Related
Relatively often I find when turning the Desire on I get a white spinning circle and the home screen has basically crashed. Most of the time this clears itself but sometimes it doesn't and I have to turn off/on the phone (* see below).
What background apps/services are known to do this? I'm pretty sure I'm killing something using Task Panel, I shouldn't be.
* I've found pressing the Search button and then accessing the People App (from the Phone option) clears the crash.
Thanks
If you're allowing any process to automatically kill other processes, you're asking for trouble. First disable that, its pointless and uses more resources/battery than it saves.
If you still have an issue with the home app locking up, in my experience its usually a badly written widget. If you have any widgets on your screens that aren't "original" I would start by getting rid of them and then re-adding one-by-one over time until you find the culprit. Check the comments/reviews of them too, if they're locking up the phone people will usually comment about it on the Market.
If that still hasn't fixed it, I'm not sure what else would be locking up the home app, my next suggestion would be a hard-reset to "clean up" and go from there.
foner78 said:
If you're allowing any process to automatically kill other processes, you're asking for trouble. First disable that, its pointless and uses more resources/battery than it saves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean? I use Task Panel, that kills apps/services. Is that what you mean? But I'm not using it to kill system services just :
BlueTooth share - I don't use Bluetooth, why does this still run?
Photos - HTC Photo App
Gallery - Nexus One Phto App
FM Radio
MyBackup Pro
3G Watchdog - Monitor data usage
ShopSavvy - Check prices elsewhere
Footprints - What a pointless app!
TrainTimes UK
Facebook App
These are killed when I put the phone in standby or I click Kill All.
I really don't see why most of these have to run, when I turn the phone on but there's no option to stop them doing it. I really don't need a lot of these running all the time!
I'd also think, if I kill an App and it's needed, it would just reload itself. So when the Home Screens re-loaded, it would be running again in the Task Manager but there's nothing there.
foner78 said:
If you still have an issue with the home app locking up, in my experience its usually a badly written widget. If you have any widgets on your screens that aren't "original" I would start by getting rid of them and then re-adding one-by-one over time until you find the culprit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only widget I'm using that doesn't come with the HTC Desire is the HTC Notes widget. Thanks btw.
As foner78 has already suggested, I would try first try removing your task killer (TaskPanel) so as to eliminate it as the cause of your issue.
It is also worthwhile reading up on how Android manages processes/multitasks - good sources are here and here.
The Desire is my third Android phone, and whilst I've tried using task killers, I've come to the conclusion that leaving the OS to handle it itself is the best option.
Regards,
Dave
This is also my second Android phone.
I would definitely recommend you read the links posted by foxmeister to get a better understanding of processes/activites/services on Android and why you don't need to play any role in killing them.
The short version is... you have nothing to gain from killing processes in this way and you do risk having problems with your phone. Right now, you DO have a problem with the home app and you are randomly killing processes. Logically it makes sense to rule this out as the cause.
Got to be worth trying, surely!?
Thanks guys.
I removed Task Panel and put on Advanced Task Killer instead. Advanced Task Killer lets you filter out system services, so you can only kill Apps. Problem fixed.
bradavon said:
Thanks guys.
I removed Task Panel and put on Advanced Task Killer instead. Advanced Task Killer lets you filter out system services, so you can only kill Apps. Problem fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Geez, talk about missing the point...
Well I'm glad that you've got rid of the problem, though I would still urge you to stop ANY automatic process killing as that still leads to problems and has no advantage. There are many topics on here to explain why, and the links posted previously. Do yourself a favour and learn about android processes. Your understanding of processes from other systems such as Windows simply does not apply here.
Still, you can lead horse to water...
The explanation from the Android devs is quite nice and help understand how it works but in reality is not always like that.
If you use any task amnager to monitor the memory usage you will notice that overtime the OS will consume a lot of the memory to the point that will render the OS slower.
What i mean is that even if Android works perfectly managing the memory we cannot say the same about the applications we install.
