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Hi i have problem some times caller id show just number when someone call me sometimes(same number) show name from contacts how to fixit
Same thing here...
Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not... Actually it has only worked a couple of times...
At first I thought I was closing the ID Contact Monitor when I used an application close button (Battery Back from Omega One). But then I noticed that it still does not work even without the app closer.
Any clues?
I believe that this is probably down to the 32 process limitation of WM2003 on the XDAII 28 processes open automatically as you open programs the XDAII will close what it thinks isn't needed any more.
Can anyone confirm? :?
Hmmm... It could very well be that... :roll:
If you don't use the "permanent save" feature, then you can delete the 4 flashman files out of the \windows\startup folder.
this gives 4 more process slots. Making the number of running processes at startup more in line with a normal XDA.
wasting 4 process slots on 4 different programs that do the same thing to 4 different databases is rediculous. Having them running even when the feature is turned off is also rediculous.
..Chuck..
Yes, thanks... I deleted the task I don't use and now IACaller is working fine ever since...
Thanks!
I've upgraded to the new ROM, and only the lesser 19 processes now, meant to alleviate this problem.
In addition, it's a newer fix of Caller ID.
And even more, I removed the FOUR flashman/mem processes from startup too.
And even then, I find after just half a day of running apps and stuff, Caller ID no longer shows a photo, and requires a reboot to work properly.
Not happy at all, not in the slightest. Not in the least bit impressed, because i see little else that can be done to fix this, so no likliehood of a solution.
VERY poor to say the least.
Shadamehr,
Are you using an application closer like Pocket Plus or Wisbar?
If not, I suggest you use one. Remember that whithout an app closer you are consuming valuable resources and the X only minimizes them.
Best regards,
Rayan
I was using SideBarX.
What I find however, is that this is the WORSE thing to use, as it closes ALL apps, so if the Caller ID HAD happened to just recently update itself, it would close that too, so in effect, closing the very thing with any potential to fix things.
Alas, I find the only thing that works, is to do a soft reset twice or three times a day.
Not a great loss given how quick re-boot time is, but a bit of a stupid solution nonetheless.
Additionally, I find another slight issue, in that if I get an SMS, when I click the notification envelope on the top bar to open it (if I had left it, not catching it straight away, so the first pop up of it had already gone) then the 'speech bubble' that appears with the message in, is REALLY slow now after the new ROM update, taking a second or two to draw itself properly. I can see the outline of the bubble for a fair while before the bubble 'draws' on screen properly.
Sadly however, it even does this after a soft reset to speed things up, so I am very concerned about this aspect of things.
It worked a lot faster before the update.
The rest of the update has been a good thing for me, but I am a bit angry about the Caller ID problem still being here at least for me, but more worryingly, I am concerned at the apparent speed slow down for some things! Especially as I have read tales of others experiencing this too.
But overall, its nothing earth-shattering I guess.
Shadamehr,
As far as the CallerID problem, at first I was having the same problems but I managed to fix this by removing unwanted items on the startup folder (remember the 32 process limit?) and by using Pocket Plus, since it allows you to exclude CallerID from closing.
I also use ScaryBear Software's Check Notifications to remove duplicate events on my system's databases.
Good luck!
Rayan
Pocket Plus? Cheers mate - I'll go search now.
Here's hoping it works.
Also, the new ROM is only meant to have 19 things running. I have further removed the four flashman files from startup.
Do you know of anything else I can remove?
Cheers mate.
Can't find Pocket Plus mate (at least not as a free app).
Any link for me please?
I don't remember what things where in the Startup folder but this is the stuff I have now:
CheckAutoRun.lnk <--- No idea what this is for
ChgDfLnk.lnk <--- No idea what this is for
ClearTemp.lnk <--- I installed this
IA_Caller_ID.lnk
MMReg.lnk <--- No idea what this is for
Pocket Plus.lnk
Poutlook.lnk
Stk.lnk
VoiceCommand.lnk <--- Microsoft's Voice Command
Cheers and good luck!
Rayan
You can find it here http://www.handango.com/SearchRedirect.jsp?siteId=1&jid=2BD54724B6D87D58BA6CB6BA8BB79B81
Cheers!
Hi all,
I've the problem with with my XDA II and IA Caller ID. It works for one or two hours and then impossible to see a picture. The only thing to do is a soft reset.
I've checked the processes and I'm now with 16 processes (using PHM Task Manager to see the processes) and when the problem occurs, the IA_Caller_ID process is still active.
For information, I use WisBar advance to really close my programs and I kill ActiveSync every time I leave the XDA from the cradle.
Thanks for your help...
hello,
Do you put pictures in your SD Card ?
