Taskkiller not necessary on Android? - Hero, G2 Touch Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have read that taskkiller is not necessary on Android as the OS will kill off running apps when it needs memory - what are people's thoughts on this?

Hmmm...I read somewhere (maybe on here) heard if the App is coded properly that when not in use it will be background so not take up memory.
Not too knowledgable, but in that case would imagine they are acting like a windows service so will be taking up memory somewhere....so perhaps what I read was nonsense

Well, I have stopped killing tasks and guess what - I notice no difference at all! Hero is just as speedy (or slow depending on how you wanna look at it!).
Interesting!

Killing truly idle applications wont have significant effect. There are however many applications which appear idle, but still drains resources. An example is Peep, the twitter client, which starts automatically even if there's no twitter account configured. It has some frequent checks that put load on the CPU and thus helps drain power. Killing it adds many hours of standby time.

i'm not using any task manager/killer, did try them for a couple of days, can't really tell the difference, except i was wasting time constantly killing apps :/

suisen said:
i'm not using any task manager/killer, did try them for a couple of days, can't really tell the difference, except i was wasting time constantly killing apps :/
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Ditto... surely there is no need as the OS will kill a unused app if it needs the memory ??? I don't have any problem running any apps one after the other... they just load.
The only lag I get is while the handset starts a widget update, once they are started everything runs slickly.

I found it a little slicker without taskiller. Especially in the use of big apps like copilot or documents2go. It seems to be managing itself pretty well.

Yep. I can report that the phone is working very well without Taskkiller. I have uninstalled it now.
If you are reading this, give it a try for a few days and tell us what you think. You may be pleasantly surprised...

Ditto - I've removed taskiller so I don't get tempted. Surprise surprise, no problems, no lag, etc. Now mostly this is due to removing the clock and people widget, but memory management seems fine after playing many different games and browsing the internet.
I think a benefit to doing this is that you aren't going to get and bizarre problems caused by killing system processes by accident - ie you won't miss alarms or stop receiving email alerts.