I've used/tested pratically all the top 100 apps for Android and a LOT of them will not work as the devs say.
I know it is not an Android problem, but still from time to time you need to kill some of those apps manually.
My opinion is to not get rid of the task manager, but just stop the auto-killing process. Then if you notice some slow down on the system, use it to check what apps are holding back memory (after you have closed them for a while).
Once you found what application is giving problems, search an alternative because the one you are using is not developped correctly.
cgrec92 said:
Geez, talk about missing the point...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not missed any point thank you. I asked for advice why the home screen was crashing and I was given it. I read that informative document over at Android HQ and now have a better idea of how Android memory management works.
It still means I want to be in control of the apps running on "my" phone. Some apps consume way too much memory (although as that document describes, that "usually" isn't a problem) and some connect with my phone's data connection way too often. It also annoys me Apps I never ever use still insist in running all the time, like the Stock Control App and Footprints (does anyone use that?). The latter seems to do more than it appears (usually if I kill it, it takes the home screen with it). I don't kill those two any more but it still annoys me they run.
It looks like Android is much, much better than Windows Mobile at App memory management but that too claimed to kill apps when memory was low. Except it never did.
Since "not killing" system services/apps my Desire's Home Screen hasn't crashed once. I see no harm in killing Third Party Apps, as Krpano says it can sometimes be necessary.
It's always really annoyed me Windows Mobile has no ethos of a simple "exit" button, so few apps have it. On Android I've yet to come across any app with an exit buton. Some apps say they have one but it merely hides the app to the background. We should be given the choice of exiting an app, when we're finished with it. Windows, Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) and MAC OS all have such a feature as default.
bradavon said:
I've not missed any point thank you. I asked for advice why the home screen was crashing and I was given it. I read that informative document over at Android HQ and now have a better idea of how Android memory management works.
It still means I want to be in control of the apps running on "my" phone. Some apps consume way too much memory (although as that document describes, that "usually" isn't a problem) and some connect with my phone's data connection way too often. It also annoys me Apps I never ever use still insist in running all the time, like the Stock Control App and Footprints (does anyone use that?). The latter seems to do more than it appears (usually if I kill it, it takes the home screen with it). I don't kill those two any more but it still annoys me they run.
It looks like Android is much, much better than Windows Mobile at App memory management but that too claimed to kill apps when memory was low. Except it never did.
Since "not killing" system services/apps my Desire's Home Screen hasn't crashed once. I see no harm in killing Third Party Apps, as Krpano says it can sometimes be necessary.
It's always really annoyed me Windows Mobile has no ethos of a simple "exit" button, so few apps have it. On Android I've yet to come across any app with an exit buton. Some apps say they have one but it merely hides the app to the background. We should be given the choice of exiting an app, when we're finished with it. Windows, Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) and MAC OS all have such a feature as default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OR you can just let Android do all this for you...
cgrec92 said:
Geez, talk about missing the point...
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Click to collapse
That was a bit harsh my friend!
While I respect the point that it is YOUR phone and of course you can choose how you use it, we are simply offering you advice. Please don't take offence at this, but some of the things you say in your last post show us that you still do not understand Android processes.
I would just like to explain that very often when you see an app "running" in the background using a Task Manager, it is not actually running at all... by which I mean it is not consuming any CPU time. These apps are simply left resident in the memory so that they are quick to resume if/when you come to use them again. When memory is short and another task tries to grab some Android makes a decision about which of those applications you are least likely to use again soon and kills it. Literally kills it, erasing all traces from memory. This is of course totally transparent to the user.
On older Android phones the "cleanups" often resulted in pauses in the user experience and this is why I used a Task Manager on my G1. However the Desire has so much more memory and CPU time combined with the updated Android code that this all happens without you seeing it. I would suggest to you that the only reason you are aware of these apps in the background is because you have gone looking in a Task Manager which is giving you misleading information.
