So I have an Acer Iconia A500 running 4.0.3 non-rooted.
Its got to the point where I'm at my wits end and need to take action. Over the last couple months I suspect it just hadn't been running right and has been getting progressively worse. Apps FC a lot more than ever. I've installed a lot over the months so doing process of elimination by uninstalling one at a time would be a pain.
This is why I'm wondering if there's any particular apps that are known to bog the system down. Here's a screenshot of what's running/URL]per Advanced Task Killer. I've killed tasks but they obviously start right back up and really its no use - nor is the built in task killer with Astro File Manager. Also I have no idea why some of those are running as I just rebooted my device before taking that screenshot. The only thing I've physically opened was the browser and Google Play music.
Also, is there any kind of app out there that can diagnose or sniff out the problem apps or a log that will tell me what's going haywire?
Any help is appreciated, really trying to avoid wiping the device.
Android has the autostart option for apps. The apps can use the onBoot service/ after boot completed to start, this explains the started apps after the reboot.
You can use the logcat to see why there are fc's of some apps.
Not every app is without errors and warnings, it could be a developer related problem. And btw android needs no task manager/ killer.
All,
First time poster, frequent visitor of XDA Forums. I've come across an odd issue that I don't know how to solve and I'm hoping some of you smarter than me folks can get me squared away.
I have a Galaxy S8+ from AT&T running Android 7.0 and Samsung Experience 8.1.
Problem:
I've recently noticed a delay or completely non-updating interface on my phone. It updates on occasion, but I can't determine what triggers an update. For example, I will pick up my phone from the desk and when I press the power button it shows the accurate time. When I unlock the device, the sense flip clock I use on the main home screen shows an earlier time (could be 30 minutes... could be a few hours). I don't believe it's just the Sense app because I noticed this issue where I checked a facebook messenger app that came and and when I closed the app, it still showed I had 1 notification. I went back in thinking I had another new message, but I didn't. So it was still hanging on to the notification. It happened a couple times with a text message as well. Most importantly, my calendar doesn't alert me prior to an appointment either, even though it's showing in my calendar and an alert is active. If I save an event, and exit, I can normally see the event appear on the on widget immediately as well... but that hasn't been happening. I have to press the widget to open it and confirm it is there (which it always is). Eventually it refreshes and shows up. But that delay is likely the reason why I'm not getting my alerts.
All of this did seem to happen after a recent update Samsung/AT&T pushed out but I don't know for sure. I tried clearing the cache from the boot menu but it doesn't seem there is wide success with that.
And perhaps I'm just not a good enough user, but everything isn't all backed up in the cloud so doing the factory reset to me is always a fairly large task as I have many things to manually transfer out and then back in. Not sure if there are great tools that help with this on a stock phone.
BUMP
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
It seems that you have several bugs and if they all start happening after you have installed the latest update, then expect a patch coming soon.
MINTED7 said:
try disabling battery optimization for those apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have actually done that. Found very limited success. I'm also finding very few results on this topic. Surely it's not just me though.
And I'm dreading the idea of a hard reset as I have many things on my phones, not all of which is sync'd to the cloud so it's a task to back things up appropriate. Specifically regarding "encrypted" apps like my password keeper app etc.
It would be great if there was a software application that allowed you to backup whatever is necessary to not lose data, then wipe the phone and instead of just simply restoring the full phone (which is likely to create the same problem one had before the hard reset), you could simply dump back in app data as needed. It would also help diagnose if the problem lies in a specific app's data.
High level overview of issues...
I have the Ring Doorbell app. I get notifications after "live". Could be 5 minutes, could be 1 hour... or possibly not at all. I have the app setup on my wife's iPhone and she gets them immediately. If I restart the phone, I will get notified right away (it's like it runs the app again and then I get the notification). Keep in mind, this is AFTER i disabled the battery optimization feature for the Ring app.
I also notice it occasionally with texting. I won't have any text notification in the notification panel, nor will my messaging icon have a little red circle indicating a message is there. But if I open the app, a specification conversation will have a red circle indicating a new text is unread.
