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The vibrant is my first android phone, so apologies if I am simply ignorant.
Anyways, my battery life has been sucky lately (as compared to what it used to be).
I generally listen to streaming radio on my way to and from work. At work I oocasionally check email, play wordfued or send text messages. I used to get home with 60-70% charge left. Lately I have been lucky to get home with 40% left.
The change is that I am now running the Franekn-twiz rom and before I was running jfd or ji5. At first I assumed the difference was simply due to the new rom and was considering going back to stock when I noticed something odd.
I opened the samsung task manager included since ji2 and I noticed that Rom Manager was in red and said to be at 30+ cpu usage. It quickly changed to 0%, then to 2%, then 4%, then 0. It jumped arround a lot, but it was definitely doing something. I looked further and noticed that astro was was also fluctuation and getting to as high 13% cpu usage.
I had not used either application since yesterday. I killed them both.
When I restart either and then exit it (with the home button) I get the same thing again. Not trusting the samsung manager, I looked in the System Panel Light app and it also shows these apps using cpu in the background.
I know of no reason why either app should be using cpu, and I can't find a setting in tierh to stop it. Also, Rom Manager does not have an exit option, so I *have* to use a task manager to kill it to stop the cpu usage.
Please help me understand:
1. is there a valid reason for these apps to be using cpu when they shouldn't be doing anything?
2. Is there an easy way to fix this?
3. How can I figure out if this is a problem wit my phone, the rom, the apps, or something else?
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...
Click to collapse
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)?
I'm running OS 4.5.5 and my my performance slows Way down after about a day and a half. At first, I thought it may have been the launcher but I started using GQ launcher about a month ago and it still get sluggish. I ran Clean Master on it for a while so every time I shut it down, CA would clean up the RAM. This helped a little but it would still get sluggish after a few days. So I wound up removing it. The booster widget for GQ says my "normal" RAM usage is 70-80% which seems really high to me. The sluggishness starts when I get above 80%. After a reboot, I'm normally sitting around 45%. I'm not using any high performance apps. I mostly use my tablet for email, Facebook, and the like. Any ideas? I keep hoping OS 5 will get released and solve my problems.
Vc027708 said:
I'm running OS 4.5.5 and my my performance slows Way down after about a day and a half. At first, I thought it may have been the launcher but I started using GQ launcher about a month ago and it still get sluggish. I ran Clean Master on it for a while so every time I shut it down, CA would clean up the RAM. This helped a little but it would still get sluggish after a few days. So I wound up removing it. The booster widget for GQ says my "normal" RAM usage is 70-80% which seems really high to me. The sluggishness starts when I get above 80%. After a reboot, I'm normally sitting around 45%. I'm not using any high performance apps. I mostly use my tablet for email, Facebook, and the like. Any ideas? I keep hoping OS 5 will get released and solve my problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On higher end phones/tabs sluggish performance is typically due to excessive background tasks. Memory swapping is less of an issue due given the overall speed of the device. 70-80% (even 90%) memory utilization is not excessive as much of that reflects cached tasks that do not need to be reloaded from permanent storage when recalled. Android will swap them out (oldest first) if memory is needed.
Unfortunately, you can't see everything running on 4.5.5 as it can not be rooted. FireOS in general and Amazon apps in particular tend to launch multiple processes when you activate one app in a 'suite'. For example, launching the Amazon shopping app also starts Kindle reader, instant video, Amazon music and parental controls. Those apps continue to run in the background until the device is rebooted.
Snag a decent task manager and see if there is unneeded 'stuff' you can kill (note modt system tasks won't be displayed on FireOS). You might just stumble across the culprit.
Any suggestions for a task manager?
Vc027708 said:
Any suggestions for a task manager?
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Click to collapse
Well - Clean Master is popular, easy to use and has options to 'clean' memory on sleep and other events (this normally isn't necessary or advised except for diagnostic purposes). It will also reveal auto starts although you may not be able to stop them without root. Downside is a heavy dose of marketing and promos for other apps.
Other suggestions:
- CCleaner (simple and effective)
- ES Task Manager (time proven)
There are dozens available; everyone has their favorite. Be aware FireOS may restrict the operation of some functions. If you can not find what you want in the Amazon app store consider installing an alternative market place like 1Mobile which tries to emulate the Play Store. Just be careful what you download/install as it's not as well curated as the Amazon and Google stores.
It's possible you have a hardware issue; I tend to think not given it takes a day or two for the problem to fully manifest. Yet another option is to simply restart your device once a day. Doesn't address root cause but might be the easiest solution.
