Database Users

Performance drops after some time

Hi,
I have noticed that my Nexus' performance starts to drop after some hours on: going from one home screen to the other becomes quite choppy, and so do the animations of opening an application.
Have you guys noticed that too, or is it just me?

It was like this for me until I bought Advanced Task Manager. I have it auto end applications that I don't need to run all the time. It runs much better now.

The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.

Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...

efeltee said:
Yep but some people just don't get that, ah well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I have read, but it did not work for me. I downloaded the free version of advanced task man to troubleshoot the problem and found that most of my apps were still running in the background even when my ram was down to 10-20mb. That is about when the phone would start acting up on me. When I ended the tasks the phone would act normal again. So I just broke down and bought the app for $.99. If you do this make sure you exclude some system apps, if you don't your phone could freeze while it is trying to restart them.

10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does...
bofslime said:
10-20mb free is normal operation. This is how the OS is designed to operate, linux and even windows7 now also operate in this fashion (show very little 'free' memory). there is no performance problem with low free memory, purely a misconception on modern memory managment. Whats going on is that you have a buggy application, which is why 'killing' apps looks to be resolving your issue. You're only resolving the symptom, not the problem.
I never kill apps and have had weeks of uptime without any slow down. This gets rehashed over and over again by people claiming task killers help performance. The reality is they do nothing for performance, only nice to have around for that great once and a while an app runs away from you, or in troubleshooting if you have a poorly written app. It should not be anyones habit to do a kill all on a regular basis, if it were the OS would do this automatically.
btw, compcache has been known to cause this slowdown over time issue, it has since been removed from most of the popular custom baked rom's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well then there must be many buggy applications. I had to rely on Advanced Task Manager to keep my G1 running acceptably fast. The N1 slows down without its full RAM available so I needed to use Advanced Task Manager then too.
If the RAM is not the issue, why does having the extra 200 MB available make the phone run much smoother with 20+ apps running?

frandavid100 said:
I don't get it. Isn't Android supposed to kill unused apps when it's running out of RAM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well technically no, it reallocates what is being used and frees up memory for programs currently running but non the less the OS manages itself
personally i close apps that i do not have going with the task manager. i seem to notice a performance difference if i do it manually, it takes 2-3 extra taps for peace of mind rather than relying on the OS to figure it out for me...

Deathwish238 said:
The issue is RAM. The kernel that shipped with the Nexus One doesn't support the full 512MB of RAM. However, CyanogenMod 5.0-beta4 does and the difference in speed is amazing. With 26 apps running I have 167MB free atm.
But like stickerbob said, you should have Advanced Task Manager at the least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The speed benefits of CM's ROM isn't due to the HIGHMEM supporting kernel, but rather other tweeks he's done with his build. Extra ram is nice, but there is certainly no limitation with the 213 or so userspace memory that is available now. Android itself does not even use this memory, it has its own reserved memory space, userspace memory is only for applications to be loaded in. And there is speed for keeping as much of your applications loaded in memory as possible.
swetland said:
Roughly 220MB is available to userspace in the shipping build (ERD79).
Quite a lot of memory is dedicated to the radio firmware (41MB), dsp firmware (32MB), display surfaces (32MB), gpu (3MB), camera (8MB), a/v buffers (41MB), and dsp buffers. Much of this needs to be set aside for these specific tasks due to hardware requirements of very large physically contiguous buffers which can be difficult or impossible to obtain after boot once the physical memory space gets fragmented.
The big limitation though is that the Linux kernel needs to do a 1:1 physical:virtual map of general purpose memory used by the kernel and userspace (which excludes the special purpose stuff described above). This eats into the available kernel virtual address space, which is also needed for cross process shared memory used by the binder, etc. Run out of virtual memory and things get unhappy.
In 2.6.32, HIGHMEM support for ARM will allow us to avoid this requirement for a 1:1 mapping which will allow us to increase memory available to userspace without running the system out of virtual memory adddress space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

The speed difference I'm talking about is what I experienced when running CM beta3 and CM beta3 w/ highmem. The difference was huge. I assumed the change was mainly attributed to the double RAM available.
Even now with the full RAM available, things run faster when I end the other apps running. It's not necessary, but the difference is there.
It would be nice to be able to pinpoint which apps caused slow downs.

