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Hello all,
I am very new to android, this GT 10.1 being my first android device. I have been unable to figure out how to kill a process and or close apps. I have tried "advanced task killer" & "watchdog" apps, as well as going settings>Applications>force stop on said apps; no luck, running apps still show on the navigation button.
I have searched the GT 10.1 forum with no luck, has anyone had this issue and or have a fix?
There was a lot of talk about task killers on Android phones over the last couple years... As I recall, since Android 2.2, Android terminates apps when needed. I would not recommend a task killer... They can cause system instability when shutting down apps. As best I know, it is the same on the Android 3.x series as well.
Bukem is correct -- as a rule, you don't want to force close an application or service unless it is actually misbehaving. Android doesn't work like Windows. Android is much more efficient about managing background tasks, and there's usually no noticeable performance hit even from extensive multitasking.
Plus, you don't know what every applicable or service is actually doing or whether its needed. By way of example, when the EVO came out a few self-proclaimed experts advised that you could task-kill the Google Talk service to make the phone faster. Turns out, the Google Talk service was used as the universal Google sign-in, so killing it also killed your push Gmail and all other Google services.
Agreed. Task killers haven't been needed for Android since 2.2. Google should save everyone the confusion now and just purge them from the market, in my opinion.
Quote from a well-known dev, cvpcs:
…What people don’t seem to realize is that android is designed to have a large number of tasks stored in memory at all times. Why? Well basically we are talking about a mobile device. On a mobile device things tend to be slower. The hardware isn’t as robust as say a desktop or a laptop, so in order to get that same “snappy” feeling, there have to be workarounds.
One of these is how android deals with memory. Android will load up your apps and then keep them running until they absolutely HAVE to kill them. This is because that way, if you want to re-open an app, the system already has it loaded and can then just resume it instead of reloading it. This provides a significant performance increase.
What a lot of people don’t realize as well is that android kernels have their own task manager. This means that:
it will be more efficient than any app-based task manager as it is run at the kernel level, and
it should be left up to that task killer to decide when to free up memory
There is only one case where having a task killer is a good idea, and that is when you want to kill ONE SPECIFIC APP. Killing all apps is never a good idea. You don’t know what operations they are performing or if they are necessary.
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Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker:
This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you’ll free by killing it. As we’ve learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the “autokill” feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it’s actually possible that this will worsen your phone’s performance and battery life. Whether you’re manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you’re actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn’t—killing apps that aren’t doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don’t, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don’t go off, you don’t receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you’re usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you’re more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
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Click to collapse
And from a site called NextApp:
Android was designed from the ground up as an operating system (OS) for mobile devices. Its built-in application and memory-management systems were engineered with battery life as one of the most critical concerns.
The Android OS does not work like a desktop operating system. On a desktop OS, like Windows, Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Linux, the user is responsible for closing programs in order to keep a reasonable amount of memory available. On Android, this is not the case. The OS itself automatically removes programs from memory as memory is needed. The OS may also preload applications into memory which it thinks might soon be needed.
Having lots of available empty memory is not a good thing. It takes the same amount of power to hold “nothing” in memory as it does to hold actual data. So, like every other operating system in use today, Android does its best to keep as much important/likely-to-be-used information in memory as possible.
As such, using the task manager feature of SystemPanel to constantly clear memory by killing all apps is strongly NOT RECOMMENDED. This also applies to any other task killer / management program. Generally speaking, you should only “End” applications if you see one which is not working correctly. The “End All” feature can be used if your phone/device is performing poorly and you are uncertain of the cause.
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All those quotes were aggregated for this article, if you want to read more: http://www.droid-life.com/2011/06/02/revisiting-android-task-killers-and-why-you-dont-need-one/
So TL;DR, this:
Droid Life said:
Basically, Android keeps tasks handy because it thinks you’ll want to perform them again in a very short amount of time. If you don’t, it will clear them out for you. It also likes to keep as many things handy as possible so that the overall performance of your device is top notch. If Android were to completely kill off everything that your phone is doing, then it would require more resources to restart all of them and you would likely run into slowness and battery drains. By keeping certain things available to you, your phone is actually running better than it would without. So please, stop killing off tasks and let Android do the work for you.
