I have noticed that occasionally browser closes itself while reading news and I'm being back to reloading news app. I thought perhaps it's my fingers touching back button. But after installing Tasker it gave me warnings, pointing to limited memory. My investigation shows that browser can take up to 150MB with few tabs open, depending how you exit the browser. With 370MB total on this phone it creates low memory condition and results in system killing all foreground processes to reclaim memory. So that's me being kicked out of my news :-l
I did factory reset thinking perhaps it's due to rooting but it's not it. I have a few apps but not that many.
Now the phone was marketed as gaming device. Do we know if the gpu memory 140MB is used at all for graphics by regular apps? Also is every game using it or is it utilized only by Tegra specific games?
I'm starting to think that 512MB is real issue, affecting phone's normal use. Even if you have your active app running ok often you may notice that your previous app was removed since system tries to clean background processes first. In my case news needs re-downloading and then I have to navigate to the place I left.
I just hope gingerbread will address the issue, to some extend.
For screenshot go to: tapatalk.com/mu/d0365549-2325-0bdd.jpg
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
Have you frozen the Tmobile bloat? I got one memory error message before I rooted & froze. I haven't got any since & that is running a custom home (Go Launcher EX or SPB 3D) with Lookout, Watchdog, Wifi calling, Noom & a ton of custom live widgets.
Is this with the stock browser? I used Skyfire & it was a bit buggy so I use the stock but I keep my tab count to a minimum - usually less than 3 at a time because I have Flash enabled. In fact Flash could be your issue. Try disabling Flash and see what happens.
Bloatware was first thing axed. it's on stock browser. just checked dolphin browser with flash disabled and received low memory notification from tasker when browsing on three tabs. So it's not browser or flash specific. Can somebody confirm that browser can allocate 100 or more MB when using it actively? I was bit shocked seeing this.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
This never happened to me. I just checked my available memory when watching a flash video in the browser and it was still showing 137mb left. While playing pocket legends it is telling me I have 111mb left.
Sometimes certain apps that are coded wrong will suck up a ton of memory. This happened to me when I downloaded the NFL mobile app.
I can't speak for a g2x, but since my g2 has the same ram, I can say on stock browser regardless of the amount of ram I have available which always seems to be around 50 to 70, browsing has never been an issue for me. I only get insuffcient memory issues when installing apps from the market on rare occassions, redownload and it usually works. Not sure if this helps, but a phone with same memory specs just chiming in. I'm running cm7, a few widgets mostly utilities stuff.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
IV seen a couple forum's we're people go back and forth about task killers, ( manly about whether or not you need them)
It seems like the argument against it is that the android system already kills apps. And most of the programs and apps constantly try to restart (draining you're battery)
But the argument for it. Is that the android O/S lets way to many apps run. And keeps them in memory, before it actually starts killing them.
But from what I can tell it doesn't look like any of the arguments were 'rom' or even 'phone' specific.
What do you Guy's think?
Are you for, or against auto killers?
And why?
Do you think they make a difference?
Do they drain your battery?
If you do use them. "Which ones do you use"? And y?
(Let the arguments begin) I'm interested to know what you guys think?
Sent from my G2X.
Rocking stock CM 7.2.0-RC1
Do not use them. The Android OS is very good at knowing what to keep in memory and what not to. You want your memory to be full pretty much all the time (unused memory is wasted memory), and the OS will swap data out to your internal storage (or SD card?) when necessary.
Think about it: Do you have auto-task-killer for Windows or Mac OS? Of course not. The OS manages memory very well.
Now, I *may* kill a task that has a memory leak or is taking up gigantic amounts of memory for no reason (as I would on Windows using the Task Manager), but I'll only do that on an app-by-app basis, and it usually results in my uninstalling the crappily-written app.
So no, "auto" task killers are worthless.
Android continues to run random crap in the background for no reason. Crappy programing. I have had mixed results with various task killers. It is a shame that Google can not get their stuff together. They have the resources to do it correctly, so it leads me to the conclusion it is intentional.
Why the hell does Maps need to run all the freaking time? It's ridiculous. Is ICS any better than Gingerbread? I hope it is. That would be a worthy reason to upgrade, but for the short time I tried an ICS rom it still ran tons of crap for no reason at all other than google wants it to run.
