Related
Ok, so there are task killer threads that lead me to believe that they a are a waste of time by and large, and that android automatically sorts things out. Those same posts also point out that task killers are an extra drain on the battery having to start applications over again uses more battery than leaving something dormant in the background. These posts are not the thoughts of one person but unanimous to those threads. All very well, but then there are the battery saving threads that say to close down all applications that aren't being used to save additional battery??? Again this is the view of everyone in those particular threads, so is there any chance of getting the two camps to FIGHT! And then I can decide which I shall choose to do!
For info I currently have task killer and use it all the time and get a full days use out of my battery which is good because I cane the hell out of it! But If I could improve it that would be good. I have however this afternoon decided to not use task killer for a few days and see how I get on. But an explanation would be good from both sides.
I never use a task killer and get 2 or 3 days use out of of my Desire. No point in a war just use your Desire for a week without a task killer and then a week with. I am pretty sure you will just find the task killer slows things down and doesn't improve battery life. You will not find any of the ROM chefs using a task killer either!
HI
I was reading one of those posts this morning and decided to uninstall task-killer.I have to say that after half day of heavy use my device started to be so laggy it took contacts or calendar 5 seconds to open!then I checked running processes and pretty much everything I was playing with was still running.memory dropped to 10MB and device became unusable.cannot say battery use has improved.I think it was the same.
But my task-killer is back up and running.
I must say that I am new to Android.I was using WM for long time.I can cook my own ROMs so I am not a noob but I know very little about Android.so if anyone knows what could be the reason of this huge slowdown I will be grateful for explanation.
And one more thing that needs to be said...
My device is rooted and I am using a2sd too.
polystirenman said:
HI
I was reading one of those posts this morning and decided to uninstall task-killer.I have to say that after half day of heavy use my device started to be so laggy it took contacts or calendar 5 seconds to open!then I checked running processes and pretty much everything I was playing with was still running.memory dropped to 10MB and device became unusable.cannot say battery use has improved.I think it was the same.
But my task-killer is back up and running.
I must say that I am new to Android.I was using WM for long time.I can cook my own ROMs so I am not a noob but I know very little about Android.so if anyone knows what could be the reason of this huge slowdown I will be grateful for explanation.
And one more thing that needs to be said...
My device is rooted and I am using a2sd too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may like to read this:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
dhiral.v said:
You may like to read this:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well.i did read that before.that is why i do not understand why my phone was so slow.they are claiming that android should close apps by itself to reclaim memory.but in my case that wasn't true.everything was running and nothing was getting closed by system.
Here's another good read:
Google and Cyanogen comments imply task killer/manager apps are pointless
Both Dianne Hackborn and Cyanogen say Task Killers are useless, even developers of these apps concur. You should listen to them, I guess they understand juuust a little bit more than we do what Android is about.
pascanu said:
Here's another good read:
Google and Cyanogen comments imply task killer/manager apps are pointless
Both Dianne Hackborn and Cyanogen say Task Killers are useless, even developers of these apps concur. You should listen to them, I guess they understand juuust a little bit more than we do what Android is about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would like to believe it.i was so excited when i saw a post saying that i should get rid of task-killer.but as i wrote before after half day of heavy use(my phone is new so i play with it a lot :-D ) without task killer my phone was soooooo slow i couldn't use it anymore.today i had task-killer back on the phone and all day no slowdown what so ever.i don't understand that.i am starting to think it is related to A2SD and memory being relocated to SD card.
I also agree that taskkiller (the way it works for WM) is not good for android, because android has a better memory management...
but there is another flavour of taskkiller in the market... which are based on this:
How to configure Android's *internal* taskkiller
Unfortunately, your phone needs to be rooted before you can use that method.
If you worry about memory remember that the worst kind of memory is...free memory ! Because it's not being used. Obviously ram gets reclaimed and freed when it's needed.
As said in a couple more redundant threads, there might be a rogue app which you are better off closing because it stays in the background wrongly eating cpu cycles, but this is very very rare. Otherwise I think it's just the usual placebo effect...
andycted said:
If you worry about memory remember that the worst kind of memory is...free memory ! Because it's not being used. Obviously ram gets reclaimed and freed when it's needed.
As said in a couple more redundant threads, there might be a rogue app which you are better off closing because it stays in the background wrongly eating cpu cycles, but this is very very rare. Otherwise I think it's just the usual placebo effect...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you read the link in my previous post?
ANOTHER thread about this... There must be plenty of threads on this now, but I'll just once more give my impression.
