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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?
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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?
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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?
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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
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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?
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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.
Hello Guys and Gals,
After a couple of weeks running the factory update I find the mem available to twindle down as the hours go by.
I run task manager to free up mem after closing apps but after about 4-5 hours mem available is Regards to 185.
Any suggestions, hints or tips please?
Regards,
billygtab said:
Hello Guys and Gals,
After a couple of weeks running the factory update I find the mem available to twindle down as the hours go by.
I run task manager to free up mem after closing apps but after about 4-5 hours mem available is Regards to 185.
Any suggestions, hints or tips please?
Regards,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stop using task manager. I have read that Froyo takes care of it by itself and using a task killer can actually make things worse. You shut something down that Android needs, it starts it up. You shut it down, something else wants it. Somehow that ends up using more battery and memory.
Other than that I don't know.
Tip: Stop thinking of the ram that Android uses the same way you think of ram in a PC. Period.
Why, Ever wonder why there is no 'exit' or 'close' button on most apps? It's b/c Apps don't close on Android, they just get moved down the stack so to speak. Think of it like a deck of cards. Some apps are thin (use little ram), some are thick (use lots of ram), the deck is only so big (total amount of ram). So if you have a bunch of small apps, then they will all be in memory. if you have a large app, it will push everything else out of ram to make room for it to run. So, if your ram usage is 100% then Android is working properly. This is why Task Killers are a bad idea on Android. The above is a pretty simple explanation and this topic has basically been beaten to death ever since Android was released. For some info, just google,
http://www.google.com/search?q=why+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
chad
Thank you both for your insight.
I will take your advice!
Thanks again... great forum!
Apologies, but based on my experience, I kind of disagree about ignoring RAM usage. I'd read some of that info awhile ago, and it made sense. But I noted that my Gtab would occasionally act weird, freezing, reboot, stuff like that.
So, I installed System Panel, and when things started grinding to a halt, I'd check that, and I often found avail memory in the 10-50MB range.
One thing was that Xscope would sometimes take almost 200MB, so I emailed the dev, who suggested changing cache from default 8 to 4. I did that, and then rarely found avail memory less than 150MB.
The other thing is I noticed that there a lot of Apps taking about 10MB, that I wasn't using. Things like Settings, Email, etc. So, I installed Startup Auditor, and configured that to stop several of those non-used apps. The thing I noticed after that is that booting is faster. Specifically, instead of sitting on the Tent boot screen for a long time, it would boot past that in maybe 10 secs. I'm thinking of buying the paid apparently so I can stop more than 5 Alps.
Anyway, YMMV, but that's my experience.
Jim
I have my Nexus S for over two weeks now, and I'm incredibly happy with it. Theming is a lot of fun, and you can do very cool stuff even without root and custom roms!
However, there is one (strange) thing I've noticed. It's about the RAM.
For your information: I use Go Launcher which has a tab in the App Drawer with running applications, and a button to close all (you can exclude certain apps). When I boot up my phone, I have 170-180 MB free RAM. The following programs (and widgets) are running in the background (I have excluded them from the close all list): Go SMS Pro (widget, notifications), WhatsApp (notifications), Lookout, Extended Controls (widget), Wiget Locker (I made it look like the MIUI lockscreen) and Clockr (widget).
There are two more apps that are on constantly, and those are the Miren Browser and PlayerPro. I don't know why Miren Browser keeps turning itself on. When I check how much MB it uses, it says 0,00 dB... As for PlayerPro, I use a widget called Phantom Music Control, a widget that hides itself when no music is being played. I also use it on my lockscreen. This widget controls PlayerPro, so that is probably why PlayerPro has to be running all the time (so that it can start up quickly when needed).
There are some Google apps that turn themselves on, like Gmail and Places, and they actually use RAM according to Go Launcher. I don't want them to be running, and synchronization is turned off with Gmail. When I want to know if I have mail, I open Gmail. It doesn't have to be running all the time. I've never used Places, and I never will use it, so I don't know why that has to be running all the time.