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Although they are not necessary in every day use, I still recommend having one just in case. Every once in a while, something will go wrong. I guess you could just reboot so it's not a big deal either way. So anyway.. I have advanced task killer but I probably only use it about once a month.
On Linux I am not a hostage of the operating system...
On Android it seems it wants me to be 'cos it knows better.
For example: I use Skype maybe once a week. BUT android assumes that I will use it again and 3 minutes, and keeps it around hoping that I do. I know I won't so I want to kill it (like I did 2.1) so the machine will be more responsive - instead of for CPU to do massive cleanup before I start a new app.
The terrible system instability, the immediate phone damage - this is spreading FUD. Nothing terrible will happen.
Grrr...
viulian said:
o be 'cos it knows better.
For example: I use Skype maybe once a week. BUT android assumes that I will use it again and 3 minutes, and keeps it around hoping that I do. I know I won't so I want to kill it (like I did 2.1) so the machine will be more responsive - instead of for CPU to do massive cleanup before I start a new app.
The terrible system instability, the immediate phone damage - this is spreading FUD. Nothing terrible will happen.
Grrr...
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Click to collapse
You see this is EXACTLY what the anti-taskkiller people dont understand. They think apps get closed and memory gets reorganized like MAGIC instantly. They dont understand that it takes CPU power to do this which is why you see slight lag when your memory gets low. This lag is from the system reallocating memory and this has been proven via acatlogs.
hi all, im an owner of a sam.charge. I use the app called "System" and it lists about a dozen apps that are stored in my cache or that are using memory when I have not innitiaited the service or app...
I'm most familiar with computers so I'll relate it to that; is there some type of command line that I can use to stop some of these apps from auto start and being stored. For instance on windows you can 'msconfig' what programs are allowed to start on boot up.
Here is a list of apps that I want to stop: AccuWeather.com, Android Booster, Google Voice, HeyTell, Amazon's Appstore, Market, Music, etc.
Most are cached/ inactive but none the less in my task manager when freeing up memory when I notice things to be lagging I'd imagine these to be guilty. Android Booster always lists these as killed apps as well when optimizing...
Im familiar somewhat with how android works being that it often fills a large portion of your memory with what it wants to and frees space as it is needed but these apps for me are rarely used...
Im big on battery life being Im in and out of Sales accounts and rely on my phone heavily so I dont want these things running in the background sucking up resources. Not to mention I like a snappy phone...
If anyone could educate me on this topic Id really appreciate it... I may be mistaken on a few things so call me out on it, since im sure I am... Also, I know their are app freezers and applications you can program to kill apps at a set interval but again I would like the least amount of garbage running as I can
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
Some of the basic services are must to be initiated/running all the time such as launcher, keyboard, google voice, market, etc.. so as to run your phone smoothly . This is the default setting of android os. And anyway why do you want to close/stop the services case restarting services uses more battery than kepping them running on the memory ....
mlm2588 said:
hi all, im an owner of a sam.charge. I use the app called "System" and it lists about a dozen apps that are stored in my cache or that are using memory when I have not innitiaited the service or app...
I'm most familiar with computers so I'll relate it to that; is there some type of command line that I can use to stop some of these apps from auto start and being stored. For instance on windows you can 'msconfig' what programs are allowed to start on boot up.
Here is a list of apps that I want to stop: AccuWeather.com, Android Booster, Google Voice, HeyTell, Amazon's Appstore, Market, Music, etc.
Most are cached/ inactive but none the less in my task manager when freeing up memory when I notice things to be lagging I'd imagine these to be guilty. Android Booster always lists these as killed apps as well when optimizing...