The best way I've seen this put I found in a thread where someone wanted to disable apps from auto-starting entirely. I saved it, because I though it was very elegant way to explain androids mem management.
equid0x said:
I just wanted to chime in here about the whole apps on startup thing....
Android has the concept of services which are programs that typically have a frontend piece, like a GUI for IM that you would normally use, that only runs when you are using it, and a background piece, the service, which is constantly running to keep you connected to your IM servers. This will account for some portion of the things you see running on startup, depending on how many apps you have installed, and whether or not they were written to run as a service.
There are also some, usually older, android programs that existed before "services" were really used.. that basically use triggers to keep reloading themselves. These programs are less efficient, and probably should be re-written to use the official service method of operation, caveat emptor.
Android also makes several modifications to the stock process handling that comes with any Linux kernel, which is already radically different from what most would be used to seeing on Windows as it is. Android attempts to keep commonly used applications running(loaded into memory), but in a sleeping state (using no cpu), so that they may be quickly resumed on request. Android also contains some agressive modifications to the behavior of the OOM(out of memory) task killer in Linux, that seem to cause it to keep applications running until nearly all memory is consumed, killing apps it deems unnecessary only when absolutely necessary. However, Android also supports a methodology of saving the running state of a program, so that if it is killed due to an OOM condition, it may be restarted with relevant data restored, to give the appearance of never having been killed at all.
This functionality is not all to alien to Linux as a platform in general, though Android has many modifications which tend to favor aggressive app management in memory, and less so filesystem cache. This was likely a design choice made to suit the low-speed/low memory platforms Android targets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Good read.
So then given that...only services running should slow down the phone and not the background apps running.
However, this doesn't really answer the OP's question. If it's not a memory issue...what's causing his slowdowns?

Could be too many widgets on the home screen, I don't run that many but its possible that while in an app for a while, and switching back to home the OS may have to kill a whole bunch of apps to allow it to reload all the widgets on the home screen.
I tested this, and loaded the crap out of my home screens with widgets, and then launched a game. When I exited the game there was a good 500ms - 800ms delay in my homescreens from displaying anything other than the background. However, after it loaded, scrolling between screens looks smooth. The new kernel with highmem support can help this, but I would suspect some crazy widget filled homescreen with a 3rd party live wallpaper (star's configured with too many stars) and all of that combined could be an issue even still. Apple combats this by allowing only one app at a time, they know people will go overboard if allowed.

Well, that doesn't really explain the performance drops. Does the phone run out of RAM, or not? It seems to be snappy again after a reboot, so there must be something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...