Every once in a while I hit Close All (with Go Launcher). However, I've noticed that over time my free memory keeps lowering. When I boot up my phone it is around 175 MB, but at the end of the day the free memory is 100 MB, 70 MB or even 50 MB, and yes, even after I've hit the 'Close All' button.
I know I don't use my phone very efficient, with programs like Go SMS, Widget Locker and that Music Control widget, and I will flash a custom rom later. My RAM memory will probably increase then (I've read something about Supercurio's kernel including a boost RAM management). It just bothers me that I don't have control over what programs are running (Gmail and Places), and that my free memory decreases over time. I haven't noticed any slow downs, I'm just worried. Or shouldn't I?
I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.
cgi said:
I don't know about the rest, but you shouldn't be concerned about free memory.
Android is designed in a way that all programs keep running (sleeping actually) in the background even when you don't use them at the moment. They are automatically killed when the system needs memory for something else. Any program that is sent to the background (e.g. by pressing back or home) can be killed by the system at any time and is (should be) ready for it.
Basically, the less free memory you have, the better. That means that many of the apps you use are running and you can return to them without delay.
There are some articles floating around the web about the architecture of android and process/application life cycle. They explain that better then me, and in more detail.
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Click to collapse
First of all, thanks!
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?
Androyed said:
So I don't have to be afraid of any slow down? And what about Gmail and Places turning themselves on every time, even if I don't use them?
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More like the opposite: your RAM is being put to good use.
When your PC get's low on RAM it will start swapping and trashing around. Your smartphone has no swap and is optimized for it. If it get's low on RAM, it will just kill some stuff in the background. All this happens without you noticing anything (if the app is programmed correctly).
I don't know about Gmail and Places. Most likely they are running because they registered broadcast receivers or something.
Androyed said:
And why does the free memory decrease over time, but increases again when I turn off and boot up my phone?
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Every app is running in its own dalvik virtual machine process. Since creating a new VM process is expensive (in terms of processing time), the VM processes are reused to some degree. One app is unloaded, the new one is loaded.
There is more stuff going on behind the scenes, of course. There are likely some spare VMs sleeping in the background waiting for an app to use them.
However, the heap (dynamically allocated memory of a process) of a VM can only grow and never shrink (don't ask me why). So after a few apps or so a VM process is restarted, too.
To come back to your question: When your device boots up, only the processes needed for boot are running. That will be the launcher, some widgets and so on. So basically, this is the moment with the most free RAM. However, this is also when your device is slowest, because every new app you launch has first to be loaded into memory and executed.
While you use your device, many of the apps you used will be kept around in the background, so when you start them again, they will reappear instantly, because the whole "create vm process --> load app from storage --> execute and initialize app" chain has already happened.
"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?
d-h said:
"Free memory is wasted memory."
When you open an app, the system loads it into ram. When you close it, the system should not bother to remove it from ram because there is a good chance you will use that app again and having it pre-loaded makes it open significantly faster.
Just because ram is "used" doesn't mean it can't be re-allocated for something more important.
That being said, it is entirely possible that some of your apps have memory leaks. Does it get worse after two days, or three days?
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I turn my phone off every evening, so I don't know. It's not a problem by any means, I'm just curious.
I've left my RAM alone today, and I didn't noticed any slow down. It was on 110 MB free RAM when I left it alone, and when it was at 35 MB RAM, I decided to hit the close all button (there was no slow down btw). Guess what? My RAM went back up to 140 MB! Not as much as when I boot my phone up, but it's still strange: when I hit close all when the free RAM is very low, I get more free RAM then when I hit close all when my free RAM is around 100 MB (I only get 5 or 10 MB free RAM extra then).
Thanks by the way, good first post!
Hi everyone,
I've been using my NS (not rooted) for 4 months straight without wiping the data on it, and now its reading and writing speed gets horribly slow. App updates become sluggish and sometimes fail, and some actions like searching contacts or moving apps from internal memory to sd now take much longer than they used to. Just wonder how I can fix this problem?