Hopefully one day someone will come out with an efficient OS. Until then we are stuck trying to implement workarounds to Google's crap programing.
ok, ill try to explain this
Android and windows operating systems are very different in the way they handle memory useage.
In windows, when you open a program the program allocates a chunk of memory that it can use, it then tells the system to give it more if it needs it, and it gives it back when it dosent. Once the program is closed all of this memory is 'forgotten' instantly and cannot be recovered, so when you restart the program you are starting it over like new. (one exception being programs that stay running in the background after you close the window)
In android, this is all handled much MUCH MUCH more efficiently.
Android apps are made up of processes and services. A process is a foreground window that you interact with. Unless you hit the back key to exit out of the program, it is simply paused. Once paused a process can use NO CPU!! none at all! ZERO! It is still kept in memory so that if you want to go back to the app, or you restart it later, and its still in memory, the phone will spend less time, CPU power, and battery power relaunching it from the start. if the phone begins to run low on memory it starts closing these programs. id say 90% of the time closing a paused process is so fast, and takes so little resources that you cant tell when its happening, even if you watch really closely for it.
The problem with apps using battery in the background is android Services.
Services are different from processes. services have no UI, the user cannot interact with them directly at all, and they should only contain code that is needed to run in the background. When you exit an app through its own menu, it shuts down its own services, unless it believes that they are needed still. These processes can run in the background for as long as they want... to a point. if android needs the memory for something else, and its already killed every process that's not running, it will start killing unused services.
Services are the main thing that separate android from the IOS. Android can multi-task, and services are the way that it does it. The reason that these can suck the battery dry is because of bad programming by the app creator. If your facebook app wants to sync your pictures, it will keep a service running to do that, perhaps using GPS, Network, and SD card data the whole time. Its the app's fault, not android's.
For example:
If your playing music, and you want to go to another playlist, a service is the part of the program reading the song off the SD card, downloading album art, and playing it over the headset. while the process is showing you all this and letting you pick another playlist. if you press your home key in the middle of a song, the process is paused, so the UI can no longer use CPU power, however the service is still running, still playing music. when you stop the music and then close the app, a WELL PROGRAMMED music app will stop its service, then pause its UI. 10 minutes later you want to play music again, so you reopen the app only to find that it is exactly the way you left it! all ready and waiting for you to hit play. this is because while it was paused, it was not using battery or cpu power, but was still stored in the RAM. when you reopened it, the OS just reads all this ram and 'un-pauses' the program for you.
Finally just because an app has a process, does not mean that it is drinking your battery power by the megawatt! Some services are just there, waiting for something, using little to NO cpu power. For example your SWYPE and Android Keyboard services are running constantly. however they are not using much battery power at all. the services are only there listening for android to shout that it needs a keyboard, at which point the service runs the paused process.
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
As for app killers, they are useless, 100% useless and i think that they are the only thing that should be banned from the google market. they ONLY hurt and NEVER HELP!!! the only thing that is useful is CM7/CM9's 'hold back button to kill app' this can be used to kill that annoying rogue app that has an awful programmer. but even then about 75% of the time the programmer will make it just start back up anyway, so the only solution is to UNINSTALL it.
korny647 said:
IV seen a couple forum's we're people go back and forth about task killers, ( manly about whether or not you need them)
It seems like the argument against it is that the android system already kills apps. And most of the programs and apps constantly try to restart (draining you're battery)
But the argument for it. Is that the android O/S lets way to many apps run. And keeps them in memory, before it actually starts killing them.
But from what I can tell it doesn't look like any of the arguments were 'rom' or even 'phone' specific.
What do you Guy's think?
Are you for, or against auto killers?
And why?
Do you think they make a difference?
Do they drain your battery?
If you do use them. "Which ones do you use"? And y?
(Let the arguments begin) I'm interested to know what you guys think?
Sent from my G2X.
Rocking stock CM 7.2.0-RC1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly I can care less about a task killer. My phone runs perfectly without any task killer.