Personally I have had HTC widgets like NEWS or MAIL or CALENDER hang or crash on me and I could not restart them unless I restarted the phone. In this case an app killer was ESSENTIAL. I don't believe you need to leave the app killer running always and kill every single task when your done, but its essential to have one installed so if a widget hangs (as has happened quite a few times on the Desire) you can kill the hung app without having to try a 5 hour shut down(another desire issue) and battery removal.
Also... after 2 days use of many apps and camera use and internet and youtube app etc, your internal RAM will be about 50mb available to programs. yes, android is supposed to kill stuff as it needs, and Im sure it does, but 50mb free memory compared to 150mb the lag is VERY obvious. So I do tend to kill tasks like camera and youtube etc if I have not used them in a day and my phone seem slaggy. the phone definetly runs faster then. Thats just a fact. So the internal android task killer is not as efficent as you'd like to think. Android 2.2 runs 450% faster than 2.1 so maybe then no lag will EVER be noticable. I'll still keep a task killer installed though in case widgets crash or hang.
I found my battery most efficient with this setup:
- Installed Advanced Task killer (free)
- Security level: High (it doesn't show system apps)
- I have put all frequently using apps on ignore list: ATK, Messages, BatteryTimeLite, Internet, Weather, Clock, Calendar (so Android manage with those apps)
- Auto kill Level: Safe
- Auto kill Frequency: 2 hours
With that setup battery lasts almost half time longer than without TK or with killing all apps when screen goes off. Also I don't have any force closes / lag.
Never experienced lag at 100 or 20 mb free.
mcgon1979 said:
but 50mb free memory compared to 150mb the lag is VERY obvious.
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Click to collapse
The amount of free memory doesn't necessarily have anything to do with lag.
As Android does not use virtual memory (unless you've hacked in swapper, which is a bad idea anyway), it will attempt to make best use of available memory which may mean keeping recently used items in memory, and thus "consuming" free memory. However, if those items are not actively processing, they should not be consuming CPU cycles and therefore consuming little to no power.
As far as a running system is concerned, having lots of free memory just means that it is being underutilized.
I don't kill tasks and my phone never lags - that's just a fact too!
Regards,
Dave
boge said:
I also agree that taskkiller (the way it works for WM) is not good for android, because android has a better memory management...
but there is another flavour of taskkiller in the market... which are based on this:
How to configure Android's *internal* taskkiller
Unfortunately, your phone needs to be rooted before you can use that method.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using this method it is possible to make the native task killer a bit more aggresive. I did some experiments with this on the HTC Hero and it just might have improved speed slightly but at the expense of stability.
"Normal" task killers are completely pointless but if people want to use them why not? It they want to sacrifice both battery life and performance by using one surely that is their choice. Whatever the experts says will not convince them.
I suppose you could use one to kill the very occasional hung app. i.e. Once every few days, but most people seem to use them constantly and totally indiscriminately.
1. About Cpu: get a task manager with cpu monitoring and verify for yourself, frozen applications in background don't do anything.
2. About memory: If an application needs 10 MB it just uses 10 MB and couldn't care less if there are 11, 100, 1000 MB free. The only moment you COULD see a tiny slowdown is the instant it needs 20 and there are only 10 available, but the system is quite good in managing that, and freeing resources (there are six levels of memory cleaning which progressively remove unused applications from the background)
3. If you stop monitoring memory usage, stop worrying about the system, you'll find out it manages itself perfectly and you enjoy the phone a lot more.
Interesting article about installed apps and a battery.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/android-handsets-batteries-should-last-for-more-than-a-day-google-says/
"...Page accused the installed apps of causing the problems and claimed that software running in the background exhausts the battery quickly...."
Interesting article about installed apps and a battery.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/android-handsets-batteries-should-last-for-more-than-a-day-google-says/
"...Page accused the installed apps of causing the problems and claimed that software running in the background exhausts the battery quickly...."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as said in the post above, get a cpu monitoring task manager and see for yourself if you have something wrong. Personally I don't have any.
Also watch battery history which tells you if the phone doesn't manage to go properly to sleep (partial wake)
regarding that article, iphone users get way less battery time and they don't even have multitasking...
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Ipad's dont have "Spell Check" thery have "Replace" built into Safarii adn it wokrs just fineq!!!
I personally installed auto memory manager, an app that configures android's internal task killer. Its not a task manager by itself, uses android's task manager. You can set the limits in MB for all the app categories android has.
I was using it in my hero as well and found it really useful. Before having it installed, after some time my free memory was ~50mb, thus my phone was sometimes lagging. Now its always above 100mb and no lag at all
I read and watch so many contradicting things about this subject, I just cannot seem to understand the truth..