I don't recommend removing the Task Manager, it is useful when an App does "go bad", but I strongly recommend disabling all automated task killing. By running that you are using actual CPU time and battery resources, which has a greater impact on overall system performance than the resident background applications. You may disagree based on your PC or WinMo experience, but it simple is the case with Android which manages tasks and memory very differently to those.
The final point is... having 30MB of free memory on the device is no different to having 40MB free. As long as a process has space to load and run it the "free" space is irrelevant on these devices. When a process doesn't have space Android makes space by killing the background apps in the most efficient way possible.
I hope you'll consider my advice carefully and at least try it, you will have a better Android experience if you do, but of course if you choose to do things your way then I still hope you have a good experience with your Desire
Here's a list of apps that are open when my phone is just turned on:
Paperdroid
Greed2
Market
NewsRob
Tasker
Google Mail
News
Wifi Manager
Gallery
Colornote
Footprints
Messages
Nimbuzz
Clock
twicca
Skebby
fring
FM Radio
Music
Stocks
Except a few system ones (Gmail, Messages..), why do apps open even if I never used them? Especially the HTC ones (Stocks, Footprints), they are really annoying apps I never opened.
Can this be solved somehow? It may not use resources or battery but I don't understand why I can't decide what to open.
It feels like the Windows system tray, bunch of stuff often stuck there autostarting with no way of removing it (if not by using 3rd party programs).
i was about to post the same question. Just dont understand why they start when i got my sync set to manual
totally agree that all these apps/services or whatever you call just annoying as they are started without user permission. Hv raised a similar thread some time ago, and Im not expert on such issues, but as far as I understand, the only way to get rid of them is -unfortunately- passing through root & custom roms.. No way out to stop them from being run automatically especially the Sense ones. However, acc to more advanced users or developers, they are not so "dangerous" in terms of battery consumption, nor any other impact on system as long as user do not activate and use them. For those which requires synching e.g. stocks, news, facebook, peep etc. it is enough to keep autosynch option disabled, thus it is no longer needing to think/care about them, that's it. But if the point is to ensure more room available in the internal memory, then -as said- the only solution is flashing rom with any 3rd party rom like cyanogen, modaco, defrost, ........
Me? still stuck with the official froyo on my unbranded, unrooted Desire (since April 13th)
iLHaNroID said:
totally agree that all these apps/services or whatever you call just annoying as they are started without user permission
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when you download them you give them all the permissions they need, if you dont like the way a program behaves ..... simple dont download it
Wow that's helpful, simply don't download stock and peep and others.how come I did not think about it???
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
it starts them, cause it has enough memory to cacche them.
so when you want to launch them, they open fast. simple as that.
when do people stop worrying about memory and all this. android handles that very well. no reason for watching memory and running programs even.
koichirose said:
Can this be solved somehow? It may not use resources or battery but I don't understand why I can't decide what to open.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Put simply, the reason why these start at boot is because they are set to receive the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED intent.
Allows an application to receive the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED that is broadcast after the system finishes booting. If you don't request this permission, you will not receive the broadcast at that time. Though holding this permission does not have any security implications, it can have a negative impact on the user experience by increasing the amount of time it takes the system to start and allowing applications to have themselves running without the user being aware of them. As such, you must explicitly declare your use of this facility to make that visible to the user.
Constant Value: "android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bear in mind that 99.99% of Android users will never know that this has happened, or that these processes were started. So, if they want to use Stocks, Peep, or whatever, they don't need to make a conscious decision to have the app start automatically - it just does.
Whilst I'm sure Google could build in an official API to allow you to control this behaviour, it would only be of benefit to a very tiny minority of users.
Regards,
Dave
Thank you for the explanation.
All I want would be an option to disable autostart.
I found it in fring, for example, and would like to see other developers add this option as well.