All of this is leading me to believe the Samsung UI itself is not updating and therefore notifications that actually have arrived (from whatever app), are not displaying because of the UI and not because of their own delay.
Because of this concern I have turned off battery optimization for "System UI", "Themes", and "TouchWiz Home". I have not seen any change however.
[Solved]
I was able to determine by various other threads around the web (thought for sure I'd find it here, but I didn't) that the culprit might be the Google app. Supposedly it was fixed in some prior release, but it's not on my Galaxy S8+ w/ AT&T.
Once I disabled the Google app all the odd issues with notifications and clock interfaces and app icons not updating went away. The downside to disabling it is that I lose the Google Assistant functionality which stinks but otherwise there is no impact to using the phone. I re-enabled it at a later date and it worked fine for a few days and then started acting up again. Once I disabled it, the problems all disappeared. Clearly Google app is to blame.
I am still having trouble running apps in the background. Specially WhatsApp. I've disabled many evenwell apps and duraspeed using adb commands but not working. I am on the latest release of PIE. Is there a definitive guide to make this phone multitask?
Did you already try the instructions at dontkillmyapp.com?
I tried everything, and I haven't still got the Screentime app to work. Something keeps closing it when the phone is on battery and screen off. If the phone is charging over the night, the app stays in the background as it should. Also if the screen is on, there is no problems. An app like Screentime is quite useless if something keeps killing it all the time.
Quite annoying, as I selected Nokia because of Nokia having close to stock Android.
k701 said:
Did you already try the instructions at dontkillmyapp.com?
I tried everything, and I haven't still got the Screentime app to work. Something keeps closing it when the phone is on battery and screen off. If the phone is charging over the night, the app stays in the background as it should. Also if the screen is on, there is no problems. An app like Screentime is quite useless if something keeps killing it all the time.
Quite annoying, as I selected Nokia because of Nokia having close to stock Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well... I have managed to (somewhat) solve the issue with keeping the apps running on the background, so I'll share which my experience was, so you can check through it and see if it fits your needs and/or it helps you.
IT MUST BE NOTICED that some of the described stuff is because my personal needs, but nonetheless it can bring some ideas about what could work for you (or anyone else).
First of all, according to a discussion here on XDA there are a couple of evenwell apps that can be disabled and/or deleted from the device. I found that thread a little too late after I've done some of the following steps, but I wanted to point it out just in case you can find something useful.
So, as we have learn on https://dontkillmyapp.com/nokia (DKMA) there are two probable culprits regarding the killing of the apps:
The Powersave App
The Duraspeed process/daemon
Powersave/Evenwell Apps
For this ones I followed the given instructions on the DKMA page to no avail, as they worked only for a certain time and then the background processes started to get killed after a while.
So, after digging on the Nokia Forums I found this discussion and specifically this comment where an user when full ballistic and created a one-line script to delete/uninstall all evenwell applications (this needs to be run on the ADB shell). I must add that after some "trial-error" loops I noticed that sometimes there were some background processes running, so I done the following:
This is for doing a Force Stop to every Evenwell process. I would suggest to running it a couple of times, just in case there are some processes that refuse to be stopped:
for crap in $(pm list packages | grep even | cut -d ":" -f2) ; do am force-stop $crap; done
This is for Disabling every Evenwell process for the current user. Same additional suggestion as above:
for crap in $(pm list packages | grep even | cut -d ":" -f2) ; do pm disable-user $crap; done
This is for Uninstalling every Evenwell process. Same suggestion as above. Please note that this uninstalls the apps ONLY for the current user, that means, only for you (hence the [--user 0] parameter). As rooting is not possible yet, is not possible to get rid of these apps at system level:
for crap in $(pm list packages | grep even | cut -d ":" -f2) ; do pm uninstall --user 0 $crap; done
What those commands do is, first get all the packages that have "even" on their name (you can go and use the full name "evenwell", I left it as it is because I performed this steps after a factory reset), and for each one of them it performs the indicated operation (disabling, force stopping, uninstalling).