Thanks a lot!
Its possible your caches are quite large. 1-tap clean cache works good without root. Another possibility is your storage space is getting full. Unload some of that stuff onto a computer. Maybe you've got a boat load of apps installed. Uninstall stuff you don't use everyday or every other day. Maybe apps are slowing you down. There might be some cpu hogs or stuff that wants to run all the time. Another culprit is lots of small files in storage. When you boot, it scans the card and if there's lots of small files, its going to take awhile to scan them. Its doubtful but possible that the ram is going bad. That's my suggestions.
oscarthegrouch said:
Its possible your caches are quite large. 1-tap clean cache works good without root. Another possibility is your storage space is getting full. Unload some of that stuff onto a computer. Maybe you've got a boat load of apps installed. Uninstall stuff you don't use everyday or every other day. Maybe apps are slowing you down. There might be some cpu hogs or stuff that wants to run all the time. Another culprit is lots of small files in storage. When you boot, it scans the card and if there's lots of small files, its going to take awhile to scan them. Its doubtful but possible that the ram is going bad. That's my suggestions.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply oscarthegrouch! I usually clean app cache once in a while and the internal/external storage is only about 50% full. I think the problem might be that I installed many apps and always did app2sd when possible, which could create a lot of small files. I tried cut-and-paste the stuff on the external storage (as some sort of defragmentation) but it didn't really boost up the speed. And since my phone is not rooted I can't access the internal storage.
P.S. I installed way more apps on my iTouch and it didn't slow down like my NS. Got no idea why this whole problem is happening...
maybe it's a free memory issue ?
my device is always busy with kswapd0 and runs very slow than.
Hello!
I've been using XT1032 for a while as someone that's mostly new to smartphones - it's an upgrade after heavily worn out LG GT540. However after rooting it, installing official CM and updating to the latest nightlies every second day or so, I still have several problems. I'm sorry if there's too little detail in this post, I'll try to add detail later on.
First off, I don't understand how the storage space works. The phone is supposed to have 8GBs of internal memory, however only 5.5GBs are accessible to the user. Additionally, applications refuse to install when the system reports that there's ~400MBs of "space" left. Is this because of a partition being filled up? The Apps panel of system settings isn't specific what is taking up too much space and I'm afraid the DiskUsage app doesn't help either.
Second thing is the actual available RAM. It's supposed to be 1 GB, but Z-DeviceTest reports only 885MBs being available. Where's the rest? There's also swap of 255MBs that I don't know where it came from. I thought that on a low-end smartphone they wouldn't waste internal storage on swap.
There's a trick to increasing available storage space by linking the /cache folder to root. How does that work? How do I know if the folder is being used or not, and if it's safe to do this? DiskUsage doesn't show this folder normally, and when switching to it in root it's being 651MBs large, with "System data" taking up 11.2MBs and pds-CM10.img 3MBs. There's also recovery and backup folders, 56KBs and 16KBs respectively. Why is it this big anyhow, if it's not being used?
The most immediate problem, and the one that annoys me the most since I bought the phone for a certain purpose, is that Google Play Music is lagging terribly. It uses ~110MBs when I switch to the Running Apps screen from the settings quickly enough to check its stats, each song takes several seconds to load even on WiFi, no matter the quality, and the worst part is that even if it "loads up" it takes several additional seconds to scroll around it! It's not just the playing affected, the whole interface is sluggish. Screens take seconds to switch between each other, returning to the app after opening two applications makes it either "restart", where it still plays music, but you can see that the interface is now several screens back. How is it possible that in 2015 an operating system developer can't make a performant app that's not a game, that's not a video editor, but a god damn music player? The only quirk is that it's streaming the music from the net instead of playing a downloaded file. It has a cache that uses over 700MBs already, no excuses. I checked that with DiskUsage.