Related

Exit running apps

hi i have only just got the hero and was wondering how to close apps properly. i have noticed that when you hold the home key for a while a window pops up showing some apps ...is this how you close them? or is simply pressing the home key shutting them .
The long press on home just brings up a list of apps that have been recently run. It's almost a task switcher, but not quite!
Many apps will exit if you "back" out of them - i.e. when in the app keep pressing back until you get back to the home screen. However, this isn't the case for all applications. Some may have an explicit exit or close button, whereas others may have nothing at all.
However, Android is pretty good at managing its own applications, and will kill/exit them as necessary. In my experience, there's little to be gained from explicitly killing applications using a task killer, but some people swear by it.
Regards,
Dave
foxmeister said:
The long press on home just brings up a list of apps that have been recently run. It's almost a task switcher, but not quite!
Many apps will exit if you "back" out of them - i.e. when in the app keep pressing back until you get back to the home screen. However, this isn't the case for all applications. Some may have an explicit exit or close button, whereas others may have nothing at all.
However, Android is pretty good at managing its own applications, and will kill/exit them as necessary. In my experience, there's little to be gained from explicitly killing applications using a task killer, but some people swear by it.
Regards,
Dave
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Most Task Killers free up memory thats used by background apps.
so basicly back out of the app and let android do the rest of the worring. thanks for advise
risterdid said:
Most Task Killers free up memory thats used by background apps.
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Yes, but the point is that Android itself will start killing applications if it starts to run low on resources. (see http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html)
Regards,
Dave
I'll attempt to sum it up once and for all, to try and set the record straight.
In Android's virtual machine, there is no functional differentiation between "closing" an app and "switching away from" an app. They are the same (the exception is things like music players which need to keep playing after you switch away from them, but even then only the 'service' part needs to keep running).
Whenever you switch away from an app, its current state is remembered so that even if it is effectively "killed" it can be returned to in just that state next time it's opened. Then Android either kills the process or it keeps it open, killing it when it needs the memory. You won't notice any difference between either scenario, except maybe that an app loads a little bit faster if it was kept in memory. At any rate, "closed" apps do not "run", and they do not take RAM or CPU cycles from other apps.
In terms of process/memory management, Android's VM has more in common with a web browser than a desktop OS - sure it can remember your state when you switch apps (like switching tabs, going back/forward/home in a browser) but whether behind the scenes it loads it all into and out of memory when you switch back and forth, or it all stays in memory is irrelevant to the user. Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
Once you understand this you understand that all these 'task killer' apps are really unnecessary - all they'll do is make it slower to restart an app once closed. They don't reclaim RAM that was previously unavailable to other apps.
To cut a long story short, pressing "home" is a great way to close an app, whether you want to return to it later or not.
MercuryStar said:
Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
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that is not true for me, my firefox can eat a lot of resources as long as it is open. and i can see a performance difference when having a lot of apps open on my hero. not that it would be a problem, but you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
kendong2 said:
you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
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I would wager that's the placebo effect. It feels faster because you believe it should. If you understand how the OS works you realise that apps you've switched away from do nothing to slow down or take memory from any other app (see my exception above about apps that launch background services such as music player).
kendong2 said:
that is not true for me, my firefox can eat a lot of resources as long as it is open. and i can see a performance difference when having a lot of apps open on my hero. not that it would be a problem, but you can see the menus scrolling more "fluid" after killing all bg apps, for example.
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I do notice this too. There is a general 'sluggishness' with my Hero when there are lots of app sleeping/running/hibernating/whatever in the background. As soon as I kill off a few unwanted ones, all the menus scroll faster and home screens change quicker.
And this is not the placebo effect either. The menu's DO scroll more fluidly after I have killed a few apps, regardless of how you describe the RAM management...
Micksta said:
And this is not the placebo effect either. The menu's DO scroll more fluidly after I have killed a few apps, regardless of how you describe the RAM management...
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exactly, you can tell easily if it is one motion or looks like it is "skipping frames". even it is only because it takes the device some cpu cycles to kill other apps, it does make a difference. like i said a rather cosmetic one, since it doesn't really effect the general usage. nevertheless i like to know what is running and what's not, and so far im running good with advanced task manager free.
WOW i didnt expect a massive response for my question but i thank you all for your responses
MercuryStar said:
I would wager that's the placebo effect. It feels faster because you believe it should. If you understand how the OS works you realise that apps you've switched away from do nothing to slow down or take memory from any other app (see my exception above about apps that launch background services such as music player).
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that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
Daniehabazin said:
that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
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Just as a matter of interest, do you use swapper or AppsToSD?
My phone never gets into the situation you've described, but even though I do have the full version of TasKiller, I almost never use it, and I don't see a need at present to use AppsToSD.