If yes, try with pictures in your phone memory.
I have the same problem with ringtone in my old Qtek (first generation SPV by Orange)
Sometimes, the sdcard is poweroff to preserve battery life...
test and come back ;-)
THe picture is in "/my documents" none on the SD card
Now it's new, sometimes the XDAII doesn't ring at all. The screen lights on but no ring and no information. :shock:
I have an issue with a custom application on an HTC Touch device where the application is really slow occasionally. About 10% of the time the application will run at 30-40% of normal speed. After launch, if the application is slow, then it will always be slow. If the application is fast then it will always be fast. Exiting the application (not minimizing) and trying again usually resolves the issue. Has anyone seen this type of behavior before?
would be very very clever to tell us what application this is?
- what other apps are running ?
- how much free RAM do you have when starting this mysterious app ?
and much more questions Could be a memory Problem because the touch doesn`t have too much. ActiveSync also slows down the device.
The application is a custom app I wrote for work. The application doesn't exhibit and issues with memory leaks and such, and there is no significant difference in available memory when it is running slow or fast. I believe the application foot print is about 18MB, but I don't remember exactly. In any case there is plenty of memory free.
I have seen this behavior after a soft / or even a hard reset. So the initial conditions of the device are rather pristine. I noticed simple applications such as calibration.exe have some of the same tendencies. My intuition is this is not an application problem, but rather a more general windows mobile issue. However this isn't that easy to prove.
So please let me know if you have had any of the same experiences or can suggest any tests which may help me narrow down this issue.
I was messing trying to figure out which is the correct method to close apps, back and home do the same thing, holding HOME (i just found out) brings up a list of recently used apps, but i can't figure a way to properly close them. I have Advanced Task Manager to close them now and again but I don't want to keep it running all the time.
Is there any proper way if the app doesn't provide an exit function?
Because an app is on that list does not mean it is not closed. That list is just the history of the last 6 apps you used.
A lot of people say that you do not need to worry about whether or not an app is fully closed because the software manages that to ensure that it has enough free memory. I don't know enough to know whether that is correct or not.
peterc10 said:
Because an app is on that list does not mean it is not closed. That list is just the history of the last 6 apps you used.
A lot of people say that you do not need to worry about whether or not an app is fully closed because the software manages that to ensure that it has enough free memory. I don't know enough to know whether that is correct or not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, sorry, the apps I'm referring to are shown by the Advanced Task Manager, I merely found the Recent list when trying to find a way to exit apps.
I sometimes have 15-20 apps in there filling up my RAM even on startup things like Shop Savy will be there twice and Photoshop.com.
They, amongst others don't seem to provide options to prevent them starting at boot so I simply uninstalled them, but all the running apps do severely affect the performance when it's filling up.
I have been experiencing the same problem.
Advanced Task Manager lists a whole load of apps that start on bootup and each one of those doesn't have an option to disable this.
After a while (about 3 hrs or so) of using my Hero I am down to about 40mb of RAM which if I don't use Advanced Task Manager to kill unused apps my Hero begins to lag big time.
On the Android it is better to leave them resident in memory than stop them, unless they are 'background' processes and there is something wrong with them (a bug) making them slow down your phone.
Don't judge your Android on amount of free memory left; if anything, the the less memory left over the better as it means the memory is being used effectively to make it nice and speedy.
Processes aren't allowed to consume CPU cycles/consume battery/slow your phone down when they are not focused; the exception is background processes which need to keep going, like the music player etc. What's more, if an app is not focused then its state is preserved allowing your phone to free up its memory when needed; its memory effectively becomes 'cache' allowing it to restart quicker if it happens to have stayed in memory.
So don't worry about wiping an app from memory; for many apps there is simply no distinction between closing it and switching away from it; as soon as you switch away from it it's as good as closed; it's not slowing your phone down or taking up any memory that couldn't be freed instantly if needed, but if it is lucky enough to stay in memory it will re-open quicker.
On my experience, if you press the back button to exit an app, then the app is closed properly, running the code in the app that will release the memory and objects. This is the best way.
The only app it will not work on is the browser as the back button will send you back through the history.
Try it...
MercuryStar said:
On the Android it is better to leave them resident in memory than stop them, unless they are 'background' processes and there is something wrong with them (a bug) making them slow down your phone.
Don't judge your Android on amount of free memory left; if anything, the the less memory left over the better as it means the memory is being used effectively to make it nice and speedy.
Processes aren't allowed to consume CPU cycles/consume battery/slow your phone down when they are not focused; the exception is background processes which need to keep going, like the music player etc. What's more, if an app is not focused then its state is preserved allowing your phone to free up its memory when needed; its memory effectively becomes 'cache' allowing it to restart quicker if it happens to have stayed in memory.