The only bad impact you could have is that boot time could be a couple of seconds longer for every application that starts. Otherwise, that memory it occupies will be freed the second the system needs it and CPU-wise, those applications are staying idle in the background
koichirose said:
All I want would be an option to disable autostart.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Android has a slightly ridiculous amount of processes and apps running in the background all the time, and while they in theory shouldn't put a strain on the battery when they're not using the CPU, I'm beginning to think that they do since battery life on Android usually is awful, no matter how many precautions you take.
MapleDouglas said:
Same here. Android has a slightly ridiculous amount of processes and apps running in the background all the time, and while they in theory shouldn't put a strain on the battery when they're not using the CPU, I'm beginning to think that they do since battery life on Android usually is awful, no matter how many precautions you take.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
exactly, no matter how many precautions you make, so you are basically saying it doesn't matter how many apps are "running"... It makes no difference whether memory is used by an app or not.
Read this article to understand it better: http://www.droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-should-i-use-a-task-killer
le3ky said:
exactly, no matter how many precautions you make, so you are basically saying it doesn't matter how many apps are "running"... It makes no difference whether memory is used by an app or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With "precautions" I wasn't referring to killing processes, but general battery saving precautions, many based on common sense. I agree that task killers never should be used, unless a specific app has frozen and is given you trouble. But you can just go to Android's own Applications screen for that.
Is there a free way to stop applications from starting up?
This can be accomplished with a cheap app Autostarts, but I would rather not pay.
i'm trying the trial of startup manager, blocks some but not all. looks like it just kills the process once it's started tself. gonna get rid, and just use the task manager i have now.
it doesnt matter if it only makes a small difference, it's (for me anyway) about control, no different that on the PC
i have plenty of RAM in my PC but i wont allow every single program to have something start itself at bootup. it;s annoying. that's why i use msconfig to kill em.
that's what we need for android.
I don't know of other programs, but autostarts works quite well, and it's not that expensive, as I recall.
snudel said it all: stop worrying about memory.. i was a long time iphone user. on iphone memory is a nightmare.. soh on desire i was all the time fc'ing app's, them i notice the problem wasnt memory os the great number of opened apps, but me.. now they run on background, open fast, the mem management is awesome, they dont seen to utilize any noticeable amount of battery.. so, before changing the system, try changing yourself..
im having lag problems and sometimes force close on my xplay,
games like Battlefield 2 and Earth &Legends, its not smooth playing =.=
any suggestion why like that?
Try wiping data
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Jahy420 said:
im having lag problems and sometimes force close on my xplay,
games like Battlefield 2 and Earth &Legends, its not smooth playing =.=
any suggestion why like that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are a couple things. Weird widgets and system tools will do it. Task Killers will certainly do it. Things like JuiceDefender or agressive or overdone profiles set in setCPU or tools like it will do this.
Other things that will do it is really large SMS/Messaging databases. If you have lot of text and picture messages, back them up to another format and clear them out. Same thing for the call log.
If you have managed to root yourself, there are few services that can be safely removed that will improve the responsiveness of your phone also.
Those are my suggestions off the top of my head, beside the generic: Wipe it and only set up what is ABSOLUTELY necessary.
Android is praised for having 'real' multitasking. But why does it have to 'suck' on a phone with 1GB memory?
Chrome starts to reload 3-4 tabs only if it's the only app 'opened' (of course there are other background services. but I don't have much running services, map, google messaging service, keyboard, )
I think it could also be problem with app. app not releasing memory resource when goes to background.
But it's really annoying to see that apps activity needs to be created again from scratch after opening a few apps.
Please discuss your opinion here.
Bayint Naung said:
Android is praised for having 'real' multitasking. But why does it have to 'suck' on a phone with 1GB memory?
Chrome starts to reload 3-4 tabs only if it's the only app 'opened' (of course there are other background services. but I don't have much running services, map, google messaging service, keyboard, )
I think it could also be problem with app. app not releasing memory resource when goes to background.