In addition, I'd imagine that having a swap partition would cause an issue with Androids own memory management, since I guess it can't distinguish between real and "virtual" memory. So where a "non-swap" device would start killing processes, a "swap" device would just continue on regardless because it thinks it still has physical memory available.
Regards,
Dave
Yesterday I downloaded "Advanced Task Killer Free"... anyone who has experiences with this? Is is better than just "Task Killer" or is it just an updated version of "Task Killer" ?
thanks!
have been using atk free for a while (lol 2 weeks since i got the hero) now, i really like it. its advantage over all other task managers IMHO: it has an ignore list, things you ignore are not shown in the running tasks list. in the list you have check boxes, where you can select the tasks that will be killed, and this list is remembered. for example "htc sense" is on my ignore list, but "music" is only checked, so i can uncheck it when i don't want to kill it while listening to music. next time i want to kill music i just have to tap the checkbox, no dealing with the ignore list here...
Daniehabazin said:
that's not true, my phone gets so sluggish sometimes that i can't answer a phone call, the phone doesn't register that i press the answer button. and when that happends i usually have like 20 mb of free ram.
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I get this problem a lot, and in answer to fox meister, I don't have AppsToSD.
I don't know if the problem is RAM or CPU related, but the CPU often jumps to 100% when things are really slow.
Is the issue likely to be background apps, or widgets even?
Sausageman said:
I get this problem a lot, and in answer to fox meister, I don't have AppsToSD.
I don't know if the problem is RAM or CPU related, but the CPU often jumps to 100% when things are really slow.
Is the issue likely to be background apps, or widgets even?
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Same for me with the processor.
When i reboot my phone i usually have 90 mb of free ram, after starting a few applications, like browser and phonebook, it plummets down to 20 mb.
I do have some extra applications that starts as services, like systray monitor and 3g watchdog.
when i open atk after a fresh reboot i see that some applications that i don't even use is started, like footprints, settings and calendar, even my webrowser is started, whats up with that, can it be disabled?
I think the issue is that we have some applications that autostart withous us using them, and also programs that we download that autostarts as services and maybe having memory leaks...
I came to chime in with my experiences of the CDMA hero and sluggishness.
I watch memory like a hawk (thanks Mogul) and I too have around 80-90mb free ram on start, but it can get down to around 30 rather quickly. Once it gets down here, I notice that screen transitions and random lag occurs in apps. If I go into Advanced Task Killer and kill many of the stragglers, my menus are as smooth as can be.
It is most certainly NOT a placebo effect.
One thing I really like about Advanced Task Killer (pay version) is that it has the "Auto End" feature, where it will kill all apps not chosen to be excluded at the interval that you choose. For example, I have determined the system applications that need to be on all the time, and I've excluded those. Every hour, ATK kills everything else. For the most part, my Hero hovers around 70MB now at all times, although it can get down there to around 30-40MB if I'm right around the 1 hour mark.
That feature alone makes it much better than Taskiller IMO. Totally worth 99 cents
This definition would imply that android works exactly like the iphone osx? I mean saving "screenshots" of the last state of an app. But NOT having real multitasking?
Because it's not possible to have multitasking and at the same time "inactive" background apps everytime you hit the home button...
MercuryStar said:
I'll attempt to sum it up once and for all, to try and set the record straight.
In Android's virtual machine, there is no functional differentiation between "closing" an app and "switching away from" an app. They are the same (the exception is things like music players which need to keep playing after you switch away from them, but even then only the 'service' part needs to keep running).
Whenever you switch away from an app, its current state is remembered so that even if it is effectively "killed" it can be returned to in just that state next time it's opened. Then Android either kills the process or it keeps it open, killing it when it needs the memory. You won't notice any difference between either scenario, except maybe that an app loads a little bit faster if it was kept in memory. At any rate, "closed" apps do not "run", and they do not take RAM or CPU cycles from other apps.
In terms of process/memory management, Android's VM has more in common with a web browser than a desktop OS - sure it can remember your state when you switch apps (like switching tabs, going back/forward/home in a browser) but whether behind the scenes it loads it all into and out of memory when you switch back and forth, or it all stays in memory is irrelevant to the user. Nobody worries that a long forum page on another tab or in their back button history is occupying 80 megs in the background or not, the browser takes care of loading/unloading it from RAM as needed, and that's just like how Android's VM works when switching between various pages of various apps.
Once you understand this you understand that all these 'task killer' apps are really unnecessary - all they'll do is make it slower to restart an app once closed. They don't reclaim RAM that was previously unavailable to other apps.
To cut a long story short, pressing "home" is a great way to close an app, whether you want to return to it later or not.
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Shahpur.Azizpour said:
This definition would imply that android works exactly like the iphone osx? I mean saving "screenshots" of the last state of an app. But NOT having real multitasking?
Because it's not possible to have multitasking and at the same time "inactive" background apps everytime you hit the home button...
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Click to collapse
No, you've not understood the explanation.
The iPhone will always* terminate an application that isn't on its list of "approved" multi-tasking apps once it isn't active any more (i.e. you've switched tasks).
Android will try to keep whatever it can in memory, but eventually will start killing processes in order to keep the system running.
So, if you're on an iPhone listening to something on Spotify and you want to browse something on the web, the iPhone will "kill" Spotify when you switch to the web browser. On Android this won't occur except in the most critical of resource low situations, but then again, I'd imagine other apps would get killed before Spotify.
Read this article, specifically the section from "Component Lifecycles" onwards specifically "Activity Lifecycle", "Saving activity state" and "Processes and lifecycles".
Regards,
Dave
* Unless it has been jailbroken!