So don't worry about wiping an app from memory; for many apps there is simply no distinction between closing it and switching away from it; as soon as you switch away from it it's as good as closed; it's not slowing your phone down or taking up any memory that couldn't be freed instantly if needed, but if it is lucky enough to stay in memory it will re-open quicker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand how and why this should be true, but for me it doesn't seem to be, if my memory falls to less than 40 the phone becomes increadibly unresponsive, I get crashes and have to wait forever for it to do things like open the phone. Immediately after killing all with advanced task manager it goes back to normal.
barryallott said:
On my experience, if you press the back button to exit an app, then the app is closed properly, running the code in the app that will release the memory and objects. This is the best way.
The only app it will not work on is the browser as the back button will send you back through the history.
Try it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried both methods, more often than not though, back doesn't seem to do much either, I have experimented with free RAM and using back or Home, it seems the Home certainly isn't the correct way to do it, but back doesn't work very often either, maybe people aren't coding their apps properly to respond to the back button as an exit method?
this is the never ending discussion whether task manager make sense for android or not.
i'm one of those who say: definetly YES! USE TASKMANGER.
I understand that Android works in a way that taskmanager shouldnt be needed because it handles the tasks on its own, but sadly the concept just doesn't seem to work.
When my ram fills up i can cleary see that the device is getting slower, even just opening apps takes more than 5 seconds. After closing some apps the hero is fast again.
now i don't care whether ANDROID is the reason or some POORLY programmed background apps, because the outcome for me as a user is the same. I#m using advanced task manager and im very happy with it, whenever Android starts to slow down i close the open and unneeded apps, and everything is fast again...don't know how people can claim that Android does handle task management perfectly on its own.
Shahpur.Azizpour said:
this is the never ending discussion whether task manager make sense for android or not.
i'm one of those who say: definetly YES! USE TASKMANGER.
I understand that Android works in a way that taskmanager shouldnt be needed because it handles the tasks on its own, but sadly the concept just doesn't seem to work.
When my ram fills up i can cleary see that the device is getting slower, even just opening apps takes more than 5 seconds. After closing some apps the hero is fast again.
now i don't care whether ANDROID is the reason or some POORLY programmed background apps, because the outcome for me as a user is the same. I#m using advanced task manager and im very happy with it, whenever Android starts to slow down i close the open and unneeded apps, and everything is fast again...don't know how people can claim that Android does handle task management perfectly on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point is, Task manager of any kind is another 3rd party app taking up more memory, and quite frankly on such a high end phone i shouldn't have to worry about this problem. I noticed another thread about changing the values at which the internal task manager kills apps etc, if it becomes more of a problem i'll look into this method of fixing it.
alias_neo said:
The point is, Task manager of any kind is another 3rd party app taking up more memory, and quite frankly on such a high end phone i shouldn't have to worry about this problem. I noticed another thread about changing the values at which the internal task manager kills apps etc, if it becomes more of a problem i'll look into this method of fixing it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, in theory we shouldn't worry about tasks in the background, but in reality as you said, the device WILL slow down. so there is no other way around than closing apps manually and defining apps to be kept alive by the 3rd party task manager.
changing values for the internal task manager sounds like something which would only work on a rooted device, but im not sure...
Since no one replied to this message in the official CM 5.0 thread. I have decided to create a new thread and hope to find a solution to this problem.
My alarm clock would stop working randomly ever since I flashed to CM 5.0, from Beta 4 to 5..2, the problem persists. If i set an alarm that is about one hour from now, it would go off. But the real alarm I need which is supposed to go off at 8 am in the morning never goes off. Anyone had similar problems? I read Cyanogen's warning about the alarm clock problem. But seems he's just trying to remind you to reset your alarm after flashing to CM. Unluckily, I've reset my alarm numerous times and it never goes off in the morning.
Anyone can give me a hand? Thanks in advance! Overall, CM is a great ROM which gives me the option to use open vpn, which is vital for me since I'm living in China behind the GFW.
Are you by chance using any taskillers?
I do use a task-killer program. But I always keep the clock app on while i'm sleeping to try to make sure the alarm goes off on time. But it never does in the morning.
Don't use task killers on the N1, there really is no need.
cyanogen said:
Don't use task killers on the N1, there really is no need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wouldn't say that's accurate... The phone does slow down noticeably when you have 20-30+ things open
Sometimes a lot of them are running as well (using TasKiller, a lot of Yellow, including Camera, Gmail etc even when not in use and no emails being downloaded). This probably affects battery life as well.
