Running out of memory overnight - Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General

Almost 6 MB of memory is being consumed overnight by the services.exe process while the PPC is docked. I start with about 9.5 MB of program memory and the next day I'm down to less than 3.5 MB. Other than Active Sync, nothing else is running.
I have the following processes active:
connmgr.exe
cprog.exe
device.exe
filesys.exe
gwes.exe
NK.EXE
PhotoContacts.exe
Pocket e-Sword.exe
rapiclnt
repllog.exe
sddaemon.exe
services.exe
shell32.exe
sktools.exe
srvtrust.exe
tmail.exe
VoiceCmd.exe

if you are using a cooked rom it could be because of a flaw in ur system
what rom u using

Kill the MS Voice Command. Turn it off from the start up and that alone will save you 5-7megs of ram. Make sure you disable the voice command at the starting item, and reboot. Weather services also seem drain out the memory on a long run.

ROM is latest stock version.
I'm not concerned with apps that are memory hogs, and I use Pocket Plus to fully close tasks.
I'm seeing growth of 6 MB overnight in the process services.exe. (See attached file for detailed list of processes and memory).
I'm starting to disable apps one at a time. I'm suspicious of ActiveSync so I'm starting with it first.

Photo Contacts ain't helping either. Unless they fixed it, I gave that one up last year because of a serious memory leak.
And if you're using MSVC you can definitely get rid of sddaemon.exe, that is for the Cyberon Voice Speed Dial & is what keeps putting the shorcut there in programs after you delete it.

Although the memory usage of shell32.exe is stable, it seems very large (over 10 MB). Is that normal?

basic questions/clarifications
if i may be allowed to ask a couple of questions/clarifications:
1. does it follow/mean that the larger the memory consumption the more it/app drains the battery?
2. does it follow/mean that the higher the cpu usage the more it/app drains the battery
3. what app is that shows the heap? i'm only using task manager 2.9 by dotfred, it shows the memory but no heap.
4. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but anyhow this also came, from a desperate search, for an application that determines, w/c program drains the battery more. Is it possible to log the CPU usage? configurable to log only at every 5,10, 20, 30 sec. I know this would also drain the battery more but if the log, logs the 3 tops most drainers then we could start from there. I hope I'm making myself clear. Thanks and more power…
i hope i'm not off topic..

bump
up up up ...

jmcbride is talking about the amount of allocated memory increasing overnight, rather than the battery consumption. The heap is the list of currently-unused memory locations. When a program needs additional memory, it asks the system for a block of memory of a particular size, and this memory is allocated from the heap. When the program is through using this memory, it should then release the memory back to the heap. The operating system is supposed to combine adjacent free memory blocks, if possible, so that as much memory as possible is available as a contiguous block. This procedure is known as garbage collection. If a program loses track of what memory it is no longer using, without releasing it back to the operating system, the amount of free memory gradually gets less and less. This is known as a memory leak. One application that I have noticed is prone to memory leaks is Mobipocket Reader. If I leave it running for hours, I eventually have to reboot my phone in order to get back the free memory and be able to run commands.