I know Android works off of a linux type of OS, and that the memory function is superior to many others..
I read that having any app killer is actually bad because it drains your battery even more than if you don't have it, that the apps running in the background aren't really running as the memory or most of it is now running the application you're using.
Now what if the app killer program has a function that lets you disable the auto kill, I assume that is the part that runs and drains the battery?
would it be good then? or is it still bad?
Finally if so, do I even bother to close out the applications after a full days use?
It just seems very confusing when a large group of people tell you NO and a large group of people tell you YES.
and its reputable places too, not just amatures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVWZFNHq0uQ
I would just like to add to your confusion by saying that I read that the new Android 2.2 API disables the ability to "kill" apps. It can kill background services or something to that effect, so the program is still in memory, but not actively performing operations or something. That's all paraphrased from a 3 month old memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but if that is true, is there any point to a Task Killer if you have Froyo?
Actually, thinking about a reply gave me a good idea. More on that some other time
Long story short: it all depends.
Short story long:
Anyways, task killers are not inheritly bad, but they are "dangerous". How dangerous depends entirely on how you use them. In general I would say, if you have a device with sufficient memory available, I would only use a task manager to manually kill games (only) that you played but are no longer playing, or some apps if you understand what they do and how they work. Generally we refer to task killers that do not have an automatic component as task managers instead of killers.
One danger is how the app is killed. If it is not killed "gracefully" corruption may occur. This is very rare to occur, though. Apps will almost always be killed gracefully.
Another danger is killing apps that are tied to background services. In most task killers (if not all) there is no way to see if they have such a background service. What most task killer display is actually only visible components of applications. However, killing them will also kill the background services. This may prompt Android to just restart it, but this time invisibly, and you just wasted quite some CPU (not to mention time) to save a little bit of memory you won't miss. Some services are hefty on the initialization but light on running on purpose, and this will make the effect bigger. Another option is that the service simply no longer runs -as it is NOT restarted- and some part of your phone may not behave as you expect it to. Common sense helps here. For example, you could kill the browser like this, but killing a system service app like (I assume) SetCPU, JuiceDefender, etc will generally be a bad idea. Automated task killers do not usually distinguish between these.
Now, Android's internal killer does distinguish between these things (and many more important factors). Say you are in this situation:
- A is running in the foreground
- B is in the background and has a service
- C is in the background
- D is in the background
If we run low on memory, Android will kill C and D before killing B, and it will kill B before killing A. Which is pretty much exactly how we want it done. Android will know when it is necessary to do this. An automated task killer may for example kill B. But B might automatically restart it's invisible parts. Then the automated task killer is in the same situation again, and will shortly after that kill C or D. This operation just wasted a whole bunch of CPU cycles!
Keep in mind, that if an application is not specifically built to do something while it is not in the foreground (i.e. directly visible on your screen), it will not actually be executing any code at all. It will just take up some memory. This is a good thing, because if you go to this app again it will still be exactly as you left it, without the app having to go through all the loading and initialization steps again. How much effect that has depends on the app, obviously. You should see this more as a cache, or ramdisk, or something similar. Well-built apps do generally not have a negative effect on CPU or battery use when they are not in the foreground. They would only use background resources if truely needed.
There is no noticable negative side effect on battery to this. If Android needs the memory and it doesn't have any to spare (for example for your foreground application), it will simply kill off one or more of the background applications.
Also keep in mind that if you "close" an app by using the back button, on many devices and ROMs this will actually close the application instead of keeping it in the background. There is no foreward button, after all.
Now, to the battery issue. I have seen, heard, and read endless complaints by many users regarding poor battery life, RAM being full (there is hardly any reason to care, on a proper firmware), etc. and that these task killers help them. The fact is, that 95 times out of 100 these users are running "a bunch of crap". Because make no mistake, there are a lot of crap apps, widgets, even complete custom ROMs out there. Using system resources when they don't need to, using background services when they don't need to, constantly polling data instead of being event based, etc. Just badly done stuff.
Finding the culprit is often difficult, though in my personal experience (your mileage may vary) the culprit is most often a app+widget combo rather than a bar app. That is, unless you install a serious hack (again, like CPU speed managers, battery savers, etc) and configure them exactly how they shouldn't be configured for your usage situation, with all the resulting adverse effects. When someone I know personally has these issues, the first thing I have them do is uninstall all apps that provide widgets. You would be surprised how often that has solved the issue altogether.