Paul22000 said:
I wouldn't say that's accurate... The phone does slow down noticeably when you have 20-30+ things open
Sometimes a lot of them are running as well (using TasKiller, a lot of Yellow, including Camera, Gmail etc even when not in use and no emails being downloaded). This probably affects battery life as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have any evidence to back this up? Yes this was a problem on older devices because many things would be fighting over the tiny amount of RAM.
You'll see lots of processes running but that's just the way Android works. Since it doesn't really benefit from simple caching like a normal linux system would, it just keeps everything running and kills unused stuff when memory is low. Most of the things you see running are either paused and using no CPU, or are services that would be periodically launched anyway.
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#lcycles
Keeping these processes alive should actually be saving you battery rather than using it. It's more expensive to launch and restore the state of an application or service after being killed than it is to simply resume one that's been paused.
cyanogen said:
Do you have any evidence to back this up? Yes this was a problem on older devices because many things would be fighting over the tiny amount of RAM.
You'll see lots of processes running but that's just the way Android works. Since it doesn't really benefit from simple caching like a normal linux system would, it just keeps everything running and kills unused stuff when memory is low. Most of the things you see running are either paused and using no CPU, or are services that would be periodically launched anyway.
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#lcycles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. The phone gets slow when TasKiller shows 30 things in it. I click close all, and it's faster. Do you know my personal experiences more than I do?
Paul22000 said:
Yes. The phone gets slow when TasKiller shows 30 things in it. I click close all, and it's faster. Do you know my personal experiences more than I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think there is likely one or two specific misbehaving applications that are giving you trouble, rather than the way the system works as a whole, thats all.
I think what Cyanogen is saying is that android does not handle running processes the way other os's do They have a lifecycle that is non-obvious to someone just looking at a process list. If you insist on killing tasks outside of the activity/service lifecycle they you _will_ get service failures (like the alarm clock) its up to you what you value more.
I have not installed any sort of task manager (outside what's in astro but I don't use it) and never see any noticeable slow down.
Anyway - back on topic.
Yes I have the same issue, never had it before.
Since flashine 5.0.2 my alarm doesn't work in the morning.
The linux kernel keeps a buffer cache of recently used files in RAM. So whenever an application wants to access something on the flash, instead of going to the flash file system, it can just get it from the file buffer cache in RAM, a significant speed increase.
If the RAM is currently being taken up by unused android apps, then that leaves less room for the buffer cache, so in theory, by killing off unused android apps more quickly, that will allow the linux kernel to allocate more space for the buffer cache and thus speeding up the system.
Am I way off here?
Dave
cyanogen said:
Do you have any evidence to back this up? Yes this was a problem on older devices because many things would be fighting over the tiny amount of RAM.
You'll see lots of processes running but that's just the way Android works. Since it doesn't really benefit from simple caching like a normal linux system would, it just keeps everything running and kills unused stuff when memory is low. Most of the things you see running are either paused and using no CPU, or are services that would be periodically launched anyway.
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#lcycles
Keeping these processes alive should actually be saving you battery rather than using it. It's more expensive to launch and restore the state of an application or service after being killed than it is to simply resume one that's been paused.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would have to agree with Cyanogen on this one. When I first got my N1, I looked towards task killers to help alleviate slowdown, but in the end, I think it's just the placebo effect in a way; you did something to try to solve the problem, and so therefore you perceive a difference.
In other words, task killers aren't needed on this beast of a phone. As for battery life (if that's an issue), look into SetCpu.
Thanks for the reply Cyanogen. I think not using task-killer, or at least not killing the clock app got my alarm working this morning. But I use task-killer not for the purpose of saving ram, but for using less data. Some programs such as facebook or a twitter client would try to connect to the internet every once in a while. I'm on a low data limit plan in China. So I don't want those programs to eat up all my data. When I'm on wifi at home, I don't worry about that. Thanks again.
Same problem. Don't use taskkillers, flashed last CM last night and didn't wake up on time this morning - alarm didn't work, thought I checked that clock icon was on place on notification bar
amwayorlando said:
But I use task-killer not for the purpose of saving ram, but for using less data. Some programs such as facebook or a twitter client would try to connect to the internet every once in a while. I'm on a low data limit plan in China. So I don't want those programs to eat up all my data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you thought about using something like APNDroid or Toggle Data, to just switch off the cell data when you don't want to use it?
Or, Modify the behavior of the applications you don't want using data?
I have my facebook and twitter for example set to manual update only (for battery saving purposes) because there's nothing there that is critical important info, and I don't need to be notified.