Related

About Memory Leaking

Recently I found something interesting and would like to share here see any Hi-Tech people can make a software to fix the memory leaking in WM OS.
When I first start my machine, my Ram is about 25.5mb and then will drop down to around 24 something mb. I used different software to try to recover as much as RAM including Oxios and eLiAs AutoHibernate.
Recently I start to use Vito GoodWin I found that every time when I use the dialer pad no matter I make or not make a phone call, my Ram will drop down a bit. When I open the GoodWin, I can see the "Phone" is still running. After I close the "Phone" in GoodWin and close GoodWin and back to Today destop. I found that my Ram will go up to 26.6mb. How come? Is it any chance to find out why and may someone can make a software Like Oxios but can take more Ram back.
Hope someone can do it for US. Cheers
memory leakage
hey dude this is not memory leakage actually whenever u run anything on the pocketpc or a cell phone or a computer it uses the resources of the device that is it uses the RAM memory(memory used for running the programs on a computer,pocketpc).
And as it is all the programs,codes,scripts are actually lines and machine codes which get compiled and executed and hence they use the memory of the device to run and hence the RAM memory is used.
For example if u run multiple programs at a time then it drains your RAM memory and hence the result is slow processing of your device hence there is no such way that you can avoid the RAM usage so even when u start your dialer it consumes the RAM do not worry about the RAM usage its normal.
And about the programs you mentioned they are just to shift the memory usage and yet when you start your dialer the specified and required amount of RAM will be used.
To make it more clear for u just go to the task manager of your computer (by pressing alt+ctrl+del all together) and then click on the performance tab
now minimize the task manager and just open a folder or any program and check your task manager the RAM usage might have definitely increased..
Its the same funda with your pocketpc and mobile phones..
its called...ram...basic computing...just like any computer..its shortterm memory used to run programs...the more u open the less u have...maybe u should search up basic computing terms like ram for a further explanation
Memory leaking is real and especially noticeable on windows mobile.
What happens is that memory is allocated for use by programs but then not released when the application is finished doing its job. A combination of complexity and lazy programming is often the cause.
The end result is a gradual drop in available memory, regardless of whether you have any applications still open. The only way to make that memory available is a soft-reset.
Suggest you look carefully at which applications leak the most and avoid them. It can be one or two culprits that you can live without.
My phone (Verizon SMT5800, running Windows Mobile 6 Standard) is bad about memory leaks. I have to reboot it at least once a day to recover memory, sometimes several times in one day. On one occasion, it got down to about 2 MB free and wouldn't even run the reset command. I had to reset it by taking the battery out.
See here and tweak if necessary !! http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms911907.aspx
"soft reset a day keeps the memory hog away"
ayyu3m said:
"soft reset a day keeps the memory hog away"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
^ Thats the only thing that works for me
autohibernate works really well
SKTools FreeUP RAM
SKTools FreeUP Ram works well. Use it a couple times a day. Eventually have to soft reset though, maybe every couple of days. Have to buy it of course, not free. But it prolongs the duration between soft resets.
The newest SKTools has an additional service for automatic FreeUP Ram, after every app-closing. Just try it
Is there a way to find out which application is causing the memory leak?
I don't think, that there is a real memory leak.
For example Windows Mobile has a file cache which is not filled yet after a fresh softreset. While you use your device this gets filled until the required amount of memory is being used for it.
If more and more memory is consumed each time the dialpad is used, as described, then there is a memory leak. Nothing else can explain that. You should check with your rom chief.
Thanks, works great!
LordDeath said:
The newest SKTools has an additional service for automatic FreeUP Ram, after every app-closing. Just try it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just upgraded my version of SKTools to get the latest FreeUP RAM Service feature. Very nice. Automatically frees unused RAM.
Thanks for the hint.
chigz said:
hey dude this is not memory leakage actually whenever u run anything on the pocketpc or a cell phone or a computer it uses the resources of the device that is it uses the RAM memory(memory used for running the programs on a computer,pocketpc).
And as it is all the programs,codes,scripts are actually lines and machine codes which get compiled and executed and hence they use the memory of the device to run and hence the RAM memory is used.
For example if u run multiple programs at a time then it drains your RAM memory and hence the result is slow processing of your device hence there is no such way that you can avoid the RAM usage so even when u start your dialer it consumes the RAM do not worry about the RAM usage its normal.
And about the programs you mentioned they are just to shift the memory usage and yet when you start your dialer the specified and required amount of RAM will be used.
To make it more clear for u just go to the task manager of your computer (by pressing alt+ctrl+del all together) and then click on the performance tab
now minimize the task manager and just open a folder or any program and check your task manager the RAM usage might have definitely increased..
Its the same funda with your pocketpc and mobile phones..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the detail reply. Actually what I want to say is after I turn the phone on the ram is start dropping. I just take a sample like after you use the phone the ram would drop about a mb. Of course we know that it is not leaking. My point is after I closed the software and use some software to recover the RAM like Oxios. You can get some RAM back, but my case is when I after make a phone call and turn the dialer pad off. I wouldn't see any software running at task manager also if I use Oxios I just claim about half to one MB RAM back. When I turn GoodWin on in this point I can see the "Phone" still running at GoodWin. I stop the "Phone" at GoodWin and than turn GoodWin off, I found that I could recover 2 - 3mb RAM. That's mean for me is when GoodWin turn this software "Phone" off and could claim more RAM back than Oxios. So could we use the way GoodWin do to make a software claim more RAM back? If you don't get what I say, just try to download GoodWin from the net and try to play around than you can see what happen. Sometime it even make me have more RAM than just after softreset.
ayyu3m said:
"soft reset a day keeps the memory hog away"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you in NZ? Me too, which city you are? I am in Christchurch.

why memory usage doesn't go down ?

When I use some apps on it, I understand the unit using more memory. But when I close the apps and use the task bar to close them, I still don't see a moderate reduction of memory usage.
Is there a way to free some memory when most apps are closed?
thanks,
I believe thats where programs like Memmaid come in handy, I often use it to quickly release stored memory which increases my RAM anywhere from as little as 1mb to 5mb.

