Anyone here gotten low memory warnings? I've seen them pop up three times in as many days. I'm usually running a few active tasks with some push services in the background, but nothing that should be consuming massive amounts of RAM. Anytime this happens, by the time I get to the settings menu to check the running apps the used/free indicator is sitting at about the midway point. I'm thinking of using a desktop widget to give me quick access to the memory usage and task list but while I search for one that will actually be hepful I figured I should poke the community to see if anyone else has seen this.
Never seen such messages here.
To monitor free RAM and what's running use a simple app like Task Manager.
Do you kill most of the cached apps? If not, one of those may be keeping memory hogged. (top right when you're in Running Apps menu under settings). Don't kill all of them, but things like media, Google search and apps can be killed.
Does it mean the RAM memory or the internal SDmemory? I've never seen the warning, but it could be referring to too little free mamory space.
ShadowLea said:
Do you kill most of the cached apps? If not, one of those may be keeping memory hogged. (top right when you're in Running Apps menu under settings). Don't kill all of them, but things like media, Google search and apps can be killed.
Does it mean the RAM memory or the internal SDmemory? I've never seen the warning, but it could be referring to too little free mamory space.
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It means RAM... have plenty of actual storage space. As for killing processs, I tend not to worry about that since Android is supposed to take care of them for me. Cached apps *should* be cleared when RAM gets low. I'm wondering if the low memory warning is being triggered before the system has time to reclaim resources. In other words, the threshold is reached, android starts to kill cached threads but it takes longer than it should so the warning pops up before the cleaning process completes. This would explain why the RAM shows around 50% usage right after I see the message. Well, if no one else is seeing anything like this it could just be some combination of processes I'm running that are holding on to things longer than they should.
Related
Did a search but found nothing substantial on this:
Does anyone notice their Google Maps is constantly running? And I don't mean in the cached menu. It's running in the "used" column (left column of the "Running" apps screen.
I'm certain Latitude is off, in fact, I unchecked all the location update options and then signed out of Latitude.
What's causing Maps to constantly stay open? Even after I close it and Stop it from the Running apps menu, it reappears moments later by itself.
Anyone know a definitive answer as to why?
onthecouchagain said:
Did a search but found nothing substantial on this:
Does anyone notice their Google Maps is constantly running? And I don't mean in the cached menu. It's running in the "used" column (left column of the "Running" apps screen.
I'm certain Latitude is off, in fact, I unchecked all the location update options and then signed out of Latitude.
What's causing Maps to constantly stay open? Even after I close it and Stop it from the Running apps menu, it reappears moments later by itself.
Anyone know a definitive answer as to why?
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The answer I gave to someone asking about Task Killers earlier today in another thread pretty much answers your concerns here. I'll quote it below.
In addition to the explanation of why you shouldn't worry about killing apps I'll add that on my phone Maps is also always running, but it's not sucking up any resources I need (like juice or cpu) so I don't care that it's "running"...and neither should you unless you see it misbehaving.
Android's memory manager has decided that Maps is one you'll need or want running, so it's going to keep re-loading it until something else with a higher priority takes its place.
If you really just can't stand that it's running or it's affecting performance of the phone, there's a root-required app in the Market called AutoStarts, which let's you mark apps as not being allowed to start automatically under a particular situation. You could use that to mark Maps as not able to start on bootup or whatever, but be aware, Android will just load up a different app to fill up that unused memory space...
distortedloop said:
In Android, free memory is wasted memory. People not knowledgable in how Android manages memory think that they're accomplishing something by killing tasks in the hopes of freeing up memory. It doesn't work that way.
Android has a threshold of what amount of free RAM should be maintained, and then does its best to fill up the remaining RAM with apps and stuff you might want to use later; it's like pre-loading your stuff so it loads faster.
The irony of people using task killers to free memory up to "improve performance" and "save battery" is that in most situations they're doing just the opposite. If you kill an app with a task killer, Android will frequently just re-open it in the background to frill up that empty memory space back to its thresholds, thus using up more cpu and juice to reload it.
There are apps or even terminal commands (for root) that let you change that threshold number, and on other devices (2.2 and lower) for me, tweaking that number did sometimes make the phone feel snappier, but it was real trial and error to get it right. I haven't felt the need for it on the Gingerbread Nexus S.