Nice thread though, I'm pretty sure I try to keep people informed that task-killers aren't needed and cause issues, everywhere where it comes up. I find humor that people will still argue, even with a developer, this fact. I've had 150+ hours uptime with no slowdown (and 30 apps running) on the stock rom (without highmem support).
bofslime said:
Or, Modify the behavior of the applications you don't want using data?
I have my facebook and twitter for example set to manual update only (for battery saving purposes) because there's nothing there that is critical important info, and I don't need to be notified.
Nice thread though, I'm pretty sure I try to keep people informed that task-killers aren't needed and cause issues, everywhere where it comes up. I find humor that people will still argue, even with a developer, this fact. I've had 150+ hours uptime with no slowdown (and 30 apps running) on the stock rom (without highmem support).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then please inform us of a thread that can verify what you all are saying. Not in an argumentative tone, my linpack score drastically improves after 16 hours of uptime, and a task-killer.
Rom:CM 5.0.2 -OC Kernel
wesbalmer said:
Then please inform us of a thread that can verify what you all are saying. Not in an argumentative tone, my linpack score drastically improves after 16 hours of uptime, and a task-killer.
Rom:CM 5.0.2 -OC Kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has basically been discussed into the ground. In my eye's, its a fight vs what I like to call "Windows XP mentality", and that there was benefit on phones like the G1. With the copious amounts of memory on the N1 and droid, they cause way more harm, and immeasurable good (if any).
Summary thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=627836
I've linked to quotes from others.
Threads/posts of interest: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5494890#post5494890
And: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5298630#post5298630
Well, this discussion is very interesting, but lets return to our problem with non-working alarm.
Here's an article posted at http://geekfor.me that is by far the best explanation I've ever seen on this issue:
flipz: said:
FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android
I see this come up over and over again. People saying that a task is running in the background and they think it is killing their battery or hogging all of their memory. So their natural reaction is to download a program made to kill tasks. Here’s the thing… you are likely doing more harm than good by killing tasks that aren’t ready to end. I was the same way when I first got my CDMA Hero. There were tons of things running that I didn’t want so I just kept killing them. After a few weeks I realized that if I stopped using a task killer (and totally uninstalled it in fact) my phone actually began to run better! The applications would close themselves and things just seemed to be running better. I get that there may be short term benefits from clearing a task, but you should still take the time to read through this.
Here is some information directly from Android’s developer page. I have put the important parts in bold. This is quite a lengthy read but honestly I think it’s important. If you want the full read then you can check out the dev page here. If you just want the quick TL;DNR version then scroll to the bottom.
Google: said:
By default, every application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application's code needs to be executed, and shuts down the process when it's no longer needed and system resources are required by other applications.
A content provider is active only while it's responding to a request from a ContentResolver. And a broadcast receiver is active only while it's responding to a broadcast message. So there's no need to explicitly shut down these components.
Activities, on the other hand, provide the user interface. They're in a long-running conversation with the user and may remain active, even when idle, as long as the conversation continues. Similarly, services may also remain running for a long time. So Android has methods to shut down activities and services in an orderly way:
An activity can be shut down by calling its finish() method. One activity can shut down another activity (one it started with startActivityForResult()) by calling finishActivity().
A service can be stopped by calling its stopSelf() method, or by calling Context.stopService().
Components might also be shut down by the system when they are no longer being used or when Android must reclaim memory for more active components.
If the user leaves a task for a long time, the system clears the task of all activities except the root activity. When the user returns to the task again, it's as the user left it, except that only the initial activity is present. The idea is that, after a time, users will likely have abandoned what they were doing before and are returning to the task to begin something new.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google: said:
Activity lifecycle
An activity has essentially three states:
It is active or running when it is in the foreground of the screen (at the top of the activity stack for the current task). This is the activity that is the focus for the user's actions.
It is paused if it has lost focus but is still visible to the user. That is, another activity lies on top of it and that activity either is transparent or doesn't cover the full screen, so some of the paused activity can show through. A paused activity is completely alive (it maintains all state and member information and remains attached to the window manager), but can be killed by the system in extreme low memory situations.
It is stopped if it is completely obscured by another activity. It still retains all state and member information. However, it is no longer visible to the user so its window is hidden and it will often be killed by the system when memory is needed elsewhere.
If an activity is paused or stopped, the system can drop it from memory either by asking it to finish (calling its finish() method), or simply killing its process. When it is displayed again to the user, it must be completely restarted and restored to its previous state.
The foreground lifetime of an activity happens between a call to onResume() until a corresponding call to onPause(). During this time, the activity is in front of all other activities on screen and is interacting with the user. An activity can frequently transition between the resumed and paused states - for example, onPause() is called when the device goes to sleep or when a new activity is started, onResume() is called when an activity result or a new intent is delivered. Therefore, the code in these two methods should be fairly lightweight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The following diagram illustrates these loops and the paths an activity may take between states. The colored ovals are major states the activity can be in. The square rectangles represent the callback methods you can implement to perform operations when the activity transitions between states.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
So… the TL;DNR Version:
Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when more memory is needed.
Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when it's done doing what it needs to do.
Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when you haven't returned to it in a long time.
Most services (while possibly running in the background) use very little memory when not actively doing something.
A content provider is only doing something when there is a notification for it to give. Otherwise it uses very little memory.
Killing a process when it isn't ready only causes it to have to reload itself and start from scratch when it's needed again.
Because a task is likely running in the background for a reason, killing it will only cause it to re-spawn as soon as the activity that was using it looks for it again. And it will just have to start over again.
Killing certain processes can have undesirable side effects. Not receiving text messages, alarms not going off, and force closes just to name a few.
The only true way to prevent something from running at all on your phone would be to uninstall the .apk.
Most applications will exit themselves if you get out of it by hitting "back" until it closes rather than hitting the "home" button. But even with hitting home, Android will eventually kill it once it's been in the background for a while.
Questions? Concerns? Feel that I’m wrong? Comment below and let’s discuss!
Addendum:
One thing that I forgot to even address here is that memory works a bit differently in linux than it does in Windows. In general the way memory works is you really only need as much as you plan on using. So if your combined running programs use 100mb of memory, 150mb is more than enough. There is no need to clear what's running in memory before you hit that 150mb cap. Now in Windows it seems that the system performs a bit better when you have less stuff in memory, even if it's not full. No doubt those who have been on computers for a while will remember there used to be programs that could clear your memory in Windows also.
Linux however isn't generally affected by this. While I admit that I don't know the architecture and reason for this& linux will run the same regardless of if you have 20mb free memory or 200mb. And as I outlined above, Android will automatically start to kill applications if you do get low on memory! Stealing a quote from Chris Johnston, Buffers and cache in RAM being cleared is silly. Imagine a professor, who rather than writing all the way across the chalkboard, finishes a sentence and immediately erases and starts writing in the upper left corner AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN OR imagine you like a song. You record it to the beginning of a cassette tape. When you want a new song, do you re-record over the first song or record after it?"
I have also seen people incorrectly assume that the more memory in use, the faster their battery will die. This would actually be more attributed to the amount of processor cycles (CPU %) going on and not the amount of memory being taken up by a certain program. However, that does lead to a good point! When can a task manager be a good thing?? To help you determine what IS slowing down your phone; what may actually be draining your battery faster. That is actually what helped us discover that there appears to be a bug still left over from 1.5 that is causing slow downs on our CDMA Hero's even today. While an item using up memory isn't going to hurt things, an item chewing through your CPU absolutely will. Now I still don't suggest using a task killer to kill a program that is using up your processor (unless of course it is a zombie process that is going crazy, but you should probably just reboot in that case). But it can help you see what's going on with your phone.
I hope this has helped someone. With all of that said& I always encourage experimenting. It is your phone, and you can do with it what you please. If you swear that a task killer makes your phone amazing, then by all means use it! Thanks for reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another great resource:
A video from Google's Android Team:
Androidology - Part 2 of 3 - Application Lifecycle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITfRuRkf2TM
And finally:
Check out the application "Task Manager". You'll notice dozens of processes running that you didn't even know were running. Here's my phone right now:
Look at the CPU usage column (the rightmost column) and notice that almost everything is at 0%. (The exception is TaskManager which is constantly polling since it's the active app. Menu -> Quit stops it.)
This is the best visualization that killing "running" apps will do nothing, since they're not really doing anything anyway. I have all these apps open yet they're all using 0% CPU. And I have "only" 47 MB free.
From monitoring this over the weeks, I've had as many as 60+ processes listed, and as few as 10. I've had as high as 200+ MB free and as low as 30 MB.
And my phone ran just the same.
Get rid of all your task killers for a week (and get WatchDog instead) and see how your phone feels.
Hope this helps clear up any confusion.
.
Paul is always great for good information. Everyone should look over his comment's to learn new things
Got a question though, with certain apps like Music and SIPagent there's not a way to close them. I can only pause music and there's no way to exit SIPagent without using a task killer. Shouldn't I use a task killer on these two applications?
ap3604 said:
Paul is always great for good information. Everyone should look over his comment's to learn new things
Got a question though, with certain apps like Music and SIPagent there's not a way to close them. I can only pause music and there's no way to exit SIPagent without using a task killer. Shouldn't I use a task killer on these two applications?
