue with notification volume? everytime i reboot my SK, my notification volume gets pushed all the way down to nothing, so i don't get a sound notification for texts, emails, etc, until i move the notif. volume back up in my settings. i did root with the one-click for the Epic 4G.

This is a new UI so alot of the apps i.e. widgets you may put on will cause issues. If you like certain apps contact the dev so your device is supported correctly. Still to new to get mad at it till sum of the bugs get worked out. I did notice a couple of times when I left screen on in pocket on accident that when I go to use it again it doesn't respond to any touch but can move courser around till rebooted then its ok. If some don't already know the sk4g is almost the same as the epic. The sk4g is still a badass phone for 100bucks.

Same as the OP
I know this is a little old, but I've experienced the same problem as the OP so it seems they are not alone with this problem.
I actually tried two different newly formatted SD cards (because I thought it may have been the SD card), and still would have the problem. Then I actually did swap phones about a month ago and it seemed the problem would now take several days to resurface instead of several hours. And I could deal with that.
Since the OTA update about 2 weeks ago, the phone has been back on it's original BS as the OP posted and it's driving me nuts. I actually missed some emergency calls last night because the mp3 ringtone didn't work so I'm finding a solution to this issue today or trashing this phone.
My belief is that there is something interfering with the phone's ability to read the SD card for media. Because other apps I have that save to the SD card or read from it work fine. So I'm going to master reset it and not download any of my apps and see what happens when I set an mp3 ringtone. If it makes it through the day with no hiccups, I'll slowly add back one app at a time until hopefully I can find the culprit.
bipoler if you'd like, we can exchange via PM what apps we both have downloaded and see if we have some in common that may be problems.
I'll post back with any progress.

I've been having the problem with ringtones not working, just getting silence when I get a call. for me it seems to happen when I set a ringtone from the app Zedge, I don't think it happens when I use ringtones from the Android System, which would make sense if the issue is related to reading the sdcard. gonna go back to a system ringtone and see what happens today.

Yeah my phone had all those problems, but I installed the Lightning rom and all those problems went away, except for the ones about messages failing...I text A LOT

Lightning ROM
Thanks for that info on the Lightning Rom. I will check that out. Phone has been working flawlessly all day with the mp3 ringtone and no extra apps besides the master reset. I might give it until the morning before I start putting them back on.

On stock id install so many apps that ran on the background that id get delay from opening closing swiping and turning onthe phone.. so I wiped it installed a custom rom and just kept the essentials.. havnt had a problem since... well.. occasionly ill have to odi but that's on purpose
Sent from my SK4G

[Q] LG MyTouch Q CM9 freezing problems

First of all, thanks to chui101 and all the other people here who put in the effort to get CyanogenMod to run on this phone. However, I'm having a bit of a problem with my phone slowing down severely and becoming unresponsive, usually at the lock screen. The specific issue is that the lock screen will be on screen, but not respond to button presses, or respond very slowly, and then it will do the "old CRT television turning off" effect much much slower than it's supposed to (think close to a minute), go blank for a while, the lock screen comes back up, another very slow screen turn off effect, and the whole process keeps repeating until I get tired of it and pull the battery to reboot the phone. This issue happens to me with both the 2012-11-21 and 2012-11-25 nightlies. To me, the behavior sort of seems like an out of memory issue, maybe some program is leaking memory or something.
Things that cause the freezing issue:
Power button presses too close together
2 cases of a call coming in while the phone is locked and playing music in Apollo
Things I've tried thus far:
Switch launcher from Trebuchet to NovaLauncher
Set Background Process Limit from "Standard Limit" to "At most 3 processes"
Set "Force GPU rendering"
Remove SD card
Out of those, pulling the SD card is the only one that seemed to help. The SD card I had installed was a 16GB SanDisk Class 2 card with ~3.7 GB of music along with less than 10MB of small text files, ring tones in .wav format, pictures, etc.
I put the 2GB card that originally came in the phone back in, this card currently has nothing but the text files and ringtones and a few pictures.
Is anyone else getting hit with this problem? What can I do to help? I don't know much about android ROM development, but I can handle collecting a LogCat from a case where the problem I'm describing is happening and know a reasonable amount about general Linux stuff, just not Android internals.
Thanks!

I used to own an LG Mytouch Q, the only reason I'm even remotely interested in this thread.
However, you should definitely post in that specific thread, as it's basically the only group of Mytouch owners and they should give you lots more help
Sent from my DROID2 using xda premium

I would, but I just joined here so I can't post in the dev forums. I'm hoping someone there will see this post.

Update
With the smaller SD card without all the music files installed, I'm getting less of the freezing problem, although I am not certain whether this is due to the music files not being there, or me not using the phone to play music. I guess the next part of this experiment is to go back to the card with the music files on it but not play any of them. I did grab a LogCat from one of the cases where the phone is 'freezing' and see a bunch of "Application Not Responding" messages, and the CPU usage stats that follow these messages indicate that most of the CPU time is being used by 'iowait,' for instance "100% TOTAL: 0.3% user + 6.9% kernel + 92% iowait". I've read some threads relating to other phones indicating that this could be some process poking around somewhere in storage. I'm thinking that running top from adb shell next time the phone ends up in this state might give some clue as to what's eating the CPU.
Also, I've hit the issue with email message bodies showing up blank that others on this phone, and on CM9 on the non-keyboard LG Mytouch (E739) have experienced.

Hope I'm not spamming with yet another status update, but I tried disabling live wallpapers (going instead to no wallpaper/black screen) last night, and I haven't had any of the freezing problems today. I'll try adding the music files back and see if the problems return then.
* Update 11/29/2012
I put the 16GB card with ~4GB of music back in the phone, used it all day at work for listening to music/checking email/some web browsing without any crashes. (Still with live wallpaper disabled) So, I'm starting to think live wallpapers are causing my problem.

[Q] TF101 apps freeze, sorta. Bad blocks? Dx tools?

Hi,
I have a TF101 that's 2 years old, Android 4.0.3, kernel 2.6.39.4, build number IML74K.US_epad-9.2.1.27-20120615. FWIW I keep it docked about 95% of the time, MobileDock version EP101-0213.
After installing the latest version of the Calendar app back in August, the app started to freeze up without the standard "wait/kill/report" dialog box. I could switch to the home screen but all I would see was the background image. No icons. Swiping moves the image, but doesn't change screens. I can still switch between running apps but the one that froze is useless. Reboot to fix.
Fast forward to last week when it started happening from within another (just-updated) app. Once, I could still see icons on the home screen, but they didn't move when I swiped the background image.
The developer of the second app suggested that I might have bad blocks in the internal memory or SD card. My SD card slot still has the dummy card in it, so that's not it.
According to Settings->Internal Storage, my internal memory is only about 50% full. (12.63G, 4.38 of which is apps).
Can someone please point me towards any utility apps that would help me diagnose the problem? (Have you seen it yourself?) I have experience with Linux tools but although I've rooted my TF101, I haven't needed to do anything but enjoy it as a consumer so far
I'm comfortable with a command line and can use ADB but I'm not sure where to start -- haven't hit on the right search terms yet, maybe.
Thanks,
C