{Help} Pinpointing a memory leak

Hi all,
i have read all i can find on the forum on this topic and i wanted to ask is a specific procedure existed for determining a memory leak (if i have one!) i find the gwes.exe file starts at 12mb at boot and generally increases untill a soft reset. it can reach 18mb. whilst i am not sure if this effects performance it causes my memory usage to rise constantly for no reason i can determine!
my setup - rom miri wm6.5 v26.3 - premium WITHOUT manilla
interface - spb mobile shell
dialer - phone ex
not much else
any ideas hints kindly recieved!
regards
Mat
lemat1 said:
i have read all i can find on the forum on this topic and i wanted to ask is a specific procedure existed for determining a memory leak (if i have one!) i find the gwes.exe file starts at 12mb at boot and generally increases untill a soft reset. it can reach 18mb. whilst i am not sure if this effects performance it causes my memory usage to rise constantly for no reason i can determine!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GWES memory consumption growth is as natural as gravity and it happens to improve performance. This happens because it is smart enough to keep resources in fast RAM so that next time they will not be loaded from (comparatively slow) flash memory. Basically this is the point in having RAM and the reason why you paid for it - it has to be loaded with stuff to make things faster. This sport of freeing RAM is just ridiculous in most cases (although not always, of course). You pay for it and then don't use.
Secondly, what you describe is not a memory leak. A memory leak is a situation of uncontrolled memory usage growth (if your GWES gradually ate all available memory to a point where device would crash that would be a memory leak). In general, there's nothing wrong with applications consuming more and more RAM as they work as long as they can free this RAM on demand. See for yourself: on your PC, load a memory-hungry application such as a web browser, note how much RAM it uses initially. Then use it for a while, RAM consumption will grow. Then minimize it and see how RAM usage drops dramatically. Even if an application uses half of all RAM it doesn't mean that this RAM isn't available for other programs when needed. When it's not needed, why not use it?

X10 Memory Leak?

I have noticed behaviour pointing to a memory leak on the X10 - After turning the phone on, I get less and less free memory after running ATK - over 110 MB right after turning the phone on to ~70 MB after 24+ hours.
The phone is heavily modified/customized, so it may not be an SE sw bug (ADW, Smart Keyboard, handcent, k9, etc...)
What's the best process tool you can recommend to look into this?
Let the phone handle the memory. dont worry.
+1 on that. Android its linux based and us meant to work like that. Empty memory is wasted memory.
-------------------------------------
Sent from my X10i
Android may be Linux based, but if *after killing all idle processes* memory is systematically dwindling, that means/may mean that one or more of these processes is allocating memory which it is then NOT being released - either by the process (more probable) or the system itself (less probable).
In other words, for the same set of running processes/applications , the memory usage should *not* systematically go up over time.
Linux itself has no automatic GC. Android does (Dalvik VM), but it takes some care from developers for that to work properly - no "loose" pointers to unused but still-referenced data, etc....
acmbc said:
Android may be Linux based, but if *after killing all idle processes* memory is systematically dwindling, that means/may mean that one or more of these processes is allocating memory which it is then NOT being released - either by the process (more probable) or the system itself (less probable).
In other words, for the same set of running processes/applications , the memory usage should *not* systematically go up over time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I disagree, as processes are used/exercised the kernel will allocate the memory they need, after switching on the phone the processes are idle and occupy a small amount of memory. As they are used the process size will grow in main memory as they store or cache common data used by the process. That is why applications such as facebook may be slower at start off as the data needs to be supplied, once this data is cached it will run much faster as the data is already in main memory.
Linux/Android works on the principle that it's a waste not to use as much memory as possible.
Not to get into a GC flame war here: The principle you mention is right, its just that after one KILLS these processes (facebook for example) ALL OF the memory allocated by facebook should be relinquished to the system (ergo, appear as free).
I.e. if I start up my phone, and just have processes A B and C running and have lets say 120 MB free, and after using the phone for a while kill everything and *restart* ONLY processes A B and C, then I should have 120 MB free. At least tendentially (may have a different set of resident libs at the 1st and 2nd points in time, some other minor stuff may be different, etc..). However, I find that doing this over and over results in less and less free memory being available as time passes.
I am not saying I am *right* but a good process inspection tool would help to ascertain what is going on.
acmbc said:
Not to get into a GC flame war here: The principle you mention is right, its just that after one KILLS these processes (facebook for example) ALL OF the memory allocated by facebook should be relinquished to the system (ergo, appear as free).
I.e. if I start up my phone, and just have processes A B and C running and have lets say 120 MB free, and after using the phone for a while kill everything and *restart* ONLY processes A B and C, then I should have 120 MB free. At least tendentially (may have a different set of resident libs at the 1st and 2nd points in time, some other minor stuff may be different, etc..). However, I find that doing this over and over results in less and less free memory being available as time passes.
I am not saying I am *right* but a good process inspection tool would help to ascertain what is going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong.. it should NOT be returned to the system.. but it should be marked as "disposable" IF another process wants to use it. That is the way linux usually do.. That is why the "Free"-value is misleading. As the "Free"-value is not the sum of "Free" and "Cached" values. when you "unload" a lib it is not completely removed from memory, it is just marked as "cached" instead. Saving tremendous ( ) amount of battery and time when, if, the user wants to use it again before overwritten by another memory-hungry application..
Regards // OwL
does all this mean we don't really need advanced task killer?
or does the advanced task killer kill the cpu process? ( as a result longer battery life)
robbyf66 said:
does all this mean we don't really need advanced task killer?
or does the advanced task killer kill the cpu process? ( as a result longer battery life)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
advanced task killer kills the application itself, so that nothing more is executed by that application thread(s). wether dependent libraries are kept loaded or not does not affect battery time when not used. Advanced task killer does not actually unload any libraries it only kills the process.
I personally hardly never use advanced task killer, as it is not needed as long as you make sure to run applications that does not keep the phone from going into sleepmode. Those programs are just simply bad coded.. I instead have a CPU-meter application in the task-bar and if I see that the CPU-time is extensivly used after the application has been put to background, then I might use a taskkiller to stop the bad application. But that scenario is rare... I usually get 50h+ of battery time per charge, whatever I do with it.
Regards // OwL