equid0x said:
There's probably no easy answer to this question. There could be IO contention, a runaway process, high CPU usage, a memory leak, shoddy code in some app, etc etc... One would really have to take a look at the whole state of the system at the time the problem is happening to be able to ascertain what is causing the slowdown.
The phenomenon is in no way unique to Android. I'm sure nearly everyone is familiar with the common complaint "my computer is running slow". The reasons that can happen on a common PC are the very same reasons that can be happening here, and unfortunately there are many of those reasons. While in many cases, throwing memory at the issue may appear to solve the problem temporarily, it often is not a permanent fix.
The amount of userspace memory available really amounts to 1 thing and 1 thing only -> the total number of running processes that we can keep totally in memory at any given time. On stock android, slowdown due to an OOM condition should be minimal, since stock android doesn't swap. Discounting any other bottlenecks, there is a practical limit to the number of programs once would be able to run in the memory space that is available. Realistically speaking, android programs tend to be fairly small, so you'd really have to be running a lot of them to exhaust this space. It is far more likely one or 2 poorly written programs are hogging huge amounts of memory (and probably other resources), which is causing constant killing and restarting of other apps you are trying to run concurrently. You end up with contention on the slow flash, resulting in poor performance.
You can't even really compare the Nexus One to the G1 in this regard, because the G1 truly is terribly deprived of memory. Though, the argument in both cases could really be made that you are attempting to run the hardware beyond its design specifications...
Its been my experience that the culprit is usually one or 2 specific programs. Sometimes the best, although inconvenient, way to figure out which programs these are, is to keep watch of your usage habits, and if you suspect something is the problem, uninstall it, and see if the issue persists. Its time consuming but there really isn't any better way to figure it out without using all kinds of tools that android doesn't really provide convenient access to. There are a few apps on the market that help with this but I am not sure what they are called offhand.
Programs that were identified as sources of slowdown for me have been:
Weatherbug
The Weather Channel
Calorie Counter
Locale
SMS Popup
10000
USA Today
National Geographic Wallpapers
CNN News Widget
Streamfurious
Nav4All
Waze
Just about every app with Admob Ads
And this is really just what I can think off offhand... there are more...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm banking on it being an issue with an app that the OP has installed as well...not the phone or Android. I have only a handful of tried and true apps, and haven't experienced a slowdown even after 150 hours without a reboot.
OP... start uninstalling apps a couple at a time and wait several hours in between to narrow down the problem app.

I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.

stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not just widgets that you should be thinking about... any app you've installed can throw something off.

stickerbob said:
I can't speak for the OP, but when I was having that problem I had 5 widgets running on my home screen. The Google Search, Sports Tap, Power Control, Calendar, and The Small Weather Channel. Does this seem like too much? I hope not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the weather & news widget and the phone seems much faster now. I'll keep it like that for a day, see if it stays fast.

Users average RAM available

Hi all,
I've had this phone for a few days now and love it. However I find I have very little RAM available.
I have on average around 30-40mb of ram available and the phone sometimes slows down quite a bit. I've ad a look at the running apps and the main culprit was SPB Shell launcher which was using around 50mb. I have since stopped using this but I am still only getting around 40-50mb remaining (with timescape disabled) and again a sluggish phone at times.
How is everyone else's?
I am thinking of doing a factory reset and start afresh to see what app may be causing the problem.
Any other suggestions or is this normal with this phone?
Thanks for your replies.

I have the same. I thought it was down to having over a thousand contacts all duplicated in exchange and google.
I have 130m of internal space available. Is there any way of re assigning it as you can in windows mobile?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App

My Average Free ram @150 MB

135 - 140ΜΒ here.
Have been checking with Advanced Task Killer (ofcourse NOT automatically set to kill everything, but fully manually every now and then), and noticed that there were times when the phone just left plenty of unnecessary apps wondering around in the background. Apps that are not the "always-on" by android system. So I kill EVERYTHING else except from:
1) Clock
2) TrackID
3) LiveWare
4) Media Sharing
5) Maps
6) Hanashi (WTF is that?!? it ALWAYS comes back by system.)
7) Setup wizard
(What remains always active by system also depends on the widgets you have, e.g. I have TrackID widget, you might not have it, so you wont need it.)
and have even noticed better battery performance...
EG, during nightime, I left the phone untouched (not used ATK), and when I woke up, I had a 12-13% battery drop, while the other day, after a fresh cleaning before sleeping, got around 4-5% drop. Both times with same conditions...

I have about 140 free and nerver under 100
Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk

What to you recommend to stop the unused processes from re starting again?
Sent from my LT15i using XDA App

Try Advanced Task Killer

Yeah I have about 150mb free.
And can I say coming from the x10, this phone is rediculously smooth. I love it!

Can we expect more free RAM once it's rooted/a custom fw is available?