Automated task killers are a band-aid solution in these cases. Of course, there also exist cases of improperly configured Android memory management in the firmware, and if you have a device with very little RAM this can also be problematic, but these are much less common than the user installing crappy stuff (though sometimes it is the carrier with bad bloatware). Usually, automated task killers just fight symptoms, not the cause.
My advice would definitely be, check what you're running and what you install. If you're a bit techsavvy, use a task manager, but only kill tasks manually. Never "kill all" unless absolutely necessary, and don't run it automated unless you are absolutely sure the developer is worth his salt. Even then, don't make a habit out of killing apps manually. Do make a habit out of exiting apps (especially games) with the back button, instead of for example using the home button to switch to the app launcher.
A case can be made for manually killing apps as it gives you more control over what is killed when, but the time you would spend doing it is worth more than what you would save (generally). Also keep in mind that the automated task killer itself will also be running a background process to check on your situation and kill apps, and thus may actually be part of the problem instead of the solution.
@nukedukem: I'm running Froyo and the task manager I'm using kills apps just fine when I tell it to do so...
I say they are bad unless you have rogue apps. And even then they are not needed. Hit Menu-Settings-Applications-Manage Apps-Running Tab-Click App-Kill. But instead of that, you can make a widget on your homescreen that goes straight to it. Long press homescreen-shortcuts-settings-manage applications. Done. I use that when I want to kill a game or something eating CPU. Otherwise I just let Android do its thing. Also, I like Watchdog Lite. It monitors apps using the CPU and alerts you when one exceeds the threshold and gives you option to kill or ignore(app may have a legitimate reason for hogging CPU) the app in question. This is good because app or processes are really only hurting or effecting the battery when they are using the CPU, not RAM. However, another option for task management is Autokiller in the Market. It allows you to change Android's minfree settings, or internal task manager, to kill off apps sooner. I set mine to be aggressive. I actually never worry about task management. Unless Watchdog beeps at me. I think the last time I killed an app was 3 weeks ago. I remember the day Autokiller came out well. I had the HTC Hero back then. To do what that app does I had to change them manually each boot and eventually a script was made to change the settings. Those early days of Android were so much fun. ;D
If anymore questions let us know.
They are just like everything, use in moderation. I use mine all the time but I don't mess with system services and only use it to kill stuff I've been using.
And yes they still work in 2.2 as long as the app is not active
The title is basically the question, im fed up of alot of programs auto opening on my android phone, it takes battery and is slightly annoying receiving notifications off apps i dont really care about such as the NFL game tells me about small things in the NFL, im in the UK, i dont care.
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram, (2 secs later) killed all my selected apps now have 201mb free so im using 80mb of ram on apps im not using. Ive made 2 or 3 phone calls today no more than 30 mins long altogether and ive lost 55% of my battery since about midday, which is when i unplugged the phone.
And I think all these apps are the problem so how can I stop them from auto opening, please help
Search the market for startup cleaner
Sent from my A101IT using xda premium
yusuo said:
If you argue that it doesnt take alot of battery currently have 117mb free ram
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.
Better search for auto starts, this asp shows you the conditions an asp can turn back on and you can bin it off, Facebook for example had like 8 conditions, from full to medium battery life, on charge and change in network....... Use it
Sent from my HTC Desire using xda premium
rootSU said:
More free RAM doesn't really equate to longer battery life or lower power consumption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's still no reason for most of this apps to use RAM. Apps like facebook and skype shouldn't be actice without user permission. Without login they are complete useless.
I'll try Startup Cleaner, thx.
It's how android works and what RAM is for. There is always a reason.
Sure if someone doesn't use Facebook, it should be uninstallable, but its not and its not causing any harm
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to
RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
rootSU said:
RAM doesn't use more power, the more its used, no.
You don't need a task killer. You do not need to obsess about RAM. Forget about RAM and enjoy your phone
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for you reply but its not really an answer its more of a contradiction, what I was asking is how to I stop apps from auto starting and eating up RAM, regardless of how long the phones been on
...and I'm telling you its a pointless, unecessary waste of time. Also it is not possible. Autostarts as already mentioned is the closest you'll get
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
I also turned off the autorun permissions of a lot of apps, for 2 reasons: 1) a device that is smooth sooner after booting, using less cpu cycles/power. 2) preventing Sense from reloading due to RAM shortage and have smooth multitasking.