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Click to collapse
that's a good question; some apps doesn't have that quit button, like the Skyfire browser, so if i were to use the browser and close it, will still be running in the background? shouldn't i have to kill that app somehow?
anyway, will remove task killers now and give it a shot
Great thread as always, Paul, but which "Task Manager" are you talking about?
http://www.appbrain.com/search?q=task+manager
There are quite a few
I don't use a task manager, but I *have* used SeePU++'s task kill feature a couple times.
I think I found it:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.houmiak.taskmanager
And if you guys don't believe Paul:
jblazea50 said:
that's a good question; some apps doesn't have that quit button, like the Skyfire browser, so if i were to use the browser and close it, will still be running in the background? shouldn't i have to kill that app somehow?
anyway, will remove task killers now and give it a shot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They all work the same way as described in the post. You don't have to quite Skyfire, the Music app, SIPagent, or anything at all. Read through the post again, the Android OS will stop those when it needs memory.
For example, if Music is playing, it asks the Android system to consider it foreground, so it will never get forced to quit. But when music is paused it just runs as a normal app. When Android needs the memory, it force quits it immediately.
Same with Skyfire, it will remain loaded in the background if no other process needs the memory. This way if you leave and go back to it quickly it will be there, and won't have to reload. When something else needs the memory Android closes Skyfire. If you force it to close all the time, you only force it to load more often when you need it again, wasting time and battery life.
So how do I get more ram?
muncheese said:
So how do I get more ram?
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Click to collapse
You don't. Applications will be closed automatically by the OS when you need more RAM.
Clarkster said:
They all work the same way as described in the post. You don't have to quite Skyfire, the Music app, SIPagent, or anything at all. Read through the post again, the Android OS will stop those when it needs memory.
For example, if Music is playing, it asks the Android system to consider it foreground, so it will never get forced to quit. But when music is paused it just runs as a normal app. When Android needs the memory, it force quits it immediately.
Same with Skyfire, it will remain loaded in the background if no other process needs the memory. This way if you leave and go back to it quickly it will be there, and won't have to reload. When something else needs the memory Android closes Skyfire. If you force it to close all the time, you only force it to load more often when you need it again, wasting time and battery life.
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Click to collapse
thanks for the explanation; i already removed the task killers from my phone and will see how it goes
muncheese said:
So how do I get more ram?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're in luck my friend!
Here you go:
http://www.downloadmoreram.com/index.html
Your phone will FLY!
Paul22000 said:
You're in luck my friend!
Here you go:
http://www.downloadmoreram.com/index.html
Your phone will FLY!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, I left a little on the server for you guys.
Re: FAQ: Why You Shouldnt Be Using a Task Killer with Android (geekfor.me)
I have a problem with the way android does this multitasking because when I send opera or skyfire to the background, I want it to stay there no matter what. Most of the time It's still there when I switch back to it in a few moments. But sometimes the OS has decided to close it, even though I only switched away a few moments ago to read a quick email, and my webpage is completely gone. This is a major problem for me. It's especially maddening when you then see that the OS closed opera or sky fire to pre load a bunch of apps that I haven't used in a month. Like sms backup. That's an app that I need once a month to back up my texts. So I DON'T want to uninstall it.
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I agree with your post but there are a few reasons to have an app that allows you to control your apps and yes, kill them from time to time. The main one is some apps need to run in the background to work properly and it can be a quicker way to kill them when you are done with them. One I use like this is trapster. Trapster uses a lot of battery. In order to kill it I have to switch to it and drill a menu. I dont kill it because of memory concerns, I kill it because of battery usage which is not a fault, it needs to run in the background to work properly. Rather than do that though I just click one icon and kill all with my tool of choice, systempanel. I'll get back to that.
Systempanel gives you a lot of information about what your apps are doing both in real time and can log. CPU cycles used, data, etc. With it you can easily locate that app that is killing your battery or just get real data about your processes and their consumption. Just a few days ago my battery took a 10% dump in an hour and I had not even been using the phone. Only took a minute with systempanel to figure out an app I had called quick settings had been smoking crack and gone bat**** on me. One uninstall/reinstall later, all good. Try that with atk. I set up so that all my frequently used apps are excluded from a kill all as well as lower level processes. This means in the odd case like after running trapster when I kill all I'm only killing apps that would have likely been completely shut down and need to fully restart anyways and I probably wasnt going to use them regardless because they are not frequently used apps. In other words I lose somewhere between very little and nothing but save the hassle of drilling menus to kill an app I want to stop. Im pretty high on this app, you can read more here http://androidforums.com/android-ap...task-killer-people-who-hate-task-killers.html
Re: FAQ: Why You Shouldnt Be Using a Task Killer with Android (geekfor.me)
I understand all that, but I DON'T run anything but stock apps plus opera. So I DON'T have any unique situations of certain apps needing to be running for things to work properly. If you saw my system panel list you would see how downright simple my phone setup is, yet something like opera can't even stay open because the OS killed it. It's a horrible multitasking mechanism.