After that, I read somewhere else (can't recall exactly were) that it could be useful to clear the cache of Google Services and Google Play Store, and reboot the device afterwards.
Those steps solved most of the issues, as now the applications weren't killed after the screen goes black, or the device is idle. But, after a couple of hours (~3 hours) I still had some issues as the processes were still being killed, so that's when I went to the next item.
Duraspeed
As we know, this is a major annoyance as this thing (service/daemon) is impossible to uninstall, and it's very annoying to disable. What was most annoying is that my device (TA-1074) it wasn't listed on DKMA as a device having that thing, but it seemed that I had it.
So, this is where the fun starts, because although the instructions posted on DKMA works, it seems (basically) that it only works on the current session of the device, meaning that if the device was rebooted the operation was needed to be performed again. There's a discussion on Github where this is explained more lengthy and in more detail.
To add more fun to the mix, it seems that even if the setting was disabled, the Duraspeed service ignores the current value of that setting while booting the system, only taking notice of it when the value changed, meaning that we need to change the value to something else, and then setting it again to 0 (zero) in order to make a successful disabling of Duraspeed. There's no need to say that doing that on every reboot is a PIA.
Any way, on the thread some users suggested using some automation applications (like Tasker or Macrodroid), but not before granting some permissions to the automation apps, similar to what the guys of Syncthing-Android (fork) suggested (just changing the package name, of course).
But, for me here's the catch: none of the automation apps worked for me. It could be for several reasons, because I needed to setup some other things that I need to run at startup, but, well, YMMV.
Anyway, it seems that the developer of Syncthing-Android has added a routine to its application that makes the change of the setting and therefore disabling the Duraspeed service and that such change is live on production, and I can say that it works as intended.
---
After doing all of that, I was able keep the background apps alive doesn't matter if I rebooted my phone or not.
I hope that this could be of any help.
Kind regards.
Quick question
Thank you for the awesome write-up.
So, just to make sure: is the Syncthing-Fork the solution? I tried the DuraSpeed/MacroDroid/Evenwell route, but Whatsapp and IFTTT still refuse to cooperate.
Please advise.
Hi!
Well... To be honest, as far as I've seen, the thing that is causing most (if not all) of the issue is the DuraSpeed daemon/service, and in my particular use case, the only thing that worked is how Syncthing handles the "workaround". Let me explain...
It seems that DuraSpeed is controlled by a global setting named setting.duraspeed.enabled, and as weirdly as it sounds, it seems is that the value of that setting its taken into account when its changed and not during system boot. On other words, if we configure the value of the setting to 0 (zero), and we reboot the phone, although the value is persistent (I mean, it is not changed during the reboot/shutdown), DuraSpeed tend to ignore during the startup and will work as "designed" (that is, going in a killing spree from time to time) and giving us all the issues that we are aware of. As DuraSpeed will take into account the value of the setting only when it's changed, what is needed to do is to change the 0 to another value (let's say 1), and then changed again to 0 in order to be disabled.
Also, there's a funny thing about DuraSpeed: it seems that DuraSpeed start killing processes almost since the startup process, and not only after all the OS/UI has been loaded/is ready... What is frustrating enough, as it kills some processes just before we can use them.
So, according to what I've seen on some captured catlogs, is that Syncthing makes that change during startup, and not after the OS/UI has been loaded. I don't know how they do that (I have not taken a look into the codebase), but according to what I have read on the logs, the change is made on the early steps of the startup, just before any damage could be done.
So, my guessing is that, perhaps the Automation applications (Tasker, Macrodroid) are being killed before they can make any change into the setting, and DuraSpeed do all its nasty things.
By the way... Did you grant to the app that you're using, the ability to write to the settings store (using ADB)? The procedure that I am referring to is the one that is described on this response on Urbandroid's GitHub thread. I ask because I forgot to do that after the factory reset and was having the "DuraSpeed issues".
If you haven't, it could be that it's the only missing thing on your setup, and that probably it will solve the issue for you. If you already have done that, I'm guessing that you're on the same boat as I, and those applications are not able to perform the workaround.