But it's really annoying to see that apps activity needs to be created again from scratch after opening a few apps.
Please discuss your opinion here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problems here..
try to avoid apps with high memory usage, one being the Facebook app
crixley said:
No problems here..
try to avoid apps with high memory usage, one being the Facebook app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have facebook running as I've said earlier. I don't even have it installed.
But I"m still not convinced that it's the BEST android multitasking could have. it's too aggressively killing background activity..
Bayint Naung said:
I don't have facebook running as I've said earlier. I don't even have it installed.
But I"m still not convinced that it's the BEST android multitasking could have. it's too aggressively killing background activity..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get autokiller from the market and adjust the settings then. You want lower numbers in the app to allow more applications to stay active. Note that some apps might just kill background memory use, there's nothing you can do about that one.
Doing this might make your phone more laggy. You need to decide for yourself what the best trade-off is for you.
When exactly does it do it? I have 5 tabs open and I'm good! Is it after a while of inactivity?
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
I have never noticed this issue.
Sent from my other android devive using Tapatalk 2
z06mike said:
When exactly does it do it? I have 5 tabs open and I'm good! Is it after a while of inactivity?
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not a refresh (like refresh web page), I think it's just re-rendered from the cache..
even though I'm android fan, I'm jealous how iOS manage to run pretty well for daily use with 512MB... probably dalvik JIT is culprit here?
I personally think this is a problem with chrome and this is the reason I don't like chrome because it runs a constant large service at 70+ mb at all times which takes away from general multitasking of the phone. My guess is this is related to your problem. Persistent services on android are rather powerful and when one is too large it has detrimental effects. Maybe others don't experience this with chrome, but I did, and that's why I stopped using it.
Yes, chrome is worse than stock browser.
Stock can maintain usually 4-5 tabs easily without reloading.
Hopefully Google could do something with both chrome and improve OS multitasking capability.
I have to say this is the first gameloft game that I really like. The graphics run on high and so far it runs smooth.
Great looking game, but it does stutter/lag often on my Shield (especially when all the cars are on screen) I noticed that rebooting the device before playing helps. Does anyone else have this issue? I am sure that Tegra 4 can run this game easily, so maybe Gameloft needs to properly optimize it
MRCANNADY said:
Great looking game, but it does stutter/lag often on my Shield (especially when all the cars are on screen) I noticed that rebooting the device before playing helps. Does anyone else have this issue? I am sure that Tegra 4 can run this game easily, so maybe Gameloft needs to properly optimize it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My guess by the sounds of it is that you are unaware that android multitasks and have not ever bothered closing apps in the background.... That would explain why rebooting helps first as that would close background apps which would otherwise cause lag.
I actually blame android poorly labelling the "recent apps" button, it actually shows "running" apps, if you open recent apps and swipe an app to the left or right to remove it from the list it closes it (and a few more like steam, dropbox and facebook also run 24/7 but need closing from task manager). There are also android task killing apps and widgets which close all running apps with the exception of system ones and those you specify in a whitelist with 1 press.
SixSixSevenSeven said:
My guess by the sounds of it is that you are unaware that android multitasks and have not ever bothered closing apps in the background.... That would explain why rebooting helps first as that would close background apps which would otherwise cause lag.
I actually blame android poorly labelling the "recent apps" button, it actually shows "running" apps, if you open recent apps and swipe an app to the left or right to remove it from the list it closes it (and a few more like steam, dropbox and facebook also run 24/7 but need closing from task manager). There are also android task killing apps and widgets which close all running apps with the exception of system ones and those you specify in a whitelist with 1 press.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh trust me, I'm a Android veteran, and know all about killing running task! I do kill all running processes before playing, but I still see some lag. It only seems to run best when the entire Shield is rebooted. I am pretty sure that this is an optimization issue with the game, as I dont have to reboot at all with all the other tegra 4 enhanced games that I have on my Shield.