I downloaded especially task manager and it seems to be doing a good job. I haven't been able to track down a culprit for the sluggishness though. However I've been shutting down my kindle at night every few days. I have noticed something weird though. When I power down the kindle and then try to charge it, it comes back on immediately. Even when I have the power cord connected first and then power it down, it still comes back on. Is this normal? It seems awfully strange to me. And it obviously makes it take way longer to get a full charge
Vc027708 said:
I downloaded especially task manager and it seems to be doing a good job. I haven't been able to track down a culprit for the sluggishness though. However I've been shutting down my kindle at night every few days. I have noticed something weird though. When I power down the kindle and then try to charge it, it comes back on immediately. Even when I have the power cord connected first and then power it down, it still comes back on. Is this normal? It seems awfully strange to me. And it obviously makes it take way longer to get a full charge
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Click to collapse
My HDX 7s behave the the same way. Not all android devices do; many will simply display charge status without fully booting. This has nothing to do with the rom that is installed as it is determined by lower level code.
There is no need to power down your device to charge. Simply put it to sleep. Charge time/rate will not be significantly impacted. When it's done charging you can initiate a reboot if desired to begin the day with a 'clean slate'. I realize this involves a few extra steps and a bit of time. Not ideal but have to work with the hand that has been delt.
If your device is waking while charging try placing it in airplane mode. Many apps will check network status and defer full wake-ups until connectivity is restore. The check is done with the screen off and consumes little power. I can't speak to the most recent FireOS framework; previous versions were relatively quite during sleep provided the device was in airplane mode. Note the built in function to disable WiFi while sleeping does not work reliably in my experience.
In my last post, I meant I had gotten ES Task Manager not especially task manager.
I've noticed lately the stock launcher seems to have a large cache associated with it. It's normally second to Silk or Facebook. However, I've been using GQ Launcher almost exclusively lately.
Just a few minutes ago, everything started slowing down so I opened Task Manager. The cache for Launcher (the stock Fire one) was almost 80Mb. It was second largest behind Silk which was 200Mb. As soon as I cleared the cache for the Launcher, performance returned to normal. I did not clear the cache for anything else. Any ideas on why the cache for the Launcher would be so large? Could I have something corrupted with OS 4.5.5 causing this on a regular basis?
Vc027708 said:
In my last post, I meant I had gotten ES Task Manager not especially task manager.
I've noticed lately the stock launcher seems to have a large cache associated with it. It's normally second to Silk or Facebook. However, I've been using GQ Launcher almost exclusively lately.
Just a few minutes ago, everything started slowing down so I opened Task Manager. The cache for Launcher (the stock Fire one) was almost 80Mb. It was second largest behind Silk which was 200Mb. As soon as I cleared the cache for the Launcher, performance returned to normal. I did not clear the cache for anything else. Any ideas on why the cache for the Launcher would be so large? Could I have something corrupted with OS 4.5.5 causing this on a regular basis?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GO Launcher in general is just bloated with unnecessary features, ads, etc.
I would avoid task managers and cleaning apps (i.e. Clean Master), as they often do more harm than good.
Facebook apps are notorious for constantly running in the background and eating up battery life.
As alternatives, I'd highly recommend switching to some more lightweight apps:
Nova Launcher
If you really need to clean your app caches and the like, at least do it with SD Maid, which doesn't try to oversell what it does and isn't loaded with junk.
Metal for Facebook
EncryptedCurse said:
GO Launcher in general is just bloated with unnecessary features, ads, etc.
I would avoid task managers and cleaning apps (i.e. Clean Master), as they often do more harm than good.
Facebook apps are notorious for constantly running in the background and eating up battery life.
As alternatives, I'd highly recommend switching to some more lightweight apps:
Nova Launcher
If you really need to clean your app caches and the like, at least do it with SD Maid, which doesn't try to oversell what it does and isn't loaded with junk.
Metal for Facebook
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Concur with Nova (excellent!) and SD Maid recommendations. Clean Master is obnoxiously bloated and self boasting but core functionality is solid with an easy to digest UI. Task managers can be good diagnostic tools but generally aren't needed once the culprits have been identified. In general never enable any of the automated cleaning functions unless you can configure to target a specific app vs the entire portfolio of active/cached tasks.
As I recall your device isn't rooted (4th gen) so you are stuck with the stock FireOS launcher. Occasionally dumping the cache may be your best option.