This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.

im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The reason I asked is that my phone does not run smoothly at times but very laggy and some items (contacts, emails etc) can take an age to load (well not an age but seconds but it feels like an age )
I was just wondering if this was the norm or not.

im_iceman said:
This obsession about RAM needs to stop!!!!! 2.3 manages memory very well and you shouldn't be having any issues with the phone, unless you start messing with it (task killing the wrong things for example).. My phone is running really smoothly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeap, 2.3 handles RAM almos perfectly. EG, if you open as many apps as you want and just leave them in the background, when you try to launch a HUGE game (eg Asphalt 6), the system will free as much RAM as required for the game to run smoothly.
BUT, I have noticed that some apps are left idle without me usng them (and without being system triggered apps, which when closed, are not resprang), and are not automatically closed by system. I tested leaving overnight the phone without killing anything after a days usage (with more than 15 apps in the background), and while being at 15% when left at night (around 01:00 am), it was off in the morning (7:30 am).
Then I did a fresh reset to the device, noticed what apps are automatically opened by system, and protected them (unchecked them) from Advanced Task Killer (which was set to manual), so that it will not shut them down when I click the "kill all" button. Next night, I killed all non-system apps (that do not restart if you do no action), and left the phone overnight again to see if there is any difference. Battery dropped around 5%.
I did this twice under same conditions (same time gap, BT open etc.), and results were almost the same +/- 2%.
So IMHO, if you use a task killer app wisely, you could manage to get better battery performance when the phone is idle, but you will NOT get better performance (smoother UI etc.)
Again, all these IMHO.

@dragunov - completely agree with everything you're saying.. it's the difference between knowing what you're doing and blindly killing tasks because someone said it helps!!!
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.

im_iceman said:
for the OP - would suggest figuring out what it is you've got running that's causing the lag cos it's not the phone hardware/ OS that's at fault - This is the only drawback of Android vs iPhone -the QA of the apps on the market doesn't pick up this sort of problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, thats what I intend to do. A factory reset and the re-install gradually my apps to see which ones are the problems.
When I first got the phone I loaded it up with apps so it will now be difficult to retrace so a fresh start is what I will do.

A quick update. I have done a factory reset and although the phone is smoother I still only have 40-50mb free (only app I installed was swype).
Can I just ask what free ram other users have?
Thanks

Right now.. 60Mb.

I had about 150 out of the box while taskkiller always said about 5 apps running background (not installed by me).
Now yesterday my arc froze while browsing the web and rebootet itself (screen was scary, single pixles loosing light while some were still on till everything was off).
Now that was the only time the arc did that and afterwards task killer now (after killing apps) only shows 2 or 3 apps running background and up to 195MB free RAM which is cool but scary at the same time ...
Still can recieve phone calls though and everything works ... well Im happy for more RAM
Oh yeah, got swype on my whitelist.

Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor

I usese autokiller memory optimizer. See unlike the other appear that kill everything, autokiller mo just optimizes the Android system so you wont have to go hunting for those apps.
Sent from my CM 7 Monster Evol.

MJ_QaT said:
Honestly I don't understand the need for more ram?
having 60mb is similar to having 200mb, it's all about applications reserving their spots, once they needed they'll kick in, otherwise they stay idle ( talking about system apps and well developed applications )
even if you have 60mb you still can run games that require 100mb... smoothly
the lag some face is due to background application using the processor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter how many times we say it people just won't get it!!..
Spare memory is WASTED memory.. this is ANDROID/ Linux.. this is NOT MS Windows... it's DIFFERENT!!