Sent from my LG-P999 using xda premium
Klathmon said:
ok, ill try to explain this
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. My phone still seems to slow down when I do a lot of web surfing. When my available memory drops below 100mb the Internet slows to a crawl. Any tips? I have been using a task killer to manually close out runing apps to free up space.
jcbofkc said:
Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. My phone still seems to slow down when I do a lot of web surfing. When my available memory drops below 100mb the Internet slows to a crawl. Any tips? I have been using a task killer to manually close out runing apps to free up space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your using the stock browser, press the tab button at the top right...
close the probally 20 or so tabs that are still open that you dont use anymore
the more memory the active app takes up the more android has to kill, after it kills all empty processes, it starts killing services, and active services, then notifications, ect...
the further up the list you go the more cpu power it takes to free up the resources.
Many tabs take up alot of ram
Klathmon said:
ok, ill try to explain this
Android and windows operating systems are very different in the way they handle memory useage.
In windows, when you open a program the program allocates a chunk of memory that it can use, it then tells the system to give it more if it needs it, and it gives it back when it dosent. Once the program is closed all of this memory is 'forgotten' instantly and cannot be recovered, so when you restart the program you are starting it over like new. (one exception being programs that stay running in the background after you close the window)
In android, this is all handled much MUCH MUCH more efficiently.
Android apps are made up of processes and services. A process is a foreground window that you interact with. Unless you hit the back key to exit out of the program, it is simply paused. Once paused a process can use NO CPU!! none at all! ZERO! It is still kept in memory so that if you want to go back to the app, or you restart it later, and its still in memory, the phone will spend less time, CPU power, and battery power relaunching it from the start. if the phone begins to run low on memory it starts closing these programs. id say 90% of the time closing a paused process is so fast, and takes so little resources that you cant tell when its happening, even if you watch really closely for it.
The problem with apps using battery in the background is android Services.
Services are different from processes. services have no UI, the user cannot interact with them directly at all, and they should only contain code that is needed to run in the background. When you exit an app through its own menu, it shuts down its own services, unless it believes that they are needed still. These processes can run in the background for as long as they want... to a point. if android needs the memory for something else, and its already killed every process that's not running, it will start killing unused services.
Services are the main thing that separate android from the IOS. Android can multi-task, and services are the way that it does it. The reason that these can suck the battery dry is because of bad programming by the app creator. If your facebook app wants to sync your pictures, it will keep a service running to do that, perhaps using GPS, Network, and SD card data the whole time. Its the app's fault, not android's.
For example:
If your playing music, and you want to go to another playlist, a service is the part of the program reading the song off the SD card, downloading album art, and playing it over the headset. while the process is showing you all this and letting you pick another playlist. if you press your home key in the middle of a song, the process is paused, so the UI can no longer use CPU power, however the service is still running, still playing music. when you stop the music and then close the app, a WELL PROGRAMMED music app will stop its service, then pause its UI. 10 minutes later you want to play music again, so you reopen the app only to find that it is exactly the way you left it! all ready and waiting for you to hit play. this is because while it was paused, it was not using battery or cpu power, but was still stored in the RAM. when you reopened it, the OS just reads all this ram and 'un-pauses' the program for you.
Finally just because an app has a process, does not mean that it is drinking your battery power by the megawatt! Some services are just there, waiting for something, using little to NO cpu power. For example your SWYPE and Android Keyboard services are running constantly. however they are not using much battery power at all. the services are only there listening for android to shout that it needs a keyboard, at which point the service runs the paused process.
one last thing, the reason google maps runs in the background is because something on the phone wants location data. (could be the fact that you checked 'share anonymous data about my location with google' or the fact that you want your weather service to update based on your location, or any other 100's of things) While any program can access GPS data, the numbers you get back are latitude and longitude. This is damn near useless for any location based app, so they ask the Google Maps process to return a city, state, zip code, street address, ect... instead of your Average app maker programming an entire system for this, and getting map data from somewhere else on its own (that will most likely be not as efficent), google made a wonderful maps program and let everyone use it for its location data! Hows that for open source?
As for app killers, they are useless, 100% useless and i think that they are the only thing that should be banned from the google market. they ONLY hurt and NEVER HELP!!! the only thing that is useful is CM7/CM9's 'hold back button to kill app' this can be used to kill that annoying rogue app that has an awful programmer. but even then about 75% of the time the programmer will make it just start back up anyway, so the only solution is to UNINSTALL it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said, makes it alot more clear to me.
But that being said is there anyone that still has an argument for auto killers?
