Database Users

Alarm woes with CM 5.0

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.

Any suggestions for a good task manager?

Hello, all. I am currently running the free version of Advanced Task Killer, which seems to work ok, but there has to be something better. What I've noticed is, that after a reboot, the app will tell me that I have about 240 MB of available memory when all apps are closed with the exception of the task killer itself.
However, by the end of the day, after I've opened and closed a few apps, sent some messages and emails, made some calls, etc, the task manager will show significantly less available memory available. It could drop to as low as 135 MB with all apps closed with the exception of the task killer.
This leads to me to believe one of two things:
a) The Task Killer is full of it and it does not have an accurate read of how much memory is actually available.
b) The Task Killer is only able to "kill" certain tasks while others remain running in the background and it does not show that the app(s) are actually running.
Honestly, I think it is option B, because I do notice that when the app tells me that I have less than normal available memory, the phone does tend to function slower and lag a bit. Nothing that cannot be fixed by a powering it off and on, but I am hoping that someone knows of a good app (even if it is a paid app) that will actually bring up ALL tasks running and kill them. I've also noticed that even with this task killer, Google Talk (which I have never used) always remains open in my phone and I have to manually go into into the settings and turn that off.
Any suggestions?

My suggestion is to not use one.
I do use Autokiller though which tweaks the thresholds for Android's internal "task killer".
It's best to let Android do it's thing.

Tikerz said:
My suggestion is to not use one.
I do use Autokiller though which tweaks the thresholds for Android's internal "task killer".
It's best to let Android do it's thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? Do you mind elaborating on why you feel that way a bit so I can understand? Because I do notice that when the I am running a bunch of things at once and I use this app to kill the tasks, it does improve the performance of the phone.

I can understand why some people say you don't need one but I do think it is necessary to have it installed for when you do. I'd rather kill apps than pop the case, battery cover and battery to fix a frozen phone.
I have some GPS apps I run occasionally that after exiting them they don't turn off the GPS or lock the GPS on and drain my battery. So for those apps where the developer didn't put a close buton on the menu it helps shut them down. I don't know why Google Market doesn't require apps to have a close option.

get OS MONITOR from the market

PAPutzback said:
I don't know why Google Market doesn't require apps to have a close option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because users shouldn't have to manage their own memory. Apple folks already love laughing at us for that very reason, and even though it pains me to say it they're absolutely correct.
I can certainly buy the argument that task killers are nice for those occasions when something does go haywire and it needs to be forcibly killed, and I can understand using one just because you're curious and want to see what's running and how much memory you have, etc, but beyond that I find that they're unnecessary. My EVO runs very smoothly without me manually intervening, even after many days of uptime with many apps running.

GHOST99K said:
get OS MONITOR from the market
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow! That's detailed and a lot more than I bargained for....lol. Thanks! Good thing my phone is rooted and I was able to use it since I never did the recent update to the 1.47.xx OTA update and I'm waiting for a fully functional version to be released, but there is a lot of stuff on this that goes well beyond my basic knowledge. Apparently, my phone has 89 processes running with no apps running (according to Task Killer) and only one widget running and the CPU is fluctuating at 10-40% usage.
Interestingly enough, but apps report the same amount of available memory......EXACTLY the same. So it can be assumed that both apps provide an accurate figure of available memory.

I would advise against using a Task killer. Android has its own memory management, which works extremely well on the EVO, to be honest. The latest update (1.47) feels like its makes the EVO perform much better and allows it to be more efficient.
If anything, I would suggest you read this thread about an app called Autostarts, which isn't a task killer, rather a startup manager that can be tweaked to do many different things. By not allowing certain things to start up when your phone boots, you'll have more memory to begin with and Android will be more efficient in memory management. I would try Autostarts before using a task killer.
Hope that helps.