1) Android loads a bunch of apps to the RAM that have the autorun permission, until it thinks it is "enough" and useful to you. No matter how many apps you have installed, the amount of free RAM is always about the same, just the number of "unwanted" apps in the RAM differs. Removing the autorun on boot permissions prevents the loading of unnecessary apps that will immediately be removed from the RAM the moment you start the browser/a game, saving cpu cycles=power. So for me there is no point in loading them in the first place, because I am never going to use them (right away). I want the apps that don't to any syncing loaded on demand.
2) I hate slow multitasking and I hate it even more when Sense reloads because it got kicked out of the RAM after each time I press HOME.
I use 3G Watchdog (~12MB RAM), Unlock with Wifi (~8MB), Whatsapp (~15MB), Handcent SMS (~18MB), Droidstats (~13MB), Extended Controls (~12MB), Battery Monitor Widget Pro (~13MB). Okay, I maybe could delete some of them, but these app are "OK" to me, because I use them actively or just need a background service to operate normally.
With Gemini I disabled apps like Facebook, a screenshot tool (just load when I want to make a screenshot..), various public transport planning tools, etc from autostarting.
No joy moment: after using the Facebook app (market version), it may take up 50+ MB and it will not be closed when I start another RAM intensive app, because it is a high priority service. Result: Sense gets kicked out of the RAM. Or, when the situation is somewhat less critical: multitasking is as good as unusable: switching between apps makes them load over and over again, because app2 kicks app1 out of the RAM and vice versa, causing unnecessary lag. Therefore: when I am done with facebook, I close it, then STAY the hell closed It may only autostart when it receives a push message. In that case it is nice to have FB already in RAM when I tap the notification.
Why do even some games have background services, or the Engadget app, or .. , or... all eating precious RAM. And yes, I know, once IN the RAM they eat no battery, but they DO eat battery when the app loads itself back in the RAM when it thinks it needs to, after it got kicked the moment I decided to so something else.
Hmm, spent way too much time to try to explain my frustration Oh and by the way, I have a Legend, but the basics are the same of course.
Dwnload an app called internet commander from the market. It shuts off the internet when your screen turns off but still let's you get calls and texts. I've got my phone , rooted of course, clocked to 710 and my battery will last for days.
Sent from my Eris using xda premium
I just re read your post, that won't help with apps but it will help save battery. And when you turn your screen on the internet kicks right on instantly. Good luck
Sent from my Eris using xda premium
yusuo said:
The problem isn't that apps start when I turn on the phone its that even after i use task manager to close they keep reopening and use over 100mb of ram, earlier I checked and only had 78mb ram available.
This must have an effect on battery to some degree i want to kinda ban certain apps from running in the background unless i specifically tell them to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The guys here have already suggested you use a certain program from the Market. Have you tried it?
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.
TVTV said:
Regarding the whole RAM consumption issue, Android has its own built-in memory management system that ensures that there's always enough RAM for an app whenever it needs it, even if the memory manager shows like 40 MB free. Basically it "ejects" all background, unused apps, from memory making room for the foreground app which needs it most. If for some reason you need to fiddle with that, you can try using the V6 Supercharger script. I find it suitable for my needs but YMMV. It's completely reversible, so if you don't like it you can uninstall it just like that.
P.S. - I agree with rootSU, the ammount of free RAM has nothing to do with battery consumption. If you suspect that an app is draining your battery, check Android's battery statistics to find the culprit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I respectfuly disagree. Android built in ram management is just silly. If I open xda app for example (it could actually be any app for that matter), reply to a few posts, read a few more and close it, why does it need to stay in ram? It reloads anyway when I run it again after I've closed it (using the back button or the actual exit command in the app itself). Why does the camera app need to stay in the background after I just shot a few photos and closed it? Because I may or may not use it again in some time? It's rediculous. And the whole theory that ram management doesn't require any power/cpu usage, how do you guys think all those apps get killed? Android will power?! No, kernel scans all running apps and kills the ones based on built in heuristics so it also reads them first. So that doesn't require any power/battery? Awesome if it's true! Although I wouldn't bet on that. And all this fuss just because you may or may not launch the same app sometime during the next day/week/month/year or it'll eventually get killed? Now that's just plain stupid. I get apps that need services like widgets, push notifications etc. but random apps like root explorer, xda app, titanium, youtube etc. which are opened specificly by the user shouldn't be in ram just for the sake of it after they're closed. I closed it, meaning I don't need it anymore. And I don't need the kernel to scan all apps and running services every time I launch an app so it could provide the free ram that app needs. Consumes cpu time, battery, i/o ... every piece of hardware actually just to free some ram that shouldn't be occupied in the first place. Every app that I ever opened on my phone got loaded almost instantly and that's just after phone had been booted. So after that it should stay in ram so I could open it in a blink of an eye instead of instantly? That's just funny.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud so don't flame me immediately. There probably are apsects of it that I didn't mention here or am not aware of. And I'm not saying that I'm right and you guys are wrong, I'm just saying what I know and think about this subject.