Started using Nova about a week ago. It seems when I use only Nova, everything runs great. However, if for some reason I open the native Launcher, everything gets sluggish a few hours later. It sure would be nice if I could set it as the default. Right now I have to choose every time I hit the home button. Thanks for all the help
Vc027708 said:
Started using Nova about a week ago. It seems when I use only Nova, everything runs great. However, if for some reason I open the native Launcher, everything gets sluggish a few hours later. It sure would be nice if I could set it as the default. Right now I have to choose every time I hit the home button. Thanks for all the help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not aware of a method for permanently selecting a non-stock launcher on FireOS v4 without root which itself is not an option on a 4th gen HDX. Might be a way via adb but the risk is high without a way to recover if something goes wrong.
Vc027708 said:
Started using Nova about a week ago. It seems when I use only Nova, everything runs great. However, if for some reason I open the native Launcher, everything gets sluggish a few hours later. It sure would be nice if I could set it as the default. Right now I have to choose every time I hit the home button. Thanks for all the help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this in adb:
Code:
adb shell
pm block com.amazon.kindle.otter
Note:
We all need to know a little about Basic Android Troubleshooting. If any engineer/programmer came up with a perfect phone, who could put a price on that? It’s somewhat like finding the fountain of youth, or anything perfect in this world. It simply doesn’t exist. We and the phones we make are imperfect—subject to the laws of entropy that dictate a gradual decline into disorder.
Thankfully, we humans can problem solve. But not all problems are intuitive. There are some common solutions to try, however, and certain information that you can collect that will greatly assist you in finding the answers. This is a guide to help you discover solutions and implement them as simply as possible.
Disclaimer: This guide is about promoting different fixes for common problems with Android devices, but it cannot guarantee that each type of fix will work with any phone. Therefore, it’s best to read carefully and see which ones apply to your device
How to Improve Battery Life
This is something practically every Android user runs into at least once in a while. Hopefully, you are somewhere you can load up on more juice, but this problem doesn’t only occur when it would be most convenient. That’s why a discussion on how to save battery life is a must when it comes to the basics of troubleshooting Android phones.
There are many reasons why a battery drain can occur. But it is good to detect it in time and figure a way to solve the problem before it is too late.
1) Go to the Source
Nearly every Android has a Battery section in Settings that will give you a breakdown of what is consuming the most resources. If there is anything unnecessary consuming your battery, get rid of it.
2) Disable Connections
If you aren’t using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or GPS, turn them off.
3) Change Settings
You can take individual steps, like lowering the brightness of your display and limiting automatic syncing, or you can rely on Battery or Power Saving Mode to do it for you.
4) Check Charging Conditions
Does your phone have a broken or bent port? Does the charger fit too loosely? Have you tried a different charger? A different outlet?
5) Enlist Battery Saving Apps
Not all apps work against your battery. Some are here to help. For this, I’d recommend the Greenify App, it’s a pretty popular choice and has great reviews.
How to Fix a Slow Interface and Memory Problems
Even though memory problems tend to impact older Android more frequently, you could also find yourself dealing with this issue if you are a heavy user or simply like to store a lot of media directly on your phone.
If you have a ton of apps or photos, you can run into this on newer phones too. No guide on troubleshooting the basics of Android phones would be complete without addressing slowness or performance issues.
1) Outsource Your Storage
Store your photos on someone else’s server (in the Cloud) or on the SD card if you can. Services like Dropbox or Google Drive can assist. You can automatically backup to Google Photos by going to Settings > Backup & Sync; you can visit Accounts and enable Auto Sync.
2) Delete What You Don’t Use
Not only do photos and apps occupy digital space, but consider your music and videos also.
3) Backup & Restore
There are apps that will help you—one of the best is Titanium Backup – Free, but your phone must be rooted.
If your phone is not rooted, you should try Helium – App Sync and Backup – Free.
4) Close Apps
Ensure you are closing your apps when you are done with them; not just returning to the Home Screen while the app is still open and running in the background.
5) Reduce Animation Transitions
This won’t help your memory, but it can make your phone seem faster. Obtain developer status by visiting Settings > About Phone and tap on Build Number approximately seven times. Go back to Settings and a new choice should appear—Developer Options.
Tap on it, scroll down and reduce the Window Transition Animation Scale and Animator Duration to .05x. You can remove the settings altogether, but movement on your phone may not seem to flow as well, and your user experience may suffer.
6) Soft Reset
Most of the time a soft reset will cause your phone to snap out of its stupor. Long-press the Power key for approximately 10-15 seconds.
7) Clear Cache
You can start out by clearing the cache for any individual apps that are giving you problems. Go to your App Manager, select the app, and tap the Clear Cache option. If this doesn’t suffice, you can wipe the entire system’s cache partition.
8) Hard Reset
If that doesn’t cut it, consider performing a hard reset. This wipes data so you might want to backup what you wish to save!