eagle63 said:
Because users shouldn't have to manage their own memory. Apple folks already love laughing at us for that very reason, and even though it pains me to say it they're absolutely correct.
I can certainly buy the argument that task killers are nice for those occasions when something does go haywire and it needs to be forcibly killed, and I can understand using one just because you're curious and want to see what's running and how much memory you have, etc, but beyond that I find that they're unnecessary. My EVO runs very smoothly without me manually intervening, even after many days of uptime with many apps running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, but having to run a task killer is a small price to pay to not be part of the iPhone bandwagon crew, IMO.
Are you running a custom rom on your phone? I just have a rooted stock rom. Maybe that's why your phone can go days without the performance being affected? I still have all the bloatware on mine, and I've put off removing it because I am still a noob at this and I'm in the learning process. I wonder if the new update that was just released improves this aspect of the phone at all.....?

pseudoremora said:
I would advise against using a Task killer. Android has its own memory management, which works extremely well on the EVO, to be honest. The latest update (1.47) feels like its makes the EVO perform much better and allow it to be more efficient.
If anything, I would suggest you read this thread about an app called Autostarts, which isn't a task killer, rather a startup manager that can be tweaked to do many different things. By not allowing certain things to start up when your phone boots, you'll have more memory to begin with and Android will be more efficient in memory management. I would try Autostarts before using a task killer.
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I will definitely look into it. All advise is appreciated as I am very new to all of this. You answered my last question on my previous post with this, too.... I can't wait for a fully functional rooted OEM rom to be released with the goodies from the new update to try it out. I'm hesitant to update my phone now and lose superuser as I use the WiFi tether a lot.

the lag vs apps

Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.

robnil said:
Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't used it in a while, but "spare parts" in the marketplace tells you which apps are consuming your processor IIRC. This will obviously give you a temporary hit to your ability to load and run processes but will let you know more details about your phone that you don't already have and the battery use section of settings obviously only talks about what is using your battery but that isn't going to tell you the whole picture.
I am also someone who says you shouldn't use ATK, at least the way you do, but I have it installed and use it a bit differently. What I try to do is kill all tasks after I've used the marketplace or before I do anything intensive (gaming, GPS tracking) and I kill all apps including ATK. ATK will consume processor, battery and will free up memory which then Android uses to open more tasks you don't need (using processor and battery in the process -> repeat cycle). If you need to free up memory 1-5 times a day I think my way will save maybe 15-30% of your battery over a 24 hour period while costing you less than a minute of hassle (too much for some, sure). Again, I only kill after marketplace (because everything opens to check for updates, AFAIK) and before something that will use heavy memory and processor.

robnil said:
Now when installed a lot of apps including juicedefender and advanced task killer (set to aggressive when screen off with lots of exclusions) the lag has become more of an issue.
Now tell me whats the logic behind having installed a lot of apps and a lag? Running several apps multitasked will offcource produce performance-dips but just having them installed?
What exactly is "aggressive" on the task killer anyway? Some people say its just bad to kill tasks.
I have the idea that its the widgets that causes trouble, since they actually needs to run in the background all the time. I noticed today that the fancy-widget got stuck on upboot for like 60 seconds, that caused the 4 buttons below to not load properly. Alto the rather useless "daily brefing" seems to slow down.
I dont want to root and hack with sd-hacks now when froyo is confirmed to be released officially soon.
Do you have experice with sertain apps/widgets causing lag. If so, it would be great to make a list of "bad" apps.
PS, I tested the 30-day navigon today in car and it worked with no problems at all. Fix in 2 seconds and right on track.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Forgot the first part of your question, forgive me. I believe, the reason for more apps causing more lag is at least 2 fold. There are more apps that can be opened when you have free memory (in the vicious cycle I described above). There is also something that might be a bit unique to our phone, and I've only recently read this, it's a bit of speculation so I'm not trying to pass it off as fact but I think it's likely to be knowledgeable on the issue, even if not completely correct. Samsung's internal storage method is an SD card, that allows extra apps to be written to the internal storage but comes with a trade off of lag due to a potential combination of:
slow random-access
bad partition
I think I'm missing an important reason, I'll try to look and edit.