At startup memory available is at 150mb but gradually decreases all day? Why?

So I installed automatic task killer just to see if I noticed a difference. So it says it is freeing memory when I engage it. Great, more memory available seems to allow the phone to run smoother/quicker. However, give the phone a couple of hours and gradually the available memory on the phone lowers and lowers until it goes below 100mb and beyond. Engaging automatic task killer frees some memory but does not bring it back to its startup memory of over 150mb. I of course do notice that my phone begins to get "laggy" once I start to dip below 100mb. I guess my question is, "where is all my memory going?". Im not too concerned about using automatic task killer. I just want to know where my memory is going cause this is most certainly the cause of a laggy phone. A quick reboot and my phone is back to its highest point of 158mb and running nice and smooth. What gives? Also where are the other 150mb or so that the phone has available according to specs? If its all dedicated to the the android OS than why is the phone so laggy by the end of day? Sorry if its too many questions but im just looking for some insight into the memory management of the x10 and android. Maybe a 1.6 issue?
It's nothing to worry about. Unused memory is useless memory. It's *nix based so the memory in use isn't going to drain the battery or slow the system down. It manages everything by itself. By repeatedly killing tasks you're actually stressing things unnecessarily.
The only time you should kill all the tasks is when you know something is being problematic, before locking your phone when you have a suspicious app that doesn't always stop automatically, etc. Otherwise the Android OS takes care of this by itself.
I stopped using task killers months ago (except for when I lock my phone because of what I mentioned above.. programs keeping it from going into a deep sleep) and my battery easily lasts two days with periods of very heavy usage.
I only use a task killer to kill certain things when they cause problems, which is not often. Things I use often I leave in memory, they only get reloaded anyway.
Tbh if things are getting laggy that quickly you probably have an app that is misbehaving.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
Thanks for the quick replies. Automatic task killer has already been uninstalled. Looking forward to the update with hopes that it helps with lag issues
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
Well that still doesn't solve the problem of badly written apps draining the battery. Often I've found that without a task killer my battery life has improved, but on occasion when I download a new app, I look at my battery usage a few hours later, and that app has managed to use 45% of my battery even though I used it for a few minutes. So then I just reboot
In conclusion, don't use a task killer, but keep an eye on the battery usage feature if you find that it has suddenly gone down (Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Usage)
I use Memory Booster. Quiet amazing.
hi i used to be same as you and always used talk killers
then i came across this article http:// www.ipmart-forum.com/ showthread.php?t=528674 (watch for spaces in the link)
since reading this i installed watchdog lite and i only kill a task if its overusing the system.
you can set it to notify you when an app is using more than a certain % of resources and its great then if i need to i just kill that app/process
pngface said:
Well that still doesn't solve the problem of badly written apps draining the battery. Often I've found that without a task killer my battery life has improved, but on occasion when I download a new app, I look at my battery usage a few hours later, and that app has managed to use 45% of my battery even though I used it for a few minutes. So then I just reboot
In conclusion, don't use a task killer, but keep an eye on the battery usage feature if you find that it has suddenly gone down (Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Usage)
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that doesn't work all the time is kinda annoying to keep checking your phone and see if the battery is alive or not
bongd said:
It's nothing to worry about. Unused memory is useless memory. It's *nix based so the memory in use isn't going to drain the battery or slow the system down. It manages everything by itself. By repeatedly killing tasks you're actually stressing things unnecessarily.
The only time you should kill all the tasks is when you know something is being problematic, before locking your phone when you have a suspicious app that doesn't always stop automatically, etc. Otherwise the Android OS takes care of this by itself.
I stopped using task killers months ago (except for when I lock my phone because of what I mentioned above.. programs keeping it from going into a deep sleep) and my battery easily lasts two days with periods of very heavy usage.
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K i seriusly need some answers how the hell do people come to know which app prevents it from sleeping? how can you figure out a bad application . does sleep here means when locks itself and screen goes blank? confused :S

[Q] Go Launcher App Drawer

So I've noticed that even after using the "close all programs" option in the "running" portion of the app drawer, apps start popping up there even if i haven't used them. The nook contacts for instance, i never use, yet it still shows up in "running." It seems to be using storage space, and i certainly don't want those extra apps draining the battery. Has anyone else encountered this?
ETA: So i was mistaking memory for storage, my bad, but i still don' t want apps running on the RAM when i don't want them to. The ones that seem to always pop up are nook contacts, nook shop, pandora, amazon app store, and pulse. Why are these apps initializing? Is it an update/being connected to the internet thing?
I take it this is your first Android device. Check the link to see how memory is managed in Android.
http://mobworld.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/memory-management-in-android/
Yep, first android device, thank you so much, couldnt find anything by searching the forum.
I'm still not 100% sure why apps i'm not using would show up like that, the impression i got from that article was that android has unusual priorities in killing apps in use, why are apps i never use showing up?
Some apps are programmed to stay partially resident in memory because they are used by other apps. Contacts would be used by Email, etc.
Just because it says they're running, though, does not mean that they will affect how your tablet runs at all.
In a nutshell, taskkillers are ineffective and unnecessary in Android. A lot of us come from a Windows-mindset that says "kill tasks to free up memory!" but this does nothing for Android. (The exceptions seem to be rogue processes).
All I know is I was driving myself nuts when I first got my Android phone using task killers, and worrying about apps I'd 'killed' popping right back up again. I was actually slowing down the system, not speeding it up. When I finally read about it, and then got rid of the task killer stuff, my performance actually improved. My limited understanding of this, is that a killed app will actually expend more memory opening itself back up again to run idle, than if you just leave it running idle.
Thank you zaptoons, that makes sense. I hadnt really noticed much ofa difference with the apps killed or not, so very helpful info. Still getting used to my tab, think rooting may be in my future.