I was responding to a different post Roger, sorry for the confusion. Yours and several others came in before I was done typing.
I have had that one a couple times myself. I have been keeping my eye out for a good startup manager. Something that will allow me to stop amazon and others alltogether as well as manage when apps can startup. Something along the lines of only when the phone has been asleep for a set amount of time and so on. Might be a guy could make it so that the problem is reduced that way although it doesnt attack the problem directly.
Re: FAQ: Why You Shouldnt Be Using a Task Killer with Android (geekfor.me)
Oh sorry I got confused.
Well anyway I don't have it in me to make a long detailed post, but I'm finding that android's multitasking is seriously flawed on a fundamental level. In fact it does the exact opposite of what I'm trying to do in many instances.
One quick example, load up a few webpages in the default browser, maybe an article or 2 and have the pages fully load so they are there to read. Great, now minimize the browser and go to the homescreen and then back to the browser. Your pages are still there, good.
Now I lost my data connection cause I'm commuting on the the train to work in a tunnel. If I open up any other app the OS closes the browser. When I reopen the browser all my loaded pages are still there in memory to read, but the browser immediately tries to refresh the pages, which won't work cause no data connection, and now my cached page disappears. Horrible. I purposely loaded those pages to read offline. The ass kicker is that all the while this happened because the OS decided to pre load a bunch of apps during this time which were not running previously and caused this browser to close. Apps I've not used in weeks, yet the app I WANT suffers.
I have more extreme examples but don't have the energy to post them now. But Google has closed out this item on their suggestion/bug forum.
RogerPodacter said:
Oh sorry I got confused.
Well anyway I don't have it in me to make a long detailed post, but I'm finding that android's multitasking is seriously flawed on a fundamental level. In fact it does the exact opposite of what I'm trying to do in many instances.
One quick example, load up a few webpages in the default browser, maybe an article or 2 and have the pages fully load so they are there to read. Great, now minimize the browser and go to the homescreen and then back to the browser. Your pages are still there, good.
Now I lost my data connection cause I'm commuting on the the train to work in a tunnel. If I open up any other app the OS closes the browser. When I reopen the browser all my loaded pages are still there in memory to read, but the browser immediately tries to refresh the pages, which won't work cause no data connection, and now my cached page disappears. Horrible. I purposely loaded those pages to read offline. The ass kicker is that all the while this happened because the OS decided to pre load a bunch of apps during this time which were not running previously and caused this browser to close. Apps I've not used in weeks, yet the app I WANT suffers.
I have more extreme examples but don't have the energy to post them now. But Google has closed out this item on their suggestion/bug forum.
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Click to collapse
You could easily download taskpanel, and add apps you do not need to the "auto kill list". I didn't know stock (which you said you were on a while ago) was so horrible when it came to memory, your problems don't even exist on my phone. I'm curious, if you installed Cyanogen would your problems away. If my browser closed on me after having too many apps open, I would be irritated as well.
I can have about 50-60 applications idle, or whatever, and the browser would never close. I don't use Opera, or Skyfire, though.
Paul22000 said:
Here's an article posted at http://geekfor.me that is by far the best explanation I've ever seen...
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Click to collapse
Nice find, I got this article since a couple of weeks in my signature, in another forum and killed my taskkiller since then
I use a Task Manager that separates system tasks from app tasks. Anything I use on a regular basis, or even at all, including widgets I use and such, I add to the ignore list. I use it to kill background apps that try to run when they don't need to run. Why don't they need to run? Because I don't need stocks and twitter apps running because I don't use them and it won't let me uninstall them. Next best thing to do is to put them on an auto kill list, though it isn't quite aggressive enough. I really don't want to root just to uninstall the massive amount of bloat that comes from Telstra.
Paul22000 said:
You're in luck my friend!
Here you go:
http://www.downloadmoreram.com/index.html
Your phone will FLY!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
O.M.G.!!!!! This totally worked for me. This link should be stickied. Easy to use and simple.
muncheese said:
Awesome, I left a little on the server for you guys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There can never be too much.
Now, a question. How about a program that polls for a signal, like google maps? Will it not look for things like my location? Please educate me, I want to believe.
wow great info and its really starting to help out after a few days. Think i got a pretty good question though. I understand the killing of apps and all of that now but what do yall think of a startup manager and picking and choosing before or while the system is booting (ive been using startup manager i found in the market). Just wanted to see what everyone thought. thanks, veritas