When I initially got my SGS I loaded it with a heap of apps and suddenly noticed the lag and quick battery drain. Problem was I couldn't track down the culprit.
I recently reset my device and was a bit more organized with what I installed. One of the things I started doing was checking what services were being used in the process which you can find under the manage apps part of the system.
So while you can load apps and they may/may not be killed by android or a task killer, the services will always be running - taking up memory, sometimes cpu, network. Things like weather checking, news checking, even email sync are some examples. These services plus any apps you run are I think what starts the lag. You need to be aware of which apps are also run as services.
Yes, there are some bad apps (last Facebook version was found to be a heavy drain) but I think they tend to add up with all the other services running.
As for 'Aggressive' depends on the app killer but my understanding (with the one I use), is that there is a memory limit before the app is killed. Once the limit is reached on aggressive, it doesn't take much before memory is cleared.
One thing to install is SeePU as this gives an indication of CPU, memory and network on the top menu bar. This also helps when the system lags (usually CPU is high and memory is low) and helps to know when to clean (or what threshold to set).
Hope this helps.

Browser killed after phone sleep for a while

If I load a few pages in a browser (have tried many different browsers, all works the same) they gets killed after a sleeping for a while, meaning I have to reload the content. It seems to happen after a certain time not being used.
This did not happen on my HTC Desire HD.
I tried today to place a browser (miren) into the /system/app folder, to see if that made any difference, but it didn't.
Why is this happning? any why not on the desire HD?
any hack I can do to fix it?
It's useful to when on fast internet load 10 pages and read them sometime later.

Just a guess, but it may be a RAM management thing. My N1 will exit the browser occasionally even when the phone is asleep to free up RAM.

I'm experiencing this issue as well and it's irritating. I wondered, too, if it was a ram management issue, but it'll happen even after just a few minutes with no other apps launched. None of my other phones have closed the browser for ram issues without a long time of inactivity and many other apps opened using lots of ram.
Is there some way to specify the browser as preferred or something so the system won't close it, in case it is ram management?

maxh said:
Is there some way to specify the browser as preferred or something so the system won't close it, in case it is ram management?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it has something to do with ram management, so how to adjust that?
I tried putting it in system folder, that didn't make any difference, tried running it as root, no difference.
Maybe another kernel would do it differently? anybody knows? Don't want to spend lots of time installing a new kernel if it doesn't make any difference.

This is both a browser and a ram management issue.
Android automatically kills off apps that are using ram on the background after they are inactive for a period and most browsers, the stock one included, tend to hog a surprising amount of memory which in turn makes them priority number 1 for android to kill off.
I have no answer as to how to fix this problem aside from trying other browsers, sorry.

akselic said:
This is both a browser and a ram management issue.
Android automatically kills off apps that are using ram on the background after they are inactive for a period and most browsers, the stock one included, tend to hog a surprising amount of memory which in turn makes them priority number 1 for android to kill off.
I have no answer as to how to fix this problem aside from trying other browsers, sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what you're saying is not completely accurate, because this does not happen in other phones, desire HD has less RAM also.
I don't think it's a browser issue, as I have tried many different and it will work the same. The ram does not need to be critically low before it gets killed, it might happen when there is more than 250mb free

It happens for me with messaging app also. It can be the only thing running with loads of free ram. And suddenly its killed, very annoying because its pretty slow starting again. Never happened in my SG SII
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

nick5000 said:
what you're saying is not completely accurate, because this does not happen in other phones, desire HD has less RAM also.
I don't think it's a browser issue, as I have tried many different and it will work the same. The ram does not need to be critically low before it gets killed, it might happen when there is more than 250mb free
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Note isn't my first android phone that does this (mind you I haven't owned any HTC devices) but if this is the case then it means that ram management on the Note is quite aggressive. The only way to "fix" this is with custom kernels unless Samsung does something about it themselves (and I wouldn't count on that)

I'm experiencing the same problem but I don't really mind since I don't open many tabs at time. So I just have to go to the history tab to reopen the page.
At least for the stock browser it would have been better just to save the URL while killing the browser so when u open it again it will reload all the pages.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

Is it possible the S-pen places greater demands on the Note's RAM than other phones? Perhaps it tries to keep a certain amount of RAM free at all times for this purpose.