I just wanted to see if i was the only person having this issue..thanks for replying
Drifting
Is it possible to partially drift with the Nvidia Shield like how you would with your phone? Each time I drift, it doesn't allow you to make a small drift, only large drifts.
ChrisFirerabbit said:
Is it possible to partially drift with the Nvidia Shield like how you would with your phone? Each time I drift, it doesn't allow you to make a small drift, only large drifts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean large drifts?
If you want to stop drifting just hit the "X" button again.
SiDCrAzY said:
What do you mean large drifts?
If you want to stop drifting just hit the "X" button again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, but if you played this with your standard phone, you use the gyroscope which allows you to either drift/ turn a little or a lot, when I say large drifts I am not referring to the length, sorry for the confusion. So is there anyway to control the turn while drifting?
Image of Over-steer
ChrisFirerabbit said:
Thanks, but if you played this with your standard phone, you use the gyroscope which allows you to either drift/ turn a little or a lot, when I say large drifts I am not referring to the length, sorry for the confusion. So is there anyway to control the turn while drifting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh okay, well I haven't tried it on a phone so I don't know what level of control the gyroscope gives you, but slightly moving the left joystick on the shield gives you control while you're drifting.
I haven't mastered it yet so I still have trouble with it doing what I want it to, but it definitely alters your drift direction.
SiDCrAzY said:
Oh okay, well I haven't tried it on a phone so I don't know what level of control the gyroscope gives you, but slightly moving the left joystick on the shield gives you control while you're drifting.
I haven't mastered it yet so I still have trouble with it doing what I want it to, but it definitely alters your drift direction.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh ok, thank you
MRCANNADY said:
Great looking game, but it does stutter/lag often on my Shield (especially when all the cars are on screen) I noticed that rebooting the device before playing helps. Does anyone else have this issue? I am sure that Tegra 4 can run this game easily, so maybe Gameloft needs to properly optimize it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use a live wallpaper that Uses the Unity engine, it seems to wake up the CPU/GPU after it goes to sleep which causes both to run at only 60% of the specs.
Nvidia said they were going to look into it, in the Nvidia Shield forums, but there is no ETA on when.
I use the "Andromeda Free Live Wallpaper" would love to put a link to the store but just created the account today so I'm restricted for the time being so search on the Google Play store.
miguelvp said:
Use a live wallpaper that Uses the Unity engine, it seems to wake up the CPU/GPU after it goes to sleep which causes both to run at only 60% of the specs.
Nvidia said they were going to look into it, in the Nvidia Shield forums, but there is no ETA on when.
I use the "Andromeda Free Live Wallpaper" would love to put a link to the store but just created the account today so I'm restricted for the time being so search on the Google Play store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just saw this tip in the nvidia forums also. Thanks...works like a charm! Very little to no lag now.
I've had a lot of fun with this game as well.
But has anyone noticed any random crashing to homescreen? My first crash was when my battery was getting fairly low, so I was afraid that had something to do with it. But then even after recharging some I got more random crashes. I re-enabled wifi and haven't had a crash since...
That kind of makes me curious what is going on... but I haven't looked into it further yet, so don't mean to raise any alarms.
Throughout all this though it has not corrupted my save data or anything, at least as of yet *knock on wood*. I think it was Asphault 7 that one time I got a phone call in the middle of gameplay and it crashed the game and corrupted my save data >_> I had some backups though, but lost some progress.
~Troop
That's weird. I haven't seen any crashes yet but I haven't played it for extended periods of time yet either.
Really Glad that one good Racing game has the controller support.
Enjoyed playing the game a lot
All games that use onscreen controls should be updated to support joysticks/controlpads either shield/moga/ps3 etc. You know how much better it is to physical controls? Freakin' amazing.
tenchichrono said:
All games that use onscreen controls should be updated to support joysticks/controlpads either shield/moga/ps3 etc. You know how much better it is to physical controls? Freakin' amazing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree! it all ends up with the developer/publisher for the support.