Im familiar somewhat with how android works being that it often fills a large portion of your memory with what it wants to and frees space as it is needed but these apps for me are rarely used...
Im big on battery life being Im in and out of Sales accounts and rely on my phone heavily so I dont want these things running in the background sucking up resources. Not to mention I like a snappy phone...
If anyone could educate me on this topic Id really appreciate it... I may be mistaken on a few things so call me out on it, since im sure I am... Also, I know their are app freezers and applications you can program to kill apps at a set interval but again I would like the least amount of garbage running as I can
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
If you find apps that you don't use, you can use a program to freeze them. Just search for freeze in the market. I personally use a free app called System Tuner. Freezing prevent them from starting up and therefore you cannot use them, but later on you can un-freeze them if you need to.
Optimize toolbox
I use this one, had a bunch of other features.https://market.android.com/details?id=cn.opda.a.phonoalbumshoushou&feature=search_result
Thanks all for the feedback...
To reply to the first response; I have read that about battery life. That, the more you kill apps and reopen them that it takes longer for the app to start up and thus sucking up battery life... I probably should not have mentioned battery life in my post being that I have a car charger and that it contradicts what im trying to accomplish (going over my post, it was stupid of me given what you just mentioned). Also, I'm not so much concerned with market apps or google voice as I am about the apps I installed myself. Those ones are the ones that bother me.
To the other posts thanks for the recommendations I will like into those options. I'm just trying to prevent extra apps from running in the background so freezing them is a last resort.
I'm looking for something that I can type in terminal possibly on program into the OS or app itself to keep it from auto starting... possibly a command line?!
Any developers input? Can this even be done. I'm still very much a beginner but its not beyond my comprehension to do something like this... I know its different but I play around with linux, web design, c++ stuff so if you post directions I can follow smoothly our atleast figure it out if you point me in the right direction
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
It's not exactly what your asking for but have you tried Gemini App Manager:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.seasmind.android.gmappmgr
You can use it to disable/re-enable an app's autorun settings. When you first open it it will list all user apps currently in memory. Clicking menu then expert mode will give you a list of all apps. Long press an app then click configure autorun.
Just be careful with changing the autorun settings of system apps like market.
"preventing apps from autostarting"
I like this topic a lot!
I think the question(s) and "assumptions" the OP holds are all valid. So I'd really like to hear the answer to the actual question, not a spew of why the question isn't valid.
How do you stop apps from starting up on their own? (like microsofts msconfig)
Pretty simple question and I cannot find the answer! I've been in software for many year and I'm rather stunned by the responses people are giving - which basically say "who cares, android O/S handles it for you".
Well, lets face it:
*If* the user didn't call for the app, and had no desire to use it, then the "system" loading it even ONCE, is one too many.
*If* the app is a DESIRED app, (OR device required), *BUT* uses data - then if the user didn't want to use it; "yet" - then thats DATA & BATTERY life --> **WASTED**
If the user suspects the APP is misbehaving; one sure fire way would be to SEE it running, when they didn't ask it to!
If you are pure paranoid, or simply want extreme app control....
The kinds of answers people are giving is truly along the the lines of "we dont know, but you're silly for caring"
SOYLENT GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:cyclops:
jr67 said:
It's not exactly what your asking for but have you tried Gemini App Manager:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.seasmind.android.gmappmgr
You can use it to disable/re-enable an app's autorun settings. When you first open it it will list all user apps currently in memory. Clicking menu then expert mode will give you a list of all apps. Long press an app then click configure autorun.
Just be careful with changing the autorun settings of system apps like market.
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Click to collapse
I'm going to test this out too! And I'll post success if it does well!!!
Hello guys and thanks for reading this. I'd like to require your knowledge and collect your expériences, opinions about wether or not I should root.
1 / So here's the deal, what I wish for is a device with which :
-I could prevent selected apps from launching in the background by themselves (see attached picture - i never asked for any of those to launch - seriously the phone was on for only 5 minutes or so) in a one time configuration process. For example, I'd block Facebook but let Messenger do its thing freely.