Maybe, but remember that with higher resolution and higher amount of RAM the device will use more RAM.
An example is computers. I have a netbook and a standard notebook (laptop). The netbook has 1GB RAM and the resolution is 1024x600 and running Ubuntu. It uses 90MB at boot (after tweaking)
My notebook has 2GB RAM, and the resolution is 1366 x 768 and is also running Ubuntu. It uses 200MB at boot (same tweaks as the notebook)
- Higher resolution = More pixels and more information that needs prosessing on the screen
- More RAM = It can allow itself to use more
I've seen A LOT of this at Ubuntuforums and other places with people with 8 and 16GB RAM, and they are complaining about high RAM usage. It's the same with computers with HD screens.
I've tried to find the thread about this, but i can't find it

BazookaAce said:
Maybe, but remember that with higher resolution and higher amount of RAM the device will use more RAM.
An example is computers. I have a netbook and a standard notebook (laptop). The netbook has 1GB RAM and the resolution is 1024x600 and running Ubuntu. It uses 90MB at boot (after tweaking)
My notebook has 2GB RAM, and the resolution is 1366 x 768 and is also running Ubuntu. It uses 200MB at boot (same tweaks as the notebook)
- Higher resolution = More pixels and more information that needs prosessing on the screen
- More RAM = It can allow itself to use more
I've seen A LOT of this at Ubuntuforums and other places with people with 8 and 16GB RAM, and they are complaining about high RAM usage. It's the same with computers with HD screens.
I've tried to find the thread about this, but i can't find it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent points.

solved
So I played with root explorer and moved many of the samsung apps that I don't use out of /system/app folder.
I'm not sure what exactly did it. The email program was the only one I deleted (by accident) - but it was set to not sync, so it shouldn't be working in the background anyway.
I also put the Miren browser in the /system/app folder. Didn't notice any difference to that at first, so not sure if that contributed at all.
Another thing I did was to install adfree. It didn't seem to work, but I don't know if it made any changes that would make a differnece. I'm just listing up everything I did that day.
But the biggest change after all this is:
BATTERY LIFE !!
has doubled! I used to get around 10-12 hours with moderat usage, yesterday I was at 50% after 12 hours usage. And Miren browser now does not shut down, except I push the phones with other ram hungry applications.
Funny is, that display used to be high up on the battery usage statistics, but now Andoird OS is very high, but the phones use much less battery! Doesn't make any sense, but I don't complain..
I'm running stock european 2.3.6 firmware that I downloaded from sammobile.com. I rooted it, but didn't notice any differnce before or after the root.

Can you list down what apps did u remove? Thanks

entaro said:
Can you list down what apps did u remove? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I moved the following to /data/app, but they don't seem to work anymore, not sure what is needed to make them work, but anyway disabling them did the job.
Email was deleted.
Analogclock,
bluesa
buddiesnow
crayonphysics
days
dualclock
emailwidget
fmradio
kobo
livewallpapers
oceanweatherwxga
samsungapps
samsungappsuna3
samsungservice
samsungwidget_news
samsungwidget_stockclock
splannerappwidget
videoeditor
voicetogo
windyweatherwxga
zinio

nick5000 said:
If I load a few pages in a browser (have tried many different browsers, all works the same) they gets killed after a sleeping for a while, meaning I have to reload the content. It seems to happen after a certain time not being used.
Why is this happning? any why not on the desire HD?
any hack I can do to fix it?
It's useful to when on fast internet load 10 pages and read them sometime later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am pretty sure it is not a memory management issue. I come from the GalaxySII and it never happened despite having many browser windows open. I think this phone now is harder trying to close unused apps, based on inactivity time, to improve battery life (which is much better than SGS2) and shuts down apps that may not allow the CPU to go to deep sleep.
To me it does not look like an issue, more like a feature, it is not like you get you work "killed" or unsaved. And you could always load pages from your browser's history. -I know, I know, you like to preload your webpages to look at them later.-
Also, updated versions for the note have several options to battery saving within the browser, have you tried them?