Stop apps from auto running?

How can I do this? I noticed yesterday that my scramble with friends app with only 2 games, was taking up 135Mb RAM. I'm sure there's another issue behind there, but this got me noticing other apps that don't need to always be open and running, but for some reason are. How can I stop these apps from auto launching and running in the background?
cgibsong002 said:
How can I do this? I noticed yesterday that my scramble with friends app with only 2 games, was taking up 135Mb RAM. I'm sure there's another issue behind there, but this got me noticing other apps that don't need to always be open and running, but for some reason are. How can I stop these apps from auto launching and running in the background?
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Just because something is loaded doesnt mean its actually running. Android takes programs that are often used and load them into RAM so that they are ready and waiting when you want to run them. They are then dropped out of memory when that memory is needed for something else. Read up on memory management to get a better idea. If you want to kill it anyways, you can probably just use Titanium to freeze it, but this requires root.
Thanks for the response. I'm rooted and also running RAM manager. It seems that certain programs are taking up my RAM that don't need to be. Another example, words with friends, was in my RAM usage after reboot, and I've never even used this game before. Games like scramble with friends I'd imagine always need to be running or in active RAM since that game has notifications and built in messaging. But I don't need to constantly have that app checking for new data. I tried setting the in app settings to check every few hours rather than 5 minutes, but it was still shown as taking 130MB of RAM usage (though the number is normal now after reboot).
So, it sounds like there is no way.. or what you're saying is more of, no need? I just don't want a bunch of little used apps taking up my active memory.
cgibsong002 said:
Thanks for the response. I'm rooted and also running RAM manager. It seems that certain programs are taking up my RAM that don't need to be. Another example, words with friends, was in my RAM usage after reboot, and I've never even used this game before. Games like scramble with friends I'd imagine always need to be running or in active RAM since that game has notifications and built in messaging. But I don't need to constantly have that app checking for new data. I tried setting the in app settings to check every few hours rather than 5 minutes, but it was still shown as taking 130MB of RAM usage (though the number is normal now after reboot).
So, it sounds like there is no way.. or what you're saying is more of, no need? I just don't want a bunch of little used apps taking up my active memory.
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No real need. Android sees that you use this app a good bit so it preloads it, and it's sitting there in unused RAM untill it's either called upon to run or untill another process needs that RAM that its using.The application is not running and that RAM would otherwise be sitting unused, so there's no need to get rid of it unless it happened to be a suspicious application. This process is what gets alot of folks all wound up about never having enough RAM because they think that almost all of their RAM is being used for running processes when in reality this isn't really true, kinda half true.
Download Autostarts from the Market, it will let you prevent apps from starting automatically.
And what Chief Geek said is true, he's missing a big part of the picture, and I see statements like his all the time. Yes Android does a good job of loading things in and out of memory as needed. However, if there is crap you don't care about coming in and out of memory all the time, then that means Android is going to dump stuff out of memory that you DO care about (browser, games, etc.) So if you have a bunch of extra crap running, that means if you pause a game, check and email, and come back, Android may have released it from memory and you have to wait for it to reload. If you cut back on the things that are constantly running, it will keep more of your apps that you care about in memory longer, meaning when you go back to that game they will be there right away.
The more stuff you can prevent from running the better. I use Titanium Backup to freeze stuff I will never use. I use autostarts to prevent certain apps from running at startup that I don't want to - Maps, Facebook, etc. Doing this gives me tons of extra free RAM which translates to more useful multitasking.
EvoXOhio said:
And what Chief Geek said is true, he's missing a big part of the picture, and I see statements like his all the time.