-I could completely uninstall the following apps : Hangouts, Google+, Gmail, News & Weather, Chrome, Play books, Play Music... Basically everything Google except Maps, YouTube & The Play store..
2 / I Wonder, if it's possible to accomplish (some of) those things by rooting but without flashing another rom. What I mean is, can we change the governor, install super SU, other tweaking solutions... but at the same time keep the stock rom as it is whith all the apps installed as they are... and simply applying tweaks on top of it?
3 / Also, never have I once went back to factory settings, since day one, and I can feel that some apps take a bit longer to load. When receiving the SENSE 5 / 4.2.2 update, I could definitely sense a big boost in responsiveness in the OS but it now feels like before the update. Maybe it's due to those background processes, starting and ending by themselves? Or because the internal memory chip is beginning to die (I did use the phone like an animal in its early days by doing things like downloading torrents and unzipping files between 500mb-5gb) and still do sometimes. And I rarely uninstall apps. I have like 200 (every shortcuts included - like settings, help,... so basically 170 apps maybe?) and i need them at least every once in a while, so I'm the preventive type, not a hoarder.
Here are 2 attached pictures :
-the first one showing you those unwanted background processes.
-the second showing you the storage status
Enough with the background, what are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
true2you said:
Hello guys and thanks for reading this. I'd like to require your knowledge and collect your expériences, opinions about wether or not I should root.
1 / So here's the deal, what I wish for is a device with which :
-I could prevent selected apps from launching in the background by themselves (see attached picture - i never asked for any of those to launch - seriously the phone was on for only 5 minutes or so) in a one time configuration process. For example, I'd block Facebook but let Messenger do its thing freely.
-I could completely uninstall the following apps : Hangouts, Google+, Gmail, News & Weather, Chrome, Play books, Play Music... Basically everything Google except Maps, YouTube & The Play store..
2 / I Wonder, if it's possible to accomplish (some of) those things by rooting but without flashing another rom. What I mean is, can we change the governor, install super SU, other tweaking solutions... but at the same time keep the stock rom as it is whith all the apps installed as they are... and simply applying tweaks on top of it?
3 / Also, never have I once went back to factory settings, since day one, and I can feel that some apps take a bit longer to load. When receiving the SENSE 5 / 4.2.2 update, I could definitely sense a big boost in responsiveness in the OS but it now feels like before the update. Maybe it's due to those background processes, starting and ending by themselves? Or because the internal memory chip is beginning to die (I did use the phone like an animal in its early days by doing things like downloading torrents and unzipping files between 500mb-5gb) and still do sometimes. And I rarely uninstall apps. I have like 200 (every shortcuts included - like settings, help,... so basically 170 apps maybe?) and i need them at least every once in a while, so I'm the preventive type, not a hoarder.
Here are 2 attached pictures :
-the first one showing you those unwanted background processes.
-the second showing you the storage status
Enough with the background, what are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's a challenge then "I'm a proud owner since January " Well , welcome aboard the sailing ship of the HOX+
Well for starters, everything you said can be acheived by root WITHOUT installing a custom ROM. That actually answers all your questions, HOWEVER, keep in mind, that the first stage of rooting , will require you to WIPE all your data during the stage of unlocking the bootloader. So , your music , apps,pics all will be wiped, and you won't be able to backup your apps the first time. So I hope it's still worth it .
For starters read this guide I wrote : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46057784 about the difference between different stages, if you can't understand the forum is full of other threads that explain the same thing.
Moving on,
The list of apps you will need is as following:
1-Super SU or SU whatever is a necessary ofcourse.
2-Xposed framework (google it, its not on the play store) Function:
Its a program that you will need to install other tweaks to your phone. Its basically a manager for those tweaks incase you want to turn one off.
Thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1574401
3-Xposed Framework > Downloads > "BootManager"
Its a module (thats the term for those "tweaks") that allows you to setup the programs that you dont want to boot. Sadly It doesn't have a full list of apps, but its useful nonetheless.