runaway64 said:
I am pretty sure it is not a memory management issue. I come from the GalaxySII and it never happened despite having many browser windows open. I think this phone now is harder trying to close unused apps, based on inactivity time, to improve battery life (which is much better than SGS2) and shuts down apps that may not allow the CPU to go to deep sleep.
To me it does not look like an issue, more like a feature, it is not like you get you work "killed" or unsaved. And you could always load pages from your browser's history. -I know, I know, you like to preload your webpages to look at them later.-
Also, updated versions for the note have several options to battery saving within the browser, have you tried them?
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More excellent points. I'll bet you're right.

runaway64 said:
I am pretty sure it is not a memory management issue. I come from the GalaxySII and it never happened despite having many browser windows open. I think this phone now is harder trying to close unused apps, based on inactivity time, to improve battery life (which is much better than SGS2) and shuts down apps that may not allow the CPU to go to deep sleep.
To me it does not look like an issue, more like a feature, it is not like you get you work "killed" or unsaved. And you could always load pages from your browser's history. -I know, I know, you like to preload your webpages to look at them later.-
Also, updated versions for the note have several options to battery saving within the browser, have you tried them?
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Yeah, it might be something to better battery life, but then it's the complete opposite of my recent findings that the battery life was much better while the browser does not get killed (after removing system apps).
I guess this issue/feature wouldn't have been a problem if I lived in a world with perfect high speed internet access all the time. here in China, it can get slow, some pages take a long time to load, so why should I want to reload them..
also, when I fly, i like to load up 10 pages and read them while up in the air. last week I was very disappointed when i found out that just leaving the phone by itself for halv and hour had made the browser restart.
Anyway, I'm happy now, after the mod Miren browser does not reload alot, only after loading several heavy progams in between. Still, it makes me want to optimise it more, so i could get even more free ram to use.

nick5000 said:
Yeah, it might be something to better battery life, but then it's the complete opposite of my recent findings that the battery life was much better while the browser does not get killed (after removing system apps).
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Wait, what? I interpreted your results as consistent with his hypothesis. You removed apps that were draining the battery, allowing better battery life. Perhaps that's why the system is no longer compelled to shut down the browser.

bigmout said:
Wait, what? I interpreted your results as consistent with his hypothesis. You removed apps that were draining the battery, allowing better battery life. Perhaps that's why the system is no longer compelled to shut down the browser.
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he said that the better battery life is because the browser gets shut down.

Poor RAM management

I'm finding the RAM management on the S8+ and probably therefore the S8 to be heavily throttled.
My device memory is split as:
4GB total:
System and apps: 2.8GB
Available: 600MB
Reserved: 639MB
The problem I am seeing is that I am never seeing memory consumption above 2.8GB so that the last 600MB is never touched whatever I open. This aggressive throttling is evident If switch between a mere 5 or 6 open apps, the first ones opened have been closed and have to completely re-open and re-load even though there is a is about a 600MB chunk of memory sitting around so this last 600MB is being totally wasted. This is validated when I go to the built in memory manager within Device maintenance and it only shows the last 3-4 apps opened as being active. Believe Samsung needs to adapt the memory management to be less aggressive here as it is impacting on multitasking quite severely.

Right now I have system and apps using 2.4gb., Available space 1gb, reserved 639mb.
I find that if you back out of an app by pressing back, it closes and you have to reload, such as facebook, messages, phone, gmail etc.
I find that if I use the home button to back out of apps they remain in memory. Apps like facebook have to resync when I go in but are still in memory.
What apps are you using to have them close on you?
Exynos or Snapdragon? Mine is UK Exynos maybe there is a difference.