Uptime and Loss of RAM

Greetings! I've read all about not using task killers and refrained myself from using one. But now i'm a bit confused with the efficiency of android RAM management. I simply can't use my Nexus S smoothly beyond 100 hrs of uptime. after which the 'running' tab usually shows >200mb ram used with roughly 50mb of free.
I understand the used RAM was supposed to keep the previously opened apps in cache for faster subsequent execution time. But thats not what going on under the hood, i suppose, after 3/4 days of uptime. When i view 'show cached process' from the 'running' tab, it barely lists the default launcher and 1/2 other apps whereas this menu usually shows more that 10 apps being cached after a fresh boot.
The horrible thing that starts to happen then, most of the apps start exiting as soon as i touch the back button. Nothing except the foreground app stays in the RAM and everything else get dumped out of it and reloads at next launch.
Whats keeping the RAM then, if there's no space for app caching after merely 100hrs of uptime?
I'm not sure but the whole thing has led me believe my system has a major memory leak somewhere. Or, as i've read that the Nexus S actually have quite a bit lees than stated 512mb ram available for user apps… but should i expect this to be normal behaviour? Then why google released this model with inadequate amount of ram in the first place? I'm rebooting my phone every other night to keep it smooth!
Please shed some light, feeling totally lost. I'm moderately heavy user and come from symbian background.
PS: my phone is factory installed stock 2.3.4 with default launcher and widgets since i purchased if 2 mnths ago. no root done yet.

The cached app list in normal Android settings is inaccurate. Try apps like SystemPanel Lite.
Android does take care of RAM usage perfectly usually. Are you saying that your phone gets slower over time? That is quiet impossible unless you got a faulty installation of Android.
Also the "back" button does mean "exit and don't cache" for some/many apps.

Actually I agree my phone gets slow after time. I have to reset then after that it flys aagain
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

I noticed this problem as well, and i had read about it before, there are more people noticing it.
Maybe it happens only when you have too much stuff installed and running, if you are not a power user you might not notice it.
I think the android memory management is lacking here and the launcher app should be more robust, but the issue could also be solved if we had more memory.
I have 200+ apps installed in my nexus, some of them have services that run in the background automatically (and some of them didn't even have to, like some games and apps) and this uses memory.
I have around 15 or 20 apps always running as services, this uses 150mb+ memory. If i close any of these they will just start again in a few seconds automatically. The only way to stop this (my ns is not rooted) is if i uninstall them.
So, after a while, the most noticeable effect is that the launcher gets more sluggish and lagging. if i force close all apps it's smooth again, but only for a while. Also after i run a heavier app (like a game) and close it the launcher will restart/reload.
The workaround i found is to uninstall some of the apps/games that run as services until things get smoother again, but i don't want to give up most of them so i have to put up with a bit of sluggishness.

rentaric said:
The cached app list in normal Android settings is inaccurate. Try apps like SystemPanel Lite.
Android does take care of RAM usage perfectly usually. Are you saying that your phone gets slower over time? That is quiet impossible unless you got a faulty installation of Android.
Also the "back" button does mean "exit and don't cache" for some/many apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah.... my phone gets slow over time, kind of. Let me explain it...
after a fresh boot, i can browse, email, check facebook, make calls, send sms and then come back to browser to find my last loaded page still there. but after 2/3 days of up time, whenever i leave a foreground app and go somewhere else, it gets killed. the worst case i faced was, from the google search app, after inputting my query, it had to close itself before opening the browser to perform the search. it gets that bad.
during these times i usually face a slight delay and jittery animation while opening each app. and the cached processes usually shows only the launcher occupying ~30mb of space and 1 or 2 other very small apps. it appears, because of lack of RAM the system also stops caching the usual number of processes.
i've also thought that my installation could be faulty. i'm using it purely stock for the first few months to get the hang of the way android works. what bothers me, without even rooting it, how can can it get faulty. i even did a factory reset after taking it out of the box.
I'll monitor the situation with the SystemPanel Lite and report back. Thanks for the reply.