-. typewrited .-
PlayPetepp, while it might be true that the OS allocates (thus use) some resources to memory maintenance, the impact on battery life is negligible. In the Android OS, apps in memory are ordered according to priority and state, so the OS always knows which apps to kill first if it needs to make room in RAM, without much of a hassle. The only bad consequence of this system seems to be the fact that once the memory fills up, the launcher may lag or even be evacuated from memory. But, as i've mentioned in my previous post, there are ways to prevent that, either via scripts or, if you know what you're doing, via editing system files.
So the OS doesn't need to scan anything as it keeps everything in memory again? Seems like an endless loop. Open, sort, kill if needed, reopen, sort again, kill ... to what end, constant unneccessary multitasking that user is unaware of? I really don't see any benefit of that system and am only seeing the downsides. I mean, who needs every app they ever run remain in ram even if they close them after using? And then opening another app and "waiting" for whatever needs to be closed to get it running. Sure you can mess with the scripts (init.d, init.rc, etc.) but the underlined conditions stay the same. I hope I'm making sense here. Or am I fighting against windmills.
I just figured out that I strayed from the topic of this thread so won't be continuing this discussion if it's considered offtopic.
-. typewrited .-
Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms
erklat said:
Stop looking for excuses for poor multitasking in Sense 3+ roms
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello again nice to see you here
Here's an interesting article on what I was talking about. Sense 3.5 doesn't need that many mbs of ram to work smoothly. After booting and setting everything up I have 150+ mb free. That should be enough for decent multitasking but all those apps not getting killed when you close them are eating too much. Can anyone explain in detail what hidden app, perceptible app, backup app and heavy_weight app means? I've been googling this for a week and can't find any decent explanation.
@PlayPetepp - I think i have already said (in my previous post) that the OS does indeed use some resources for managing the memory, but they are negligible in terms of their impact on battery life. IMHO, the only thing a 3'rd party memory manager (task killer) WILL do is improve lanuncher responsiveness (lag) as the lag does increase when free RAM drops under a certain limit. Thus used wisely, a task killer can improve responsiveness, but battery life... very little, in rare cases (it does the opposite, most of the time).
Regarding the so called "memory slots", here's an excerpt from this article:
FOREGROUND_APP: This is the application currently on the screen, and running
VISIBLE_APP: This is an application that is open, and running in the background because it's still doing something
SECONDARY_SERVER: This is a process (a service that an application needs) that is alive and ready in case it's needed to do something
HIDDEN_APP: This again is a process, that sits idle (but still alive) in case it's needed by an app that's alive and running
CONTENT_PROVIDER: This is apps that provide data (content) to the system. HTC Facebook Sync? That's a CONTENT_PROVIDER. So are things like the Android Market, or Fring. If they are alive, they can refresh and provide the content they are supposed to at the set interval. If you kill them, they can't of course.
EMPTY_APP: I call these "ghosts." They are apps that you have opened, but are done with them. Android uses a unique style of handling memory management. When an activity is ended, instead of killing it off Android keeps the application in memory so that opening them again is a faster process. Theses "ghost" apps use no battery or CPU time, they just fill RAM that would be otherwise empty. When this memory is needed by a different application or process, the RAM is flushed and made available for the new app. To satisfy the geekier people (like myself) Android does this by keeping a list of recently used apps, with the oldest apps in the list given the lowest priority -- they are killed first if RAM is needed elsewhere. This is a perfect way to handle 'ghost' processes, so there's no need to touch this part
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My last phone, the G3, has 3 GB of RAM. The G3 runs Lollipop perfectly. The S6 edge has 3 GB of RAM and there's never any of it. I understand that there's a very aggressive low memory killer but it is ridiculous that a top of the line phone needs to reclaim my podcast app or Audible while they're playing. There should be a ton of free memory and a ton of cached apps in it but the memory is full and there is nothing cached. I've never been so frustrated with a phone. I spend a lot of time sighing at it when it does something stupid. Anyway, if anyone knows where this mysterious memory is being used, please chime in.
There are suspicions that it could be related to the touchwiz launcher, try a different launcher just for the heck of it and see how it goes.
