[Q] Self launching apps or apps launched by apps? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi there,
I have a Motorola Razr Maxx (Droid XT912) and I have serious problems with my RAM becoming full and slowing down my phone to death.
Playing around with the phone I have seen that when the phone starts being slow, several apps are running although I did not launch them. I have been looking quite a bit for explanations and solutions but I'm not able to solve, maybe there's a genius out there who is...
I'll try to explain what really bugs me since quite a lot of time now:
1) I understand that some apps are programmed to be launched at startup for whichever reason, but why does an app then start unless invoked for a specific purpose by another app?
2) Here the apps which are now running on my phone although I did not launch them since last startup:
- Facebook (I understand, although I think I should be given the freedom to choose wether to have it running in background or not)
- Google search (why?!?)
- Google + (why?!? ...never used, never created an account)
- MapFactor Navigator (why?!? ...I am sitting at home)
- Shell Motorist (why?!? sitting at home I might be looking for a beer, not for a gas station)
- Rocket Player (why?!? not in the mood of listening to music)
- Shazam (see above)
- Chrome (again, ...why?!?)
- ES File Explorer (why?!? I probably used it the last time 3 months ago)
- Telegram (why?!? used one time the day after Zuckie bought WhatsApp)
- eBay (why?!? may be never used)
- Picasa uploader (why?!? never used Picasa)
- AndroZip File Manager (why?!? used one time to compress a file)
- Android Video Player (why?!? I'm watching TV on my 46" TV set)
- Dropbox (why?!? last used two months ago)
- Hangouts (why?!? never used at all)
- GMail (why?!? never used at all, no account configured)
- MotoCast (why?!?!?!?!?!?)
3) In order to understand a bit more, since a couple of months I use Startup Cleaner to kill the unnecessary apps after startup, but several of them just restart a bit later. (why?!?)
4) I also installed Clean Master to check exactly which apps are running, how much memory they use, how much memory is currently free and to kill the unnecessary apps and see what happens. The result was that when RAM is filled around 80%, the phone starts to get dramatically slow. If I kill the unnecessary apps, the phone comes back to life but after some time some of those unwanted and unnecessary apps are again running.
5) I have been reading quite a lot of times that Android has a smart memory management. Apps are kept open when you don't use them anymore, in order to quickly get back to the last status, and that you don't need a task killer because as soon as needed, the system will close the unnecessary apps to have free RAM for the one you just launched. From my experience this is absolutely not true, ...my Android gets turtle slow (something like really freezing for 30 secs) quite often. I really love a lot Android, but why do I have all these problems which I never experience on my iPad, on my old WinMobile and on my very old Psion Series 5?
6) I do not want to root the phone.
7) I would like to keep those apps, I might need an FTP client twice a year, but those two times I do need it.
8) Thanks for reading and for your ...HELP!!!!!!!!!!

Related

Sllloooooooowwww Down

Any one else notice their Hero slowing down?
Mine's gotten to the point where it takes a few attempts at even unlocking the home screen....
Yeah, started to put some apps on the phone the first night I had it ( Friday) and when I started 'Sky map' to see what it was like the poor old phone had a major moment and wouldn't do much at all.
I had read up on this so installed taskiller and just killed the app -it was fine after that-
I believe it will be sorted soon, there is a firmware update just about to be released (hopefully) that addresses this issue.
I bought TasKiller Pro, since it lets you have unlimited amounts of Ignored apps. Then I just:
* Go into TasKiller and Ignore TouchFlo, Touch Input, com.htc.dcs (whatever that is, it's always on) and all other apps you don't want to kill when you clean up (Babbler, ConnectBot etc... whatever you fancy)
* Put the TasKiller widget on the desktop next to the TasKiller app icon.
* Whenever I notice a slowdown I just press the widget button and it kills all processes / programs except the ones I've ignored. It immediately speeds up the phone
This isn't an iPhone, this actually lets you start multiple programs at the same time and since the cpu isn't event capable of playing smooth MP4 videos (unless they are 480x360), there isn't a lot to spare.
When I woke up this morning, i made a ConnectBot connection to screen to open irc, surfed a couple of webpages, wrote a couple of mails, started babbler for facebook and eBuddy for MSN and the slowdown on the desktop was visible. When I was done I clicked the TasKiller "Kill all" button and the phone was smooth as butter again.
The moral of the story: If you start a lot of programs at the same time, it WILL slow down the phone. Nothing you can do about it. The iPhone "never" slows down, because it's the equivalent (almost) of a Hero with only one app running at any one time. Given those conditions, the Hero would be just as smooth as the iPhone too!
Still, I hope sincerely for some optimization with the forthcoming update.
You need to look into how the Android OS works.
there are two types of running apps.
Applications and services.
With applications, when you press the home button the application is suspended and can no longer use memory or cpu, Android can reclaim this memory when it needs to.
Second is services, these run in the background. These do use cpu and memory while you are doing other things. So if you have a lot of apps that uses services running then it may slow down.
I have found that usually the slowdown is because when you click home and then suspend the widgets that update are suspended and so when you unsuspend they wake up and start to refresh and that causes the slow down. Tip #1 when clicking home to put the phone into standby dont click standby for about 5 secs and see if it helps.

Hints for painfully slow NATPC M010SE?

This tablet was purchased about 6 months ago, and has slowed down to the point that it is now no longer usable, even though I very rarely use it and have only installed 7 apps on it (and have used only 169MB of memory - 839 remaining). I frequently get messages saying "xxx is not responding - would you like to close it?". I even get this for the launcher app. For example, I frequently have to tap app icons several times before the screen responds. I have tried rebooting but it doesn't help.
Is there any way to diagnose the performance problem - e.g. to find out whether there is a specific app running in the background which is causing the performance drag?
The apps I have installed are:
- Mantano Reader
- Google Maps
- Mah Jongg game
- Dropbox
- Folder Sync
- Adobe Reader
- Photo Frame.