3'-Greenify:
The reason I named it 3' was because its an alternative for BootManager. Greenify hibernates the apps , making them not run in the background, but when you open the app it wakes up, so its not similar to "disable" function since you can still open the app to work on it.
4-Titanium Backup
Now thats a program I must install everytime I switch roms, if you read the thread you will know whats it's use, but let me sum it up. You backup all your apps and progress and when you switch roms (since everything is wiped again) it restores everything back.
ALSO: It allows you to totally uninstall all the apps even stock ones, but TAKE care not to uninstall anything messy, advice: backup everything before you uninstall.
5-Xposed Framework > Downloads > "Sense5 Toolbox" :
It allows you to make tweaks for the stock rom, rearrange quick settings, add new ones, change lock screen ..etc. Really worth it.
6-Xposed Framework > Downloads > "Recent apps RAM":
When you open up the recent apps lists, there will be a bar at the top displaying the ram used and free ram. When you see that less than 100mb left, then thats when you know the phone will lag. Just clear all the apps and it should be fine
7-Xposed Framework > Downloads > "Recent Apps kill all Button":
The only thing missing in sense is the ability to kill all apps without manually swiping up on each app in the most recent list. That enables a button for that.
IMO: Rooting was the best move I have ever made, and since we have S-ON, then you can't really brick your phone. So life is good.
Anyway, I hope I helped and that you will live a long life with that HOX+
Many days later, thaaaaaaank youuuuuuu!
So I read your thread on the link you proved provided (again thanks), read and seen videos and tutorials about titanium backup, and also read about - and tried Xposed + sense5 toolbox without rooting just to get a glimpse - and it's both easy to use and ergonomic. Of course I couldn't get any benefits of it yet since still not rooted, but hey, you've pretty much served me all the steps on a golden plate.
Also, as a warming up session, I did a factory reset and neck, I backed up everything before doing so and all I lost was my games data + 1 or 2 phone numbers + my text messages. Overall not a big deal + reinstalling everything took nothing more than a couple of downloading hours.
What's left for me is to test out greenify and the other module (boot something) or any other alternative, I'll figure it out you've already done more than enough.
As for the main task, rooting and getting super user access, again I now have enough info thanks to you + the stickies + the whole one x+ section.
I am so grateful for your time. After years with windows mobile and window phone 7 (and 8 months of unrooted use of my hox+, this is new to me and now it seems nothing but easy.
Sent from my HTC One X+ using xda premium
This ROM/Kernel combo is a great one, I must say. I want to share my experiences running it, and maybe somebody has more tips on how to improve even further. Feel free to ask questions as well.
-- some basic info --
The phone is rooted, obviously.
I have a fast 32 GB card and Mounts2SD app, so storage of apps is not an issue in any way.
I use Nova Launcher, Xperia Keyboard (with gestures and two languages), MyAndroidTools for managing apps and services, and Greenify to hibernate some stuff.
I limit background processes to 4 under developer options. Sometimes I kill apps with a long-press of the back button to make room in RAM for the next activity.
-- what to disable --
I'm pretty into Gmail Inbox, but in the end it was too slow to run on the phone. And besides a stupid parking app Inbox was the only app that needed Play Services, so in the end it had to go. You see, Play Services is the main thing that will choke the phone on random occasions. It's got 325 services(!) and counting, so no wonder that it runs amok every now and then. Just cut them away by disabling them in MyAndroidTools.
Play Store is also something that is not a very nice background thing on a low-end phone, so I disable that, too. It's relatively easy to enable temporarily if/when I need to install something.
I have location services disabled. Navigation is therefore a no-go which is kind of a bummer - Google Maps is also Play Services based and won't run on 400 MB RAM anyway, so don't bother. Maybe there are other navigation alternatives around for low-end phones, IDK?