Pp.
gunslingerfry said:
My last phone, the G3, has 3 GB of RAM. The G3 runs Lollipop perfectly. The S6 edge has 3 GB of RAM and there's never any of it. I understand that there's a very aggressive low memory killer but it is ridiculous that a top of the line phone needs to reclaim my podcast app or Audible while they're playing. There should be a ton of free memory and a ton of cached apps in it but the memory is full and there is nothing cached. I've never been so frustrated with a phone. I spend a lot of time sighing at it when it does something stupid. Anyway, if anyone knows where this mysterious memory is being used, please chime in.
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Hi gunslingerfry,
I was just reading about this on forbes. Here is what their author says to explain the poor memory usage and how to fix it "What should happen is RAM used by apps and services is released when those apps and services are not in use. Instead it is not being released which means each new app or service has to eat into additional memory until there is no more available, at which point the slowdowns and crashes begin.
The only half solutions at present are a) to hit the ‘Close All’ button in the multitasking card menu to dismiss all apps to try and claw some memory back, or b) to reboot the device. Interestingly the latter is expected to have helped keep the issue under the radar in reviews as performance testing is always done from a fresh boot."
So it sounds like you are sort of out of luck for now, but I am sure there will be some update that fixes the issue shortly.
I'm experiencing this myself but apps that I reopen from the multitask window have to reload and I lose where I was previously.. Very annoying to say the least.
Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk
PanchoPlanet said:
There are suspicions that it could be related to the touchwiz launcher, try a different launcher just for the heck of it and see how it goes.
Pp.
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I never use the TW launcher because I don't enjoy using it. I use Action Launcher. It's very lightweight.
Goldmeyer said:
Hi gunslingerfry,
I was just reading about this on forbes. Here is what their author says to explain the poor memory usage and how to fix it "What should happen is RAM used by apps and services is released when those apps and services are not in use. Instead it is not being released which means each new app or service has to eat into additional memory until there is no more available, at which point the slowdowns and crashes begin.
The only half solutions at present are a) to hit the ‘Close All’ button in the multitasking card menu to dismiss all apps to try and claw some memory back, or b) to reboot the device. Interestingly the latter is expected to have helped keep the issue under the radar in reviews as performance testing is always done from a fresh boot."
So it sounds like you are sort of out of luck for now, but I am sure there will be some update that fixes the issue shortly.
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Click to collapse
Goldmeyer, this doesn't explain why it's 75% utilized on boot but with no running apps (according to the smart manager app). I've tried the build.prop tweaks posted around here and there is a significant difference. Smart manager reports there are dozens of apps being pre-loaded on boot (which is normal, this is what we want!) but with the same 75% utilized. Those tweaks tended to lag the device after a couple hours, which may be a manifestation of what the Forbes article is referring to. So I guess the thing I don't get, and maybe a better understanding of what the dha/lmk values that are being tweaked would help, is what is currently allocating all that excess memory? Is TW just allocating ridiculous amounts of memory to make sure it runs smoothly? Is Android hoarding it for its own uses? And if so, how can any device with less than 3 GB of ram possibly function on Lollipop?
On a much more technical note, I understand that running 64 bit means using a little more ram. Addresses are twice the size and integers will be twice the size but that doesn't explain 2.3 GB. It shouldn't be loading the entire system partition into ram.
I can live with the Nexus 5X' relative sluggishness when compared to the Nexus 5, but what really stops me from doing my work is the phone killing apps when I switch between them.
Example: I may be filling out a form on a website in Firefox for Android. I need to look up a word in the dictionary, so I switch over to the dictionary and look up the word. When I switch back to Firefox, the application has obviously been killed, as it reloads the page.
Example2: I'm listening to the Audio version of the Economist via the Economist app. The speaker mentions a certain placename and I open the Google Maps app in order too find where it is on the map. Suddenly the audio will stop playing - the app has been killed.
The above gets considerably worse when switching between more than two apps and is really hindering my work and productivity.
Now this almost never happened on the Nexus 5, which also only had 2 GB of RAM. So is it the power saving feature of the Nexus 5X kicking in? Is there a way to stop it from happening?
Marshmallow simply has very bad RAM management from what I've seen. I used to have the Nexus 5 too and as you said, multitasking was a very good experience on it (especially on Kitkat). Google's OS takes more of the phone's resources after each update (with no major new features or improvements). Marshmallow looks exactly the same as Lollipop, except for the tiny feature of apps permissions, and the Now on tap that I barely use (same for Android pay which I'm sure most of Nexus 5x owners won't even be able to use it outside the US). So I still don't understand why they had to jump so fast to a new version of Android while Lollipop still had a ****load of bugs that need fixing, they could've worked more on Lollipop to perfect it first then give us Marshmallow after 2 years maybe, we're not in a hurry.. I just hope they don't stop again at Marshmallow 6.1/6.2 or something and introduce Android N *sigh*
Sounds like you have more user installed apps with constantly running background services installed that the phone can comfortably handle with 2GB memory.