Available Memory, how much do you typically have?

Good day!
I've tried a few different apps now, Memory Usage, Advanced Task Killer, and I seem to hover between 110m to 25m. I kill some apps and it jumps back up to 110 and then slowly works its way back down to the mid 20's. Is this normal?
Tips? What is your available memory like?
To sum it up: Free memory is useless memory. You should have as little memory free as possible.
Explanation. Android handles memory management really well. When an app is opened and needs more memory it will shut down unused processes and free up memory on an as needed basis. For apps this can be everything from pausing individual functions all the way to saving an apps state to disk and restoring it the next time it's opened.
Task killers are mostly solutions looking for a problem, I've been running without one for months and my amount of free memory fluctuates as expected when surfing the web and things like that but so far there haven't been any times where I've had to free up memory. So don't stare yourself blind on memory meters and try freeing up memory. Android handles that well enough on its own.
+1..
The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.
That's good info! I kinda knew I was making something out of nothing with the numbers. The phone has been fine in terms of performance.
my 2 cents....i typically have between 30-60mb free. phone does not lag or anything. i used task-killer for a few days when i got phone, then actually thought about what it was doing and the way the system (linux based) is designed. i ditched it and have not looked back!
ps. my phone is rooted R2BA024 firmware, fwiw.
I usually have like 80 mb free ram just for the case and i use task manager to kill apps that are using data connection when i dont need them
I got totally obsessed with task killing but having read a lot of the lads reports on here I am on my third day of not touching it and I have to say my phone is doing fine all by itself!
goth50 said:
I usually have like 80 mb free ram just for the case and i use task manager to kill apps that are using data connection when i dont need them
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Click to collapse
I think you'd be better off setting up data synchronisation properly. I'm assuming you're talking about background syncing of course. So that you don't accidentally kill an app in the middle of a sync which might cause corruptions. I've had that happen when synching my gmail to a linux machine and the network went down, the cleanup required was insane and I lost a whole months worth of mails from the google servers.
ddewbofh said:
To sum it up: Free memory is useless memory. You should have as little memory free as possible.
Explanation. Android handles memory management really well. When an app is opened and needs more memory it will shut down unused processes and free up memory on an as needed basis. For apps this can be everything from pausing individual functions all the way to saving an apps state to disk and restoring it the next time it's opened.
Task killers are mostly solutions looking for a problem, I've been running without one for months and my amount of free memory fluctuates as expected when surfing the web and things like that but so far there haven't been any times where I've had to free up memory. So don't stare yourself blind on memory meters and try freeing up memory. Android handles that well enough on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh...handles memory very well, but how about the battery life!? The more apps you have- the less power you've left.
mymagicmyhero said:
Heh...handles memory very well, but how about the battery life!? The more apps you have- the less power you've left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's debatable, most background apps drain miniscule amounts of power. The exception naturally being things that makes use of the hardware while backgrounded by playing music, syncing, calculating pi or things like that. Most apps though, just hang out in memory not really doing anything. A lot of the time, if not most, it's more efficient staying there as opposed to shutting it down and starting it up again later.
+1 yes, just hanging out idle in memory wont cost you any battery, the memory will be on an base current either way, what does cost you battery is the read and write actions to memory so if you frantically clean out that memory your phone will have to write alot more to it working with your different apps resulting in a slower (less prepared) device sucking more battery then neccessary. Leave the memory handling to your device ;-)
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

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