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I understand where your coming from, as this is a very common argument, but what you didn't mention is your method favors empty/available RAM for multitasking while sacrificing fast launches leading to some folks experiencing a laggy system. I completely agree with freezing the junk as the bloat always seems to have pointless priority, but I feel as once these steps are taken that android does a perfectly fine job of managing RAM. Very rarely do I have to wait for applications to reopen as I'm jumping back and forth between them and never have trouble multitasking. I'm not going to be curt and say your theory is wrong, I'll leave it as just another way of running your device as it certainley has it's merits, but I don't agree that it's for the average user who is more likey to be jumping from one app to another and not back and forth between the same ones needing all the data to be exactly where they left it.
Chief Geek said:
I understand where your coming from, as this is a very common argument, but what you didn't mention is your method favors empty/available RAM for multitasking while sacrificing fast launches leading to some folks experiencing a laggy system. I completely agree with freezing the junk as the bloat always seems to have pointless priority, but I feel as once these steps are taken that android does a perfectly fine job of managing RAM. Very rarely do I have to wait for applications to reopen as I'm jumping back and forth between them and never have trouble multitasking. I'm not going to be curt and say your theory is wrong, I'll leave it as just another way of running your device as it certainley has it's merits, but I don't agree that it's for the average user who is more likey to be jumping from one app to another and not back and forth between the same ones needing all the data to be exactly where they left it.
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Click to collapse
You're misunderstanding what I am saying. I am suggesting to prevent apps you don't care about from getting loaded into memory automatically at startup. By doing that, it means more free memory for the system, which means better multitasking.
My method doesn't sacrifice fast launches at all. If anything, by having more free memory, it means more applications will remain in memory, which equals better multitasking and faster relaunches. Initial launches will be the same either way.
I am NOT suggesting to prevent apps you care about from autostarting - just the crap that you never use nor care about. Maybe that's where you misunderstood me.
EvoXOhio said:
You're misunderstanding what I am saying. I am suggesting to prevent apps you don't care about from getting loaded into memory automatically at startup. By doing that, it means more free memory for the system, which means better multitasking.
My method doesn't sacrifice fast launches at all. If anything, by having more free memory, it means more applications will remain in memory, which equals better multitasking and faster relaunches. Initial launches will be the same either way.
I am NOT suggesting to prevent apps you care about from autostarting - just the crap that you never use nor care about. Maybe that's where you misunderstood me.
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I appologize for the misunderstanding, I assumed that since we were discussing an app that he says he does use that you meant to prevent apps such as this all together. Such is an argument that some make in an attempt to maximize the amount of available unused RAM.
Chief Geek said:
I appologize for the misunderstanding, I assumed that since we were discussing an app that he says he does use that you meant to prevent apps such as this all together. Such is an argument that some make in an attempt to maximize the amount of available unused RAM.
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Click to collapse
I was addressing what he said here:
but this got me noticing other apps that don't need to always be open and running, but for some reason are. How can I stop these apps from auto launching and running in the background?
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But in all honesty, if his app is using 135MB of RAM when doing nothing, it is probably better off being prevented from running in the background entirely. 135MB is less than 1/3 of the free RAM on the system after a fresh boot.
I been using system tuner pro. You can freezes apps stop them from start up. It also has a task manager that you can choose which apps run what you want to kill.you can also exclude apps so if you kill all it will keep the apps you need running like widget locker bln or avast and kill the rest. Also gives you in depth everything on yor phone
Sent from my oversized communication device.
+1 for Autostarts
Sent magically through the air from the mighty Note!
kimocal said:
+1 for Autostarts
Sent magically through the air from the mighty Note!
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+2 for Autostarts.
The best by far is Gemini app manager... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seasmind.android.gmappmgr
long press on the icon of the app to get a menu with an option to disable start up.
And the nice part it has very granular selection of start up permissions.

Constant crashing...?