** A note: Play Services and Play Store irritate me as they turn on themselves spontaneously every now and then. Every few days the phone will turn to quicksand and when I diagnose there's always Play Services running again, even though it's disabled in MyAndroidTools. I would really like to have those two be well-behaving citizens **
-- apps --
Shuttle is a nice music player for this phone, I have about 25 GB of music on the card and it manages well.
Mailbox by Dropbox is lean and fast and a fine alternative if it wasn't for the fact that I'm not able to type in more than one word when replying to a mail - bit of limiting for a mail app wouldn't you say?
Twitter, Trello, Slack, Dropbox run fine although I won't run widgets due to RAM limitations.
Business Calendar is my longtime favorite and it works well. I tried upgrading to BC2 but that's not for this phone as far as I could judge (and with no new need-to-have features).
Opera Mini works for me, seems to be pretty conservative on RAM if a limited number of tabs are kept open. Of course, not everything renders optimally, but on the other hand the data savings are great so you can even surf decently on Edge connections, which come in handy sometimes.
The SJB camera works great, as does the FM Radio - and no problems ever with Wifi which I had with the phone on other ROMs previously!
No games. Not my thing. Not on a 3.5" display anyhow.
-- final words --
With the setup described here, this phone is still very much usable. Sure it's not the fastest but hey Zen right? And you won't be able to run any app comfortably, but the abovementioned make my workday more than manageable. Kudos to the ROM and Kernel developers, and to SonyEricsson for a still-great phone in a really pocketable package!
Background:
I wanted to play a game on my unrooted Huawei Nova 2s (Stock ROM EMUI 8.0) which didn't have GMS preinstalled. The game unfortunately requires GMS to run. I read somewhere some apps can create a virtual environment that has built-in google framework/services so you can just clone apps to the environment and run them as if google services are present. I tried two apps mentioned in the article: VirtualXposed with microg and X8 Sandbox. Sadly, neither of them worked out, the game launched in VirtualXposed couldn't go beyond a data loading screen, X8 Sandbox simply halted at environment launching screen.
What I did:
A few days later, I came up with this stupid idea, i.e. try to run X8 Sandbox in VirtualXposed. The app itself seemed to run okay in VirtualXposed (no active Xposed module if I recall correctly), but instead of halting, it crashed while trying to launch the sandbox environment. I then gave up and removed X8 Sandbox from VirtualXposed and was about to delete the X8 Sandbox apk.
Result:
When I opened up ES file manager, I noticed used internal storage reduced from 19 GB to 8 GB. I knew something seriously went wrong. It was 19 GB right before I tried the nested virtual environment thing. I did a quick navigation, all photos, videos, documents, downloaded files along with tons of folders in /storage/emulated/0/ disappeared. Only those systematic folders (the ones with small icons) remained, but also got emptied (eg. the Download folder). It seemed apps were still in the drawer, not sure if I could actually launch them and if the data stored in apps was gone. SMS also seemed unaffected. I was too scared to keep investigating. To prevent further data loss, I turned off the phone.
My Question:
1. How could I get the lost data back? They got wiped out in such a weird way, I have a feeling it's worse than just being deleted. I probably will try to use software like Dr. Fone, FonePaw to run a recovery scan tomorrow. If you are aware of any better way of data recovery, please let me know. Very much appreciated!
2. How could this happen in the first place? I am by no means a pro and it was a heart-sinking moment when I realized so much data was gone. I wish I knew more about Android, maybe this would never happen.
Thank you very much for reading this long post! Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
@ph7jlfr6
your contribution shows impressively what should never be done. Maybe it helps others to avoid the mistakes you made. And: This all has nothing to do with Android OS itself. Basically any Android phone should be used as intended by OEM/Carrier. For good reason HUAWEI have their own app store.
Anyway, you know the door to any Android device is ADB? Do you have USB debugging enabled in phone's Android Settings -> Developer options? Do you have verified an ADB connection can be established? Has phone's Android OS got rooted - that's a requirement for the recovery apps you mentioned?