Other thing (that I can think of) to check is the "Battery Optimization" setting. This is located on "Settings -> Apps & Notifications -> Advanced -> Special App Access -> Battery optimization". There you can configure if an application will be optimized or not, by clicking/pressing on an application and selecting "Don't optimize"/"Optimize" (according to your needs). It will probably be less severe as DuraSpeed, but I've configured some apps there too, just in case.
I hope this is useful for you.
Kind regards.
Thank you for the very detailed response - greatly appreciated.
I have done all of the above, I even reached out to the maker of Syncthing-Fork who took the time to write back almost immediately with additional help.
So far - WhatsApp is still dead. Unless the phone is being charged or the screen is on, messages and voice calls do not work (the other thing that wakes it is an incoming cell phone call or a cell text message). Similarly - IFTTT: I have yet to get it to trigger anything when the screen is off.
I use MacroDroid to perform the DuraSpeed value change at boot time and I had granted it the required permissions - exactly as described on the forums that you reference. Not sure what else to try.
I now see why some comments on DKMA call Nokia phones "dumbphones" - the phone and texts are the only things that work consistently.
Anyway, thank you again for taking the time to reply.
Hi there!
Well, I can't deny that it's a downer that your device is refusing to cooperate and just work as you, the owner/user, are expecting it and not how the developers/makers thought it should work...
The only last thing that I can think of is a little bit of an overkill, and it is making a factory reset, and perform any/all of the suggested steps (by DKMA, catfriend1, myself, etc) before installing anything else (besides, perhaps, the automation app)... Just in case that something else is interfering with the workarounds, and to have a "blank state" to start to work... As I stated before, I think that it's an overkill, specially because all that implies doing that (backups, mainly), but well... I can't think about anything else.
I now see why some comments on DKMA call Nokia phones "dumbphones" - the phone and texts are the only things that work consistently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I fully agree with you, although the specs (for a budget phone in my case) aren't so bad, all the battery customization (and bloatware) just sucks... To say the least.
I hope that you can find a solution for your issues, or at least a device that doesn't let you down as Nokia does...
Kind regards!
Still no luck
Did the factory reset, installed Macrodroid, gave it the required permissions. Disabled the evenwell packages that have also been identified as culprits. Checked duraspeed status via adb - it is disabled.
No luck. Dumbphone it is.
The annoying part? I have a nexus 4 and a nexus 5 with just as little ram and likely an inferior processor. Both phones work great (albeit really slow, not to mention the battery life). I feel the principle "don't fix it unless it is broken" applies here...
Hello folks, I have an issue with my zflip device. It heats up a lot on the external display, after which with any app (be it camera, or Instagram, or other) it freezes, then it remains stuck on the screen for 10/15 seconds and then restarts by itself and I have to put the PIN back. Consider that I have already sent him for assistance and they have already replaced him, he had another problem. Now I'm trying to remove the apps one by one and use the phone to see if the problem is created by an app, but besides that, chat us I don't know what to do anymore .. www.omegle.site obviously, I tried to restore and I'm on Android 12 .. a delusion. If anyone can help then please reply to me.
If you have a "new" terminal, presumably checked by the service centre before shipping, it sounds like a software issue.
Heating up is due to chip or sensor activity, and freezing could be a RAM issue - this phone doesn't have an enormous amount of RAM, but more than sufficient to avoid reboot. Maybe the phone is getting so hot it reboots as a precaution.
It sounds like an app is always active/it's keeping a sensor active, so you could make sure the preinstalled apps are optimised for the battery in the settings. Also check battery usage by app, that should point to the usual suspects and you could start there.
I don't use stuff like Facebook & Instagram, so I simply uninstall or disable them from the apps menu. Social & media apps are notorious for battery drain, and within the app there are settings which may be causing that heating up/freezing.
If I were you, I'd back up your important data and do a factory reset, then run it a couple of days with the minimal setup, no additional apps.
Then every 3 days, install groups of them (depending on how many you have, say 5). Then if you get the symptoms again, you'll know it's due to one of that group.
Depends if you wanta quick fix, or to really know which one is responsible