Check the memory stats in Settings - if the average over all the time options is 1.6GB or above used then your phone is going to struggle and cached apps are going to be getting cleared out when switching regularly. Look down the list particulary for apps running close to 100% of the time with a big RAM fingerprint. Also check running services in developer settings to get an idea of what is running a service all of the time.
Once you've identified the worst offenders make that difficult decision - is the apps utility worth it for the impact on performance. Consider reporting the memory use to the developer, particularly if it's much lower after a reboot and increases over time. Plenty of playstore apps ship with clear memory leak issues.
Other than that the other option is reasonably regular reboots to keep the system fresh and clear out any memory leaks.
thanks for the suggestion. Well here's the top 5:
Android operating system 524 MB
Wechat 156 MB
Firefox 117 MB
System UI 105 MB
Android system 99 MB
Clearly it's mostly the system using all resources. Firefox and Wechat, sure, I find them rather essential to my life, but together they don't even use as much as the OS.
Thing is, I can't remember this happening on the Nexus 5.
Sounds like you may have some apps using up a lot of your memory. I haven't been seeing any redraws with my apps, even 24+ hours of sitting in the background. The other day I was switching between gaming, streaming a live sporting even, and text messaging and the phone didn't drop a beat despite the game alone using 600MB of RAM.
Are those the average RAM or peak?
that's what shows up when I get the details of the RAM usage through settings
still this never happened on the Nexus 5, at least I can't remember
Yeah, I have a hard time believing it's the apps. I never had this issue come up in my Moto X 2013 (also 2 GB of RAM) using the same apps. We're seriously talking about one app open, switching to another app. No reason switching back to the first app should have everything reload.
Unless by "some apps," you mean that they have somehow not been optimized for Marshmallow in some way or other. But the apps simply running a process? A smartly-made OS (Lollipop, KitKat) will know "Hey, we have to kill something to free up RAM? Why don't we kill an app that hasn't been used in a while?" and a less-smartly-made OS (perhaps Marshmallow...?) will think "Hey, we have to kill something to free up RAM... why don't we kill the app the user just used?"
And there are two figures there - average and peak - which are those?
If there are the averages rather than peak then both Firefox and Wechat have got a problem.
---------- Post added at 06:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:34 AM ----------
Marshmallow and Lollipop low RAM behaviour is pretty much identical and quite aggressive (the OS tries to preserve quite a chunk of free memory which is uses on the sly as a display buffer), KitKat was less aggressive.
I don't have any problem multitasking on my Nexus5x, but then again for the apps I've got when I check the memory tab I'm normally averaging 1.2-1.4GB used and 400-600MB average memory free so there is plenty of space for the OS to gracefully cache and uncache processes. If the phone is normally running at 1.5GB-1.6GB used and 200-300MB then the LMK is going to be kicking in frequently. It kicks in at around 250MB free on a Nexus5x.
It was the default setting, i.e. average. HM ok good to know. It's happening quite often when listening to the Economist too. Which is really bull****, it should treat it as audio playing. Why would Android kill your music.
I agree music players don't get the priority they should, although that particular 'bug' at least gives a clear symptom that lack of free RAM is an issue, if not the cause of the issue e.g. the OS, to many running services from user apps, or a particular user app with memory leak issues.
I came to the Nexus5x from a 1GB Moto G where it was almost impossible to keep background music running in combination with navigation after Lollipop without uninstalling pretty much everything else user installed and have got used to monitoring the RAM footprint and behaviour of apps as a result.
I've suffered the problem once since I've had the Nexus5x and that was due to the music player (Soundcloud) being a memory hog (120MB+) with it's background music player service coupled with a memory leak in the driving app I was testing at the time - Automate - it was peaking at 460MB use.
I'm not so precious about what is installed now but anything that wants to run a constant service either has to be tiny when running that service or absolutely fundamental to my use of the device.
I find this to be the worst problem .We want to kill our apps like we are use to.Switching between email and chrome is horrible especially when you have to start your application all-over again (submission request) Hopefully some XDA member will figure out how to solve this issue. For now I am testing DEVELOPER OPTIONS allow running
apps in background ? Anyone know what the default value is??