temp9300 said:
I noticed this problem as well, and i had read about it before, there are more people noticing it.
Maybe it happens only when you have too much stuff installed and running, if you are not a power user you might not notice it.
I think the android memory management is lacking here and the launcher app should be more robust, but the issue could also be solved if we had more memory.
I have 200+ apps installed in my nexus, some of them have services that run in the background automatically (and some of them didn't even have to, like some games and apps) and this uses memory.
I have around 15 or 20 apps always running as services, this uses 150mb+ memory. If i close any of these they will just start again in a few seconds automatically. The only way to stop this (my ns is not rooted) is if i uninstall them.
So, after a while, the most noticeable effect is that the launcher gets more sluggish and lagging. if i force close all apps it's smooth again, but only for a while. Also after i run a heavier app (like a game) and close it the launcher will restart/reload.
The workaround i found is to uninstall some of the apps/games that run as services until things get smoother again, but i don't want to give up most of them so i have to put up with a bit of sluggishness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sounds exactly like what i'm facing. thanks for the input. I've also lost my launcher once after exiting the browser with several tabs open.. had to click the home button and then launcher again to get icons back on it. This usually doesn't happen after first 10-15 hrs but after several days of uptime.
I respect the way android tries to manage RAM automatically even by re-spawning the apps if it thinks they needed to be kept cached even after a force close from default task manager. With this kind of supreme automatic power comes huge responsibility of managing it well. It should count for every bits of data (concurrent garbage collection system?). But somehow it appears the ram management system is failing to count some of it and letting parts of the RAM go un accounted for.
I have like 30 apps installed from market with roughly 5 of them having active background process running. And I believe and hope this shouldn't be enough to take the android RAM management system down only after a few days of uptime.
Thanks again for the reply.

I'm going to try "auto memory manager" i read about in other thread as a way of forcing a minimum amount of free ram a bit higher than standard Android does.
It's one more service using memory but if does what is supposed to, maybe at least the launcher will stay more responsive.
The mild setting is too close to default so i have created a custom that looks roughly between mild and agressive.
I'll report back later.

the phone gets horribly slow when the RAM drops to below 50 Mb free
in which point i always have to use task killer to kill them all, and it's fast again until it again reaches less than 50 Mb RAM
another thing i noticed is that with very heavy high quality pictures/icons loaded to customize the launcher it will slow down the performance
instead if the whole launcher theme is less than 2 Mb or less then the phone also works very fast.

AllGamer said:
the phone gets horribly slow when the RAM drops to below 50 Mb free
in which point i always have to use task killer to kill them all, and it's fast again until it again reaches less than 50 Mb RAM
another thing i noticed is that with very heavy high quality pictures/icons loaded to customize the launcher it will slow down the performance
instead if the whole launcher theme is less than 2 Mb or less then the phone also works very fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...and its unfortunate that i'm hitting the 50mb free RAM barrier with the stock launcher in only 3/4 days of uptime, regularly. why does the default app kill option let the memory go below 50mb then, if this can potentially hamper performance? and i'm not talking about any android phone here, but google's own Nexus flagship.
i remember reading a blog post by an android engineer explaining the merits of memory management by the OS and how task killers only worsen the situation. could they possibly optimize the OS ram management for light to moderate use and expected the heavy users to root and manage it on their own by tinkering the free mem settings? what else could explain the situation?
i wonder how things are with other skinned androids with similar hardware configuration if a Nexus is having tough time behaving well even with its trimmed software package. and i consider myself as only a moderately heavy user.

the memory cleanup isn't perfect in Android.
As much as everyone likes to say that Google tells you not to use task killers or any thing and that Android can take care of itself, every nice ROM out there plays with the minfree settings.
Fact is Android isn't perfect.
I know this from a 256MB device. We set it to it could boot with 30mb free. You could do maps and stuff, but a day later Maps would crash left and right because you ran out of memory. Even if it said 30mb free still in About phone.
The same with the Nexus S. Stock settings allow little free memory. I saw this in CM7. It gets slow after a day. A reboot fixes it all.
I suggest tweaking the minfree values or something so you can get decent performance. Fact is that performance will drop off a bit with up time, but at least if you tweak your minfree settings it should last a LONG time without needing to reboot.