[Q] Proud owner since March! Should I cave & root?

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

Xperia Ray with Super Jelly Bean 8.0 + Fusion Kernel - experiences

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!

Extreme lag issues Xperia Pro (Lupus kernel + Ultimate HD ROM)

Good day all,
I am a proud owner of an Xperia Pro... Or was. I have this phone since 2011 and in order to keep using it I had to perform some major enchangements to keep it going.
The enchangements:
- Lupus stock plus kernel ICS
- Ultimate HD ROM
- Greenify (paid version)
- Link2SD (paid verison) all user apps are on ext2
- I/O = 'SIO'
- Governor = 'LagFree'
- CPU = '1018mhz'
There is no bloatware (removed it with Titanium Backup) on this phone, except for Google Play Services (which Tinder intended me to have in order to make use of it)
Now the issues. The phone is horribly slow sometimes, and has its moments that it reboots itself when it gets just a little heavy. Like, during navigation per bluetooth on car the phone reboots itself sometimes without a clue. Underneath here is a general list of what is wrong with the average usage on daily bases:
- Whatsapp sometimes takes avg 12 seconds to start
- Tinder takes avg 10 sec to start
- Browser (Dolphin) most times takes avg 5 seconds before I can use it.
- RootExplorer takes avg 5 seconds before I can use it.
- Quickpic takes 5 seconds before thumbnails are loaded
Please know that this is not always the issue, but most of the times: it is.
With several software I have tried to find the reason for this ridiculous lag, but I always seem to have enough RAM, internal memory and enough CPU so I don't know what is going on.
I also turned on the options to show ANR's in the background, it usually tells me either Whatsapp or Google Play that became an ANR, sometimes as a follow-up it says SystemUI ANR too.
I can re-flash the ROM and kernel but within a few days I will experience the same sh*t again.
Any other Xperia Pro user experience this? What are my options?
NOTE: I prefer not buying a new phone, in the Netherlands there are no such phones like the Xperia Pro anymore because of fashion reasons.
I'd like to give opinion on that CPU: the one 2011 Xperias use is severely slow by 2016 standards.
It's a single core 1 GHz CPU, what do you expect? I think it's like the Pentium 4 of phones; it may run new programs albeit really slowly. The internal memory and RAM may still have plenty of space, but its speed is also lacking. Do yourself a favor by saving a couple bucks and get a newer phone for daily use. Check Xiaomi Redmi phones or Moto E, they're great and usually quite cheap
P.S: You may get a higher chance of getting a date with a newer phone
To be honest, its been 5 - 6 years i stick with my Xperia Pro and i proudly say i never encounter any major problems. I dont know much about greenify or link2sd but mine is working alright.
I just using the superjellybean rom one without gapps. For the battery life, i can survive the whole day with medium usage. Theres no any critical Iag on any apps that i use such as (whatsapp, opera mini, tubemate,sync pro) I also disable email exchange service, gmail, google search, keep and search application.
The only annoying that i faced right now is i need to switch physical keyboard (after each bootup) in setting or the visual keyboard will not popout. The keyboard light also always turn on when there is any input while using the phone (without the keyboard slides out). If anyone can help with this i can ensure this rom is in perfection.
SONY ERICSSON XPERIA PRO MK16i:
M_w_B said:
Good day all,
I am a proud owner of an Xperia Pro... Or was. I have this phone since 2011 and in order to keep using it I had to perform some major enchangements to keep it going.
The enchangements:
- Lupus stock plus kernel ICS
- Ultimate HD ROM
- Greenify (paid version)
- Link2SD (paid verison) all user apps are on ext2
- I/O = 'SIO'
- Governor = 'LagFree'
- CPU = '1018mhz'
There is no bloatware (removed it with Titanium Backup) on this phone, except for Google Play Services (which Tinder intended me to have in order to make use of it)
Now the issues. The phone is horribly slow sometimes, and has its moments that it reboots itself when it gets just a little heavy. Like, during navigation per bluetooth on car the phone reboots itself sometimes without a clue. Underneath here is a general list of what is wrong with the average usage on daily bases:
- Whatsapp sometimes takes avg 12 seconds to start
- Tinder takes avg 10 sec to start
- Browser (Dolphin) most times takes avg 5 seconds before I can use it.
- RootExplorer takes avg 5 seconds before I can use it.
- Quickpic takes 5 seconds before thumbnails are loaded
Please know that this is not always the issue, but most of the times: it is.
With several software I have tried to find the reason for this ridiculous lag, but I always seem to have enough RAM, internal memory and enough CPU so I don't know what is going on.
I also turned on the options to show ANR's in the background, it usually tells me either Whatsapp or Google Play that became an ANR, sometimes as a follow-up it says SystemUI ANR too.
I can re-flash the ROM and kernel but within a few days I will experience the same sh*t again.
Any other Xperia Pro user experience this? What are my options?
NOTE: I prefer not buying a new phone, in the Netherlands there are no such phones like the Xperia Pro anymore because of fashion reasons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SONY ERICSSON XPERIA PRO MK16i:
Can it still function normally with e-mail such as Gmail, and other POP3 accounts on Ginger bread?
Or is its OS so out dated it can not function properly or other issues to look out for?
Purchasing the device from welectronics if that makes a difference.
You see I am thinking of purchasing one and would like to know if it worth paying for...I would use it primarily for mail and sending, viewing, light editing pdf, word, and excel documents, and lastly as a back up phone, also as a recording device for lectures at Uni. the only reason I am looking at this device is for the physical slide out keyboard like the old PDA's.
Please let me know
did you try ?
any chance to buy one new ?

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