Or is it pretty much a no across the bored. Here at xda.
If that's the case why are their so many task killers that have a huge amounts of downloads,?
Just a bunch of noobs falling for snake oil?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
korny647 said:
Well said, makes it alot more clear to me.
But that being said is there anyone that still has an argument for auto killers?
Or is it pretty much a no across the bored. Here at xda.
If that's the case why are their so many task killers that have a huge amounts of downloads,?
Just a bunch of noobs falling for snake oil?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes and no.
most people only have experience with windows, and when something is running in windows it is actually running. most people think a computer is a computer (roughly) so they think that running in android means the same. not really falling for something, just a misunderstanding.
also if i made one of these apps (regardless if i knew how it worked at the time or not) im not gonna stop the money coming in because i might be wrong
Klathmon said:
yes and no.
most people only have experience with windows, and when something is running in windows it is actually running. most people think a computer is a computer (roughly) so they think that running in android means the same. not really falling for something, just a misunderstanding.
also if i made one of these apps (regardless if i knew how it worked at the time or not) im not gonna stop the money coming in because i might be wrong
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, so true.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA
Read here also.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Good stuff, Klathmon. Couldn't have explained it better myself.
If you want a "task killer" don't use a task killer use a memory optimizer... such as the v6 supercharger or autokiller from the market. These aren't task killers but they basically just make your phone a ram nazi.
Pin it to Win it.
Allow me to jump on the bandwagon. Don't use them. Allow the operating system to work as it was intended for better or worse.
Thanks everyone for this very interesting thread.
Recently my SGS2 LTE becomes sluggish if I don't turn it off for a week or two. I also notice that my RAM normally sits at about 500+/785MB. I know that clearing my memory lowers it quite a bit, but then I don't get certain notifications because it clears certain apps from the Running Services and Cached Processes. So my question is A) how can I keep my RAM lower without clering the memory? and B) how can I keep my phone from being so sluggish? Is this just normal and turning it off and on every week or two is normal protocol for keeping a smooth phone? Keep in mind that my phone is totally stock as well. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
How many apps do you have on your phone?
Any task killers or task managers?
What apps do you have that are updating or syncing?
When you say sluggish, is it just the launcher or is it everything?
Are you getting any force closed error messages?
Uncle Irish said:
How many apps do you have on your phone?
Any task killers or task managers?
What apps do you have that are updating or syncing?
When you say sluggish, is it just the launcher or is it everything?
Are you getting any force closed error messages?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not including the stock apps, I have roughly 45 installed.
Other then my Gmail, Email, WhatsApp, and 2 games, I don't think any others are actively syncing.
When I say sluggish I mean everything.
And yes at the really bad times, I'll get the Force Close message.
did u flash the note uclc5 radio?
icenight89 said:
did u flash the note uclc5 radio?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I did not.
45 apps and you are wondering why it is sluggish.... Do you think your phone is a desktop?
Just caching all the **** will rape your phone. It's a good phone but remember the cache and ram are still weak.
Do yourself a favor and reduce to half th apps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
Pay no mind to the post above mine. 45 apps is not the culprit. I have about 70.
You should try a factory reset to test things out. Make sure u back up everything u need and pull everything u want off the internal storage and save to PC. Start totally fresh and then start adding apps slowly to test. Could be a rogue app causing it but never know. Factory image "should" resolve.
<insert witty signature here>
@kr3w1337 yes Skyrocket is a desktop, or the closest thing to a desktop. If you think 45 apps are too much - last I checked I had 89, and then I installed a few more mapping apps
This is our future, the desktop capabilities are leaking into our wearable items. It's not perfect and this guy's skyrocket is slow ... let's find out why (I will have an app for that in the coming months)
@RoLo. let's use what others suggested and add a few more things:
Are you using apps that are on your SDcard or use data on your SDCard ? I'm sure they are loaded to memory but if they interact with the external SDCard and if you have a slow card this may be part of your problem
Also, do you have stock ROM ? if you do I suggest learning how to install one of the rooted trimmed ROMs that take away some of the apps known to hog your phone resources
Another thing - is your data connection turned on all the time ? I found out that our phone is looking for the best network (4G) and then if that is not there it "downgrades" the search. All of that consumes time especially if you are on the move. Your apps freeze as a result and wait for the phone to establish connection all the time. To resolve this in some scenarios - go to your wireless settings and limit your phone so it only looks for connection up to 3G
Another thing as people already mentioned is the apps you have running. I'll ask this: do you have multiple apps that keep updating and getting new information ? the network handshakes between apps and data-network is slowing the rest of your apps down. If you are on WiFi it's a lot better
I hope this gives you a few more ideas to chase. It's a great phone and a huge step in the right direction where one day (soon) our phones will be part of our computing, information and services tools. It will do many things and serve as a phone as well
JD
kr3w1337 said:
45 apps and you are wondering why it is sluggish.... Do you think your phone is a desktop?