this works great after patched my phone never gets slow
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1111145
just an FYI if you try it dont use the CWM version doesn't work on NS for some reason at least it didn't for me
just manually move with root-explorer and set perm to 777 and enjoy
edit
OP not rooted this requires root

dmo580 said:
the memory cleanup isn't perfect in Android.
As much as everyone likes to say that Google tells you not to use task killers or any thing and that Android can take care of itself, every nice ROM out there plays with the minfree settings.
Fact is Android isn't perfect.
I know this from a 256MB device. We set it to it could boot with 30mb free. You could do maps and stuff, but a day later Maps would crash left and right because you ran out of memory. Even if it said 30mb free still in About phone.
The same with the Nexus S. Stock settings allow little free memory. I saw this in CM7. It gets slow after a day. A reboot fixes it all.
I suggest tweaking the minfree values or something so you can get decent performance. Fact is that performance will drop off a bit with up time, but at least if you tweak your minfree settings it should last a LONG time without needing to reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the informative reply. i've started to get the point about the situation. maybe a little more RAM would've delayed this kind of clogging but at its current state our little green robot simply isn't mature enough to carry the load we're putting on its shoulder. it that case i would accuse google of spreading the word that manual intervention isn't necessary. thats simply misleading. they way they've programmed the stock rom appears to be optimum for light use only.
anyway, i guess re-adjusting the minfree values require root, right? i should better start reading up on rooting then.

demo23019 said:
this works great after patched my phone never gets slow
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1111145
just an FYI if you try it dont use the CWM version doesn't work on NS for some reason at least it didn't for me
just manually move with root-explorer and set perm to 777 and enjoy
edit
OP not rooted this requires root
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm thinking of learning about rooting now. i like android for everything else it does and this particular device got me hooked with its unusual and clean look, and i don't wanna give up on it easily. but i think i'll have to gather up a lot of knowledge from this forum pages before i can attempt something like you've described.
thanks a lot for the solution anyway. i'll try it as soon as i feel comfortable with my understanding of android internals.

its not really that complicated just a script file you put into /system/etc/init.d with Root Explorer and set full permissions with root explorer and reboot and it starts working and if you dont like or dont want to sue anymore you simply delete the file.
but yea get rooted definitely worth it and you will gain more knowledge

temp9300 said:
I'm going to try "auto memory manager" i read about in other thread as a way of forcing a minimum amount of free ram a bit higher than standard Android does.....
I'll report back later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, things didn't exactly as i had planned, the test with memory optimizer was going ok but i only did for a day.
After that, i managed to sell my Nexus and went for an SGS2!
So far no lag/sluggishness issues and i have installed most of what i had in the NexusS, this phone has 2 important advantages, it has double the ram (so it should take longer to fill) and also it's faster which might compensate.

demo23019 said:
this works great after patched my phone never gets slow
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1111145
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dun use the script if you're running netarxhy, mathkid95;16006240 or trinity kernel. It will just made you worst. Oh yea, and also dun use it on Brainmaster miui rom
Sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium App

window7 said:
Dun use the script if you're running netarxhy, mathkid95;16006240 or trinity kernel. It will just made you worst. Oh yea, and also dun use it on Brainmaster miui rom
Sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
really?? but simms22 use auto memory manager too.. so i think we can still use the script with trinity kernel

king23adrianc said:
really?? but simms22 use auto memory manager too.. so i think we can still use the script with trinity kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
auto memory manager and the script are two different things. honestly, i havent tried the script because auto memory manager works for me. ive been setting it higher than the aggressive setting lately btw...
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"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"
}

As a developer I've had to deal a lot with Android's memory management. Simply put, Google is correct in saying that Task Killers do more harm than good. Android is pretty smart about clearing memory.
However, a lot of apps and even some basic framework level calls cause memory leaks, which the garbage collector can't clean. So the only solution is a device reboot.

window7 said:
Dun use the script if you're running netarxhy, mathkid95;16006240 or trinity kernel. It will just made you worst. Oh yea, and also dun use it on Brainmaster miui rom
Sent from my Google Nexus S using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use matrix, and worked fine on netarchy when i was testing.
and Brainmaster MIUI ROM already has script so yea dont need with his ROM also he provides trinty kernels on his ROM page so if trinity had issues with ram script i dont think he would be providing download links to use with his ROM

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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
he said that the better battery life is because the browser gets shut down.