Hi Everyone,
Basically, I got my Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0 in January, and when it comes to the features, I have been loving it. This is my first Android device.
However, I have been having problems lately. First, some basic information: it's an 8gb device, and I have a 32gb class 10 microSD card in it. I have a huge number of apps on it (over 200), however, I keep careful tabs on what is running in the background, reporting an app if it runs in the background even when not needed and that will reopen if killed, and if I don't really need it, deleting it after a week. I've only had to do that with a couple of apps so far. As I use this a lot as a PDA (I don't have a phone, this basically covers those bases), I have a couple of things that always run in the background, which I want there (textplus, Linphone, MailDroid, SwipePad). After getting rid of the services that I don't need, I'm still looking at over 100MB free RAM. I'm still on the stock ROM, and I'm using GO launcher Ex. I reboot daily.
My problem is that it crashes often - sometimes daily. Usually, it will go something like this: An application freezes, the whole system becomes unresponsive, and I either have to reboot it by holding down the power button for 8 (?) seconds, or something snags and it reboots by itself. Usually the first sign is that the haptic feedback for the home button comes about a second later after I press it - except then it is almost always too late. The power button will usually turn the screen on or off, but the lockscreen won't appear, I'll see the screen as it was before, frozen. Sometimes, it eventually reboots, while sometimes it doesn't, making me hold down the power button to reboot it, and sometimes, just as it will start "becoming unfrozen" (it goes to the home screen and it starts loading), it will reboot.
It seems to be that after an approximate time of active use, it will crash. Before that, apps can freeze, FC, and within a few seconds, I'll be back on the home screen or in another app, doing something else. After that, on the other hand, it seems to me that whenever an app freezes or has a problem, it basically takes down the whole system with it.
Something tells me that this isn't just normal (otherwise Android wouldn't have over 50% of smart phone market share ), because I haven't heard of problems like this before, and other people with Android I know don't seem to be having the same problems (if any, at all). I have been reading around, and saw some thread about another phone describing similar problems, and it turns out it was a motherboard problem, so the phone was returned for warranty, except I don't remember where that was, I'm just hoping it's something like that...
OK, now that you've read my long post (sorry, I thought it would be best to give more details than get asked about them), I really hope this isn't something normal, because outside of this problem, I'm really enjoying all the possibilities, capabilities and flexibilities of Android (I'm looking at you, iPod). It's really quite aggravating, today I lost my public transit itinerary on Google Maps (I feature I love), and thankfully, I remembered enough to make it through, but it is quite frustrating. Please tell me this is not Android being Android?
Go Launcher is not Officially supported on these devices and swallows the small amount of ram very quickly, I tried it for a day and got rid of it because of how badly it impacted performance.
edit: looks like since I tried it they added support for our players, still won't run it, its to much of a system hog.
I don't know, but I tried switching to the default launcher, and it already crashed earlier than usual. Any other ideas? I'll try some other launchers over the next few days.
Sounds like you are running out of system resources. You say you have a couple hundred apps installed and I bet some of those are becoming active and hogging precious ram and cpu resources in the background until the system crashes. I have a 2 year old Samsung Captivate and I only have minimal amount of apps because it will often big down and become unresponsive and crash. So before you head out to a repair shop, remove some of your many apps and see if that helps.
So, if I understand, even if an app runs in the background for a short period of time, it still consumes resources, even after it's stopped running?
trainman261 said:
So, if I understand, even if an app runs in the background for a short period of time, it still consumes resources, even after it's stopped running?
Click to expand...
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If you have a titanium backup freeze apps that run in backround and see what happens ..when you open programs they will stay in memory so use some memory kill widget to clean memory from time to time.I have a stock rom witch is not very good with memory menagment so sometimes when memory is full it just stop and only help is restarting ..so i use app "quick system info" which give you memory ajd cpy usage displayed in status bar and when memory is close 2 full i just click on that and it kill all other aps except what a use in that moment.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA
So, basically, the ROM is to blame? As to Titanium backup, I think that needs root, and I'm not quite ready to root yet (I've done enough hacking on my iPod). I do plan on upgrading to android 4.0 eventually (once all the issues get fixed, this is my main device, after all), and I think I'm going to have to root it at that point, but I'll be able to test it on a different ROM then, as well as try freezing apps. For now, I've tried LauncherPro, which seems a lot more lightweight, and it seems to be making it through the day until I reboot, and seems to be very stable... it also loads my widgets lightnight fast, which is great.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it is:
obviously there are memory leaks, every OS has that
Android will not kill services, but only programs
If there are places where memory can be freed, Android will do that when necessary
If no memory can be freed, and there is barely any memory left, than a minor FC or a frozen app is all it will need to push Android off the cliff
Is this the way it works? And, then, when I upgrade to 4.0 (CM9), most of those problems should be gone (because of better memory management)?

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