I'm multitasking, so using the app switch button. I'm not backing out which closes apps. Processor is nothing to do with apps closing and I have Exynos. In my experiments I'm using the web browser, whatsapp, email, music player, maps and samsung health.

Hasn't it been like that for ages, Jonathan-H?

i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.

Unfortunately even Pixel is bad with RAM Management. Till now only Oneplus 3 and Xiaomi Mi5s Plus with 6 GB of RAM keep many apps in memory. I had an iPhone 7 Plus before S8 Plus and all the apps were in the same state like when I left them even after one day. So till now iOS is the fastest OS for me because it keeps apps in memory. Even Youtube stayed in Memory and on S8 Plus it reloads after one hour. I guess it's about keeping battery under control on S8 Plus and this is the reason. On the other hand, the first time launch of apps is faster on S8 Plus compared to iPhone. If somehow Android can keep apps in memory and also control the battery consumption, it can be perfect.

standard101 said:
i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.
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If you never get to use the RAM you paid for then it is not a good thing. It's poor RAM management. We're not talking about it closing down apps once the RAM is even close to the limit, we're talking about it closing apps withing minutes and long before the last 20% of RAM is used up which is a sizeable chunk. And having RAM empty is old school thought which is now accepted to be bad practice and was just a benchmark used to see that your system was not being stressed. These days it's better to have as much in RAM as possible rather than waste it empty and have the system need to reload things.

standard101 said:
i can understand the op's point, especially if multitasking is needed, but the behavior described is actually a good thing for a phone. otherwise you can have too many apps eating up memory that you don't want. the phone doesn't know the user intends on multitasking back and forth. there was a time when there were pages of complaints about apps staying on after user moved on from it, so this is specifically something they would have designed for. there's no right answer here short of a full adaptable ai of some kind.
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For serious multitaskers like me, it leads to the opposite problem: apps keep getting reloaded from scratch and that ruins battery life even more.

I'd like to add my voice into this. I am also a heavy multitasker. I have a set of standard 6-8 apps that constantly keep getting kicked out of memory and closed out of the carousel. It is not a RAM limitation issue as I am, like the OP, always below the limit. It just seems that Samsung made the memory management much too aggressive. I already set all possible options in the OS to control what is monitored and suspended and such, but this made no difference.

Same for me. At first reading this I though I posted this because of the exact numbers.

Jonathan-H said:
. Apps like facebook have to resync when I go in but are still in memory.
What apps are you using to have them close on you?
Exynos or Snapdragon? Mine is UK Exynos maybe there is a difference.
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If it is 'forced' to refresh the displayed content it is not keeping it in memory.
You need to use a device where the issue is not exhibited to see how memory management should work.
Sadly my S8 Exynos can not keep more than half a dozen apps fully in the background without then forcing the content to reload/refresh when going back into those apps, from Facebook, YouTube, Photos, Gallery, newsstand, Play Music.
dhorgas said:
I'd like to add my voice into this. I am also a heavy multitasker. I have a set of standard 6-8 apps that constantly keep getting kicked out of memory and closed out of the carousel. It is not a RAM limitation issue as I am, like the OP, always below the limit. It just seems that Samsung made the memory management much too aggressive. I already set all possible options in the OS to control what is monitored and suspended and such, but this made no difference.
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Exactly my issue and I have done likewise to no avail unfortunately.
Sent from my S8 using Tapatalk

The last update of the Gallery from Play Store made it start almost instantly. Maybe they need to put all the stock apps in Play Store so they start fast. About the difference between App refresh and App reload, it's totally different thing. We all agree with refresh and we don't like reload.

Android Doze
The problem is Android Doze, which freezes every app once it's in the background. Solution is simple: Settings -> Device Maintenance-> Battery -> Battery usage -> Optimize menu -> All apps. Untick the ones you need and, probably, they will remain in memory for while. So far, working for me.

so no solution to this thus far?? any root tweaks or build prop tweaks useful to solve this??? or we still have a dump phone