[Q] Holy bloatware Batman!

I looked at my free RAM and out of 1 GB I only have around 350 mb free!
That and I disabled ALL widgets!
I looked at running apps with advanced task manager and there is all of this crapware like Pulse etc running. I cleared memory and got some back but not much. As soon as I turn the tab back on all of the junk comes back and drains my battery 10% overnight with wifi OFF on a wifi only tab.
It is ridiculous to only have less than half of my RAM available. On my phone I lost half of that to bloat too. I bet if this tab had 2GB of RAM they would fill 1.75 GB with crap.
What gives? Why do they insist on doing this and not letting ME choose what I want running on MY tablet? Can I get rid of or freeze all of this junk?

They are just cached and automatically freed up when an application needs more RAM. But I do agree that Andriod does a very aggressive caching even on apps never used. Why not remove it with TB?

Free ram has no purpose. It will take and free RAM as it sees fit. If you force it to use less ran, it will run slower. Let it manage the ram itself, this is how Unix has worked since the start and it's working perfectly fine.

TarjeiB said:
Free ram has no purpose. It will take and free RAM as it sees fit. If you force it to use less ran, it will run slower. Let it manage the ram itself, this is how Unix has worked since the start and it's working perfectly fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+ 1 on this. It's seriously easy to get a bit neurotic about system resources. If your tab is running fine just enjoy it and don't sweat the numbers.

TarjeiB said:
Free ram has no purpose. It will take and free RAM as it sees fit. If you force it to use less ran, it will run slower. Let it manage the ram itself, this is how Unix has worked since the start and it's working perfectly fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but I don't need Pulse, buddies now, family locator, Samsung game hub blah blah running and eating up CPU and battery either (as well as internal flash memory). I will never use that crap so I might as well get it gone. I am not sure why it opens stuff up that I never use or never have.
Is there a list somewhere on what can be nixed and what can't?

I would like to bring this thread up again.
I do have the same problem as DaveC1964.
All I want is a "clean looking" tablet without Google+, Pulse, SocialHub,GameHub etc.
I also hate that those apps connect to the web. I know you can disable that, but I want them gone.
I only use the internet browser, youtube and pdf app.
How do I uninstall those preinstalled annoyences?
Is there a way to do this without a custom ROM?
Thank you

you'll need to root your tab and use titanium back to remove the bloatware. be careful with what you remove though as it may affect other apps. always make a backup.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA

Best you initially just freeze the offending apps with Titanium Backup instead of uninstalling/deleting them right away - that way you can always re-enable them if your system should become unstable or start acting up.

freewilli said:
I would like to bring this thread up again.
I do have the same problem as DaveC1964.
All I want is a "clean looking" tablet without Google+, Pulse, SocialHub,GameHub etc.
I also hate that those apps connect to the web. I know you can disable that, but I want them gone.
I only use the internet browser, youtube and pdf app.
How do I uninstall those preinstalled annoyences?
Is there a way to do this without a custom ROM?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As long as you do not run the apps and dosen't setup accounts they are not accessing the web i think.

I love Pulse!

Thank you for your answers.
I am going to root my tab and use titanium backup afterwards.

Startup Manager
you can easily sort out all the bloatware, unneeded startup apps and make your tab fast I've tested it does a great job
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...DEsImltb2JsaWZlLnN0YXJ0dXBtYW5hZ2VyLmZ1bGwiXQ..