If you're interested in trying something like that, check out AutoKiller Memory Optimizer. Don't let that name fool you, it's a poorly named app, this is NOT a task killer app, it's just a GUI interface to the minfree settings that tell Android's own memory manager what thresholds to use.
There's another one I used to use MinFreeMgr or something like that, but I can't find a link.
And finally, there are limited times that killing tasks is beneficial, one would be if you have an app that's run amok and won't exit on its own. I'm sure there are others, but it's usually a good idea to avoid that practice.
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Sometimes it happens to me, but a reboot solves this issue.
Thanks Distorted for the explanation. A few more questions:
How come if Google feels it's necessary to keep it open, it's not in the Cache menu? They feel they have to keep it up and running? It can't be cached? Why? I'm mostly just curious about this.
Secondly, also for curiosity's sake, how much percentage does Maps show in your Battery Usage menu? It shows about 2% for me, and that's without actually using it. I'm guessing the 2% is just from running by itself.
It's not detrimental to my performance or my battery (2% is small), but I'm justu wondering why it needs to stay open, and what others' readings are in terms of batt. usage.
I've never noticed Map in my battery statistics as something listed. It's been running all day since I responded earlier, and not there.
2% may or may not be an issue, it depends on what else is used up. And remember, that 2% doesn't mean it used 2% of your total battery charge, it means it's used 2% of what's been used so far.
You lost me with cache menu; not sure what you mean there.
I just peeked at Maps in the Applications/Running apps again. If you click on it in there, it shows 1 process and 1 service. It looks like the service is the "network location services". I'm just wild guessing now, but perhaps it's related to having "use wirelss networks" or use "GPS satellites" enabled in Location & Security menu of Settings. Try turning those off and seeing what happens.
Also, you know that in the battery history screen, you can tap on anything that's listed there and it will give you more details on a new screen? Could you tap that on yours for Maps and see what it actually says? Maybe show a screen shot if you can capture one.
Sign out of latitude that's what is using it.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
leerobson99 said:
Sign out of latitude that's what is using it.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
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He said in his first post that "I'm certain Latitude is off, in fact, I unchecked all the location update options and then signed out of Latitude."
I'm curious what other locations aware apps or activities he might have enabled.
When you go to the Running Applications screen, if you click on the lower right of the screen (somewhere near the "Ram" or "200 MB free" indicator) it'll switch to the cache screen.
Anyway, after a night's full battery charge, Maps no longer shows in the Battery Usage screen, but if it shows up there again, I'll click on it and share more info. I do have "Use Wireless Networks" checked, so perhaps that's the culprit? GPS is unchecked. I only check it when I need to use Maps or Navigation. But I'm not running any location update apps.
But again, it seems it's not doing anything detrimental to my CPU or battery, so this is more of a curiosity's sake. Will report if I find anything new.
onthecouchagain said:
Thanks Distorted for the explanation. A few more questions:
How come if Google feels it's necessary to keep it open, it's not in the Cache menu? They feel they have to keep it up and running? It can't be cached? Why? I'm mostly just curious about this.
Secondly, also for curiosity's sake, how much percentage does Maps show in your Battery Usage menu? It shows about 2% for me, and that's without actually using it. I'm guessing the 2% is just from running by itself.
It's not detrimental to my performance or my battery (2% is small), but I'm justu wondering why it needs to stay open, and what others' readings are in terms of batt. usage.
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I have noticed it running also after I do a reboot but usually after a few hours the system usually moves it to the cache menu. I have tried to force stop the process but it will usually come back a little later. I noticed the same thing with the android market.
Its frustrating as well as annoying whenever i turn on task killer to see Skype, Picasa tool and Gmail running in the background. I have disabled autosync and i even kill the services to stop them, but they return from the grave after ~10 minutes or so....
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
Thats part of android. It has applications in the background that were called on once, and it keeps them in the RAM. Once android recognizes that the process is no longer needed, it terminates it and frees up ram
ADR6300
Get Autostarts from the market. Similar to msconfig for Windows, it prevents apps from launching in the background and hogging memory & battery. It's only $1 and well worth it.