Just caching all the **** will rape your phone. It's a good phone but remember the cache and ram are still weak.
Do yourself a favor and reduce to half th apps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No way dude, I have exactly 182 apps, never had under 120 on my old Atrix, had no problem even on GB!
Sent from my HTC Vivid via Tapatalk
Nice post dorj1234
Happy to give you your first thanks
kr3w1337 said:
45 apps and you are wondering why it is sluggish.... Do you think your phone is a desktop?
Just caching all the **** will rape your phone. It's a good phone but remember the cache and ram are still weak.
Do yourself a favor and reduce to half th apps.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you crazy i have 100 apps and my phone runs like a breeze
Is there any real benefit to upgrading to 4.4 for low powered, wifi-only devices if you aren't a big google+/google now user?
I've read several articles on kit kat and can't seem to find any real benefit to upgrading.
I've got a Galaxy Player 5.0 with a measly 512 MB of ram, and 4.3 already wastes a lot of ram trying to have google search, email, and other stuff I don't need (instant access to) running in the background. Everything I've read says 4.4 is even worse about this.
Is there a way to turn off the google now and google+ junk (so more resources are available for stuff I actually use)? And yes, I understand and accept the 'empty memory is wasted memory' paradigm of android. I'd just rather have apps I'll use taking up memory.
dstarfire said:
Is there any real benefit to upgrading to 4.4 for low powered, wifi-only devices if you aren't a big google+/google now user?
I've read several articles on kit kat and can't seem to find any real benefit to upgrading.
I've got a Galaxy Player 5.0 with a measly 512 MB of ram, and 4.3 already wastes a lot of ram trying to have google search, email, and other stuff I don't need (instant access to) running in the background. Everything I've read says 4.4 is even worse about this.
Is there a way to turn off the google now and google+ junk (so more resources are available for stuff I actually use)? And yes, I understand and accept the 'empty memory is wasted memory' paradigm of android. I'd just rather have apps I'll use taking up memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed it on a Kindle Fire first generation which is very similar in profile and it works great. If you want to delete unneeded apps or services there are a few apps out there that can do it. I use Titanium Backup pro which has a feature where you can freeze apps to see how it will effect the system before deleting altogether.
It seems to make more efficient use of memory resources. It also seems to run smoother and is more stable.
Sent from my SPH-L720 using xda app-developers app
Thanks all. I was kind of scared away from it since the the early reviews mentioned the ubiquitous integration of search which would waste already scarce memory. Sounds like that's not the case though.
use titanium backup
dstarfire said:
Thanks all. I was kind of scared away from it since the the early reviews mentioned the ubiquitous integration of search which would waste already scarce memory. Sounds like that's not the case though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Titanium backup will be handy to freeze apps and to delete them too
I would like to know how much free RAM there is when not rooted and without disabling Sony apps from a typical user.
here you go mate.
View attachment 3011405
At the time of screen shot, I've had Chrome, GMail, Settings, Manga Rock, and Messenger apps running.
hth
Nathan-NL said:
I would like to know how much free RAM there is when not rooted and without disabling Sony apps from a typical user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The longer I leave that screen up, the less RAM I have free! Currently at 590MB. I won't fiddle with disabling apps until I need to; want to get a sense for how stable it is normally first (very, so far).
I wouldn't get too carried away with this, though, unless you have (rather than feel you have) a problem. RAM's there to be used, and Android does a good job of freeing up stuff that's not being used when it needs it.
Thank you. The second amount of free RAM is what I expected.
I ask because I wonder if 2GB is enough or that 3GB has clear advantages.