How to Fix a Phone that Won’t Power On or is Frozen
A soft reset usually solves a host of issues, but what to do when you can’t even do that? Additionally, removing the battery can be very helpful, but what if you don’t have a removable battery? We will take you through some basics of troubleshooting unresponsive Android phones.
1) Try Safe Mode
To determine which app, it could be (or if this is the problem at all) try going into Safe Mode. Safe Mode only uses those apps that come with your phone without loading any of the third-party software that could be causing the issue.
The method by which you enter, Safe Mode can vary by device. If you do not experience the same problem in Safe Mode, try uninstalling any third-party app, one-at-a-time, that you think might be the culprit. If the phone still misbehaves in Safe Mode, your problem could be related to the hardware or a corrupted OS, which can be tougher to fix on your own.
2) Charge Battery
If you see the empty battery symbol when you try to turn the device on, it’s time for a charge.
3) Perform a Factory Reset
It’s easiest to do this from the Settings menu, but if you can’t access that you will have to use Recovery Mode instead. This wipes your phone like it just came out of the box. If you want to know more about the factory reset
4) Restore Firmware
This entails connecting your phone to your computer using the proper drivers, going into Download Mode, and flashing the stock firmware for your specific make and model. For Samsungs, this is best accomplished through Odin. For HTCs, Google your phone + ROM upgrade utility, and for LGs, use LG PC Suite.
Need extra SOT+ on most devices
Join group https://t.me/tweakmypixel
I use the tablet mostly for playing. And I am used to move between them without issues. Unless I open a bunch of other apps or browser with multiple tabs and what not. The games remain running without issues or at least they used to. Normally I don't update anything, except for the games because they are live service and I can't play them if I don't. After learning that this update would improved multitasking I updated.
Ever since I can't keep the games open if I leave them for like 20 minutes or maybe less, haven't time it.
Using it as I did, closed them. So I decide to clear all and only play one. After a notification, went to that game for daily tap immediately went back to the prev game and it had close, which cost me a match. After finishing what I was doing on that game. I went to the settings to see if something was amiss. And all the apps I remember disabling that I couldn't uninstall like Youtube are still disabled. I don't have any social media app like FB or anything that would be constantly running. And went back to the game. Lo and behold had to restart again. I checked Dev options and Apps "Background process limit" still standard. Memory is at 4~4.5 with so much free I don't get I it's been so aggressive. Have 66 apps on "deep sleeping" have things like digital well being and other monitoring stuff also off. And the only thing I changed was enabling the "Labs" to allow Multi window for all apps. And just now, went to homescreen while I picked something from the kitchen, I know I didn't take more than 5 min because the screen didn't even timed out. And when I tap on a game, had to relaunch.
God this is ridiculously annoying. And non of the games updated since. I only updated a couple of apps from store.
And worst, I updated believing it would be better at multitasking. Like it would be smarter when using split screen, but it isn't. Maybe it does improve for Samsung apps. But I've seen nothing good from anything I use. And changes to the UI could've been implemented better. Like having dual pane only when you are holding the tablet lanscape. I remember having very old android device that had dual pane but revert to single if you hold them portrait.
I'm considering doing a full reset. But I'm hoping not too. Between the apps and games, which most are 5GB+ up to nearly 10GB it would take me a very long time to set everything again, Easily a full day for some games. (Very bad old, first gen copper line DSL)
Is anyone have any type of similar issues. Cause it would suck if I reset it and that's just how it works now. And it wants me to use the "keep open" feature. Which I don't like, I do like to use the clear all.
One of the main reason I got this particular tablet was for the multitasking. This is the first device I didn't try rooting out of the bat because of a warranty and what not and decided to give it a go as is. Now I'm not sure If I'm just spoiled by years for rooted and heavily modified devices. Or this is just a Samsung thing.
@Omizuke: Not sure if this is related to RAM management, but I'm also on September update. When I update apps via Play Store/Galaxy Store, the device will completely freeze for as long as 30 seconds. It just locks up, I can't do anything. Can't pull down the status bar, nav buttons don't work. Then suddenly it returns to normal. I get the same thing when connecting to WiFi or pairing via Bluetooth. ROM is clean flashed with Odin, i also did a factory reset.
This didn't happen at all on the July update.
I'm not seeing any issues with app killing, as you've described it. All opened apps continue running and I can return to them on demand. I play a lot of games, COD Mobile in particular, and I switch apps a lot between rounds.
I feel you on the not wanting to set up everything again. I save cached copies (APKs/obbs) of my games/apps on my SD card, so I can set everything up without Internet. Just use an app like Total Commander/X-plore to copy the apps.