You can also "freeze" unused apps with Titanium Backup. Freezing an app hides it from android, effectively removing it. This is better than deleting the app, because if you freeze an app and your phone starts acting weird, just "unfreeze" that app and the phone will return to normal.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Those apps are not running in the background, they're only cached in RAM. As long as you don't launch them they'll stay asleep. They don't eat your battery, and they don't take RAM away from running apps that need it.
If your phone runs out of memory those dormant apps will be kicked out of RAM.
In Android empty RAM is wasted RAM. Task killers are a real waste of RAM and battery.
i also seem to have fring always in the background, is there any way i can stop this?
Is there any tasks killer app that really kills some annoying apps running on my device? I'm using 2.3.3, and the battery is drying like crazy
task killers are bad for you phone. they're not necessary, and they kill battery life. just saying
NoctMonster said:
i also seem to have fring always in the background, is there any way i can stop this?
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You can tell fring not to autostart. The option is somewhere in the settings menu.
Android will still cache it in memory, especially if you use fring often. But if it is only cached it doesn't go online and it doesn't eat any battery power.
Same thing for almost all other apps. Just because Android loads them into RAM doesn't mean they're running.
I just noticed that if I repeatedly press to kill apps, it always frees some space - there is never 0bytes freed, even if I press it twice within the same second. I don't know much about android's architecture, but in software programs that indicates a memory leak somewhere. Is this the same?
im not an expert either but from what i've read, i believe its because when you kill apps with the app killer, some apps are restarted (such as necessary ones that the phone needs to run) and that causes some memory to be used again.
dont worry too much about killing apps in android, if apps aren't being used and are in the background, it is suspended and doesn't use the cpu. memory is cleared when needed automatically
Yea some apps just restart. Thats why if you close out all your apps and go back in a few seconds later, some are open again.
No big deal. I also use Go Launcher with its app killer tab in the program menu.
Alright, cool. Just wanted to know.
I was just wondering about how this setting actually works in real terms if anyone could explain it to me.
I installed the device maintenance settings widget on a screen just so I could press the optimise device button now and again. I assumed it would just close apps & processes to free up memory etc.
I've noticed that I've looked at the widget now & again and it says, for example, 1.5gb free ram. Then I press the optimise button and it says 1.4gb free ram after optimisation. How can optimising give you less memory than you started with?
I'm obviously not familiar with how all this works so thanks for any enlightenment from anyone who knows how it works.
Hi, I have a problem with RAM management, or keeping an app running in the background to be more specific. I'm running stock EMUI 4.1.
If I have too many apps opened and stored in RAM (like 5+ or so; such as fb, messenger, email, youtube, instagram, ...), it often causes restart of the apps while switching between these apps I have already opened and stored in RAM. Even if it shows I have 1,5 GB RAM free. What's the point in high RAM capacity in phones (3-6 GB thesedays) when even with that much RAM (and that much FREE RAM) the phone isn't able to hold them really "opened" in RAM all and the apps "reloads" (as if it was launched for the first time) when you try to recall/launch them (quickly, but still).
It doesn't bother me that much generally, but only with one app - GPS tracking apps. After some time (maybe 1-2 hours) it always "drops" the app from RAM (it's still in recent apps though) therefore deleting my existing workout and tracked route. It's annoying. And yes I have the tracking apps selected in "protected apps". It happens still. Once I rebooted the phone, cleared apps stored in RAM so the only app running was Runkeeper. I went cycling and after some time (1-2 hours) I stopped, took the phone out of pocket, turned the display on, clicked on the GPS tracking app and it started to reopen/reload itself and once it reopens -> no trace of my existing workout, everything was gone. All of that with ~2.2 GB of free RAM.
What good does 2.2 GB of "free RAM" do when the phone isn't able to keep the only running app in the background for few hours? I tried many GPS tracking apps, happens always. It didn't happen with my Moto G (1st gen.; 2013) with 1 GB of RAM, but it happens with a lot newer and better phone with 4 GB of RAM?
Any tips for that, anyone? Please?
Don't know if this will help or not. Had a similar issue with a music player app. Gave it permission access for 'Phone'. Did not happen again till now. You can try that out.
You can also try Setting>Apps>Settings>Special Access>Ignore Battery Optimization>'Your App'>Allow