Database Users

Slow Down on Hero

Hi all,
Had a quick search round these parts to see if anyone has ask about it, and apparently now
I've noticed that the touch flo interface has become really slow again, most notably when bringing down the notification area; it's a good 5 - 8 seconds before it comes down to where my finger is! Another way I can judge it is by playing ThrottleCopter, any lag makes the game unplayable...
The first time, the culprit was Last.fm's offcial app, and gettign rid of it made it all spring-chicken again, but I haven't downloaded any new apps of late...
*Please* don't tell me I need to reboot my phone every week or so to stop it being laggy; That's why I ditch my Tytn II !!!
Many thanks for any help provided, and if you require more info (I'm guessing an app list, or ROM version [Stock from T-mobile]), ask please!

...Does no one else have this problem? It's really bugging me, insofar as that it's becoming unusable without rebooting it again, and not placing calls when tapping a contact in the call history list.

Do you use Peep ?
If you are, log out of Twitter via the social networks section in Settings and try another client like Twidroid (which uses its own independent login)
Made a huge performance difference to me on the initial stock Orange firmware.
Else wait for the T-Mobile v2 firmware or go MoDaCo.

@Joemax:
I don't use Peep or Twitter, and have made sure it's "logged out" in the settings menu, but can't access the Peep settings menu as I haven't (ever) logged on.
Thanks for the reply, as I quite keen to find the source of the problem. The only other thing I've heard thus far is that rooting the phone _can_ give a speed boost, but it's not been confirmed?

Rooting on its own won't speed up your Hero or any handset as far as I know.
But if you root and then replace the firmware with MoDoCo's you will see a speed boost. His ROM is based on the latest HTC firmware release.
The other thing would be to turn off all the background notifications that apps you have put on the Hero are setup to do... not the stock ones, but apps from the Market you have loaded.
Some of these put persistent information in the Notifications panel and these may be slowing down the handset before showing you the panel.
Then enable them one by one gradually until to find the likely culprit.
Some battery monitoring apps and task manager / switching apps, do use too much of the CPU from what I've read.
Worth a try.

Thanks for the help Joemax.
AFAIK, I don't have any non-stock apps that have any b/g notifications, as there aren't a whole lot of apps on my phone (a couple of games, boring utilities like the compass), but I have got the battery status widget, which may be the culrpit... Fingers crossed

Whenever I have used skype my hero lags. I always have to kill skype even when I exited the app correctly. Maybe this applies for you as well? Did you try to kill some apps (check after each kill if performance is better)? this is how I found out the skype issue.

I have TasKiller Full, and I do kill off apps periodically, and haven't noticed skype in the background, although the Last.fm one kept on coming back even after a force kill .
It's a useful app for me (as I use Skype as my main IM), so I'll onyl get rid of it should it be the fault.
Just checked now, as it goes, and there are no non-stock apps running, as it's still slow - taking about 3 seconds for the notification bar to catch up. As for notifications, the only ones I've noticed since the joemax asked the question is Gtalk, Gmail, and the phone ones (sms, missed calls), and the USB one once plugged in.
Oh dear... it's not looking good to find the source, is it? I mean, short of deleting all non-stock apps and putting them back on one by one...

Hero "multitasking"

It started driving me mad. If I minimize browser, I can't be sure it won't close. Not only minimizing for longer periods, but short ones as well - wanted to reply an sms when a page was loading, but when I got back to it, it started over. And all the loaded tabs were gone! Saving states my ass, it takes time to load a page from zero and only the active browsing window remains. How to make this "multitasker" multitask?

does this also happen if you return to the browser by holding home?

kendong2 said:
does this also happen if you return to the browser by holding home?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's the only way I switch betwen apps.

Have you installed the 'system-based' taskiller mod by any chance (you know, the one that was announced here that automatically keeps memory free by modifying the default thresholds for killing apps)?
If so, I reckon that's the issue! Either that, or you have too much running, so popping the browser into the background makes it a background task and it gets killed cos you're really short of RAM.
Let us know if you have used the tweak though...

@kengdong...
it doesn't matter how you change the apps.
For android it's the same, whether you tap an icon on a homescreen/list or whether you select it from the "task switch" thing... all that does is listing the last recently used applications but still tapping them results in the same internal action.
Source: Android SDK Documentation

I've had pretty much the same issue since I got the phone back in November (I guess I've just gotten used to it by now). I'm never really sure when I switch back to the browser if it will retain the page loaded and any other windows, or if it will reset, close the other windows, and have to reload the active page. I'm on the stock Telus ROM, no custom ROM, not rooted, no tweaks, nothing extra (I've been waiting patiently for 2.1 to come out before messing with custom ROMS).

olafos said:
Source: Android SDK Documentation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thx for the heads up, i wasn't sure about this, actually i was asking to maybe get an answer to this worked

anon2122 said:
Have you installed the 'system-based' taskiller mod by any chance (you know, the one that was announced here that automatically keeps memory free by modifying the default thresholds for killing apps)?
If so, I reckon that's the issue! Either that, or you have too much running, so popping the browser into the background makes it a background task and it gets killed cos you're really short of RAM.
Let us know if you have used the tweak though...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I have stock rom and I have never used any task killer or related app / tweak.
And I don't run too much stuff.. only music player, messaging and sense's facebook perhaps. If music player is paused, why can't it quit it instead... I prefer multitasking of my past htc s730 which had like 7 megs of free ram after booting.

Even after a hard reset, this behavior remains.

i dont know.. it works fine for me....
1.. maybe there is a setting in the browser.. to always refresh.
2.. you have a repair issue.. Need to take it in to your local service provider repair center. Let them see your issue.

Dan330 said:
i dont know.. it works fine for me....
1.. maybe there is a setting in the browser.. to always refresh.
2.. you have a repair issue.. Need to take it in to your local service provider repair center. Let them see your issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on, it's no hardware issue. Most of the time the browser stays, but u just can't be sure about that because it sometimes just closes. I think that it's an issue with Android's STUPID memory management, which also has a scheduled "quit all" script.
Yesterday I opened up a few articles on the browser and decided to read them later. This morning they all remained and I was pleasantly surprised I could read them. This very moment, though, they are gone by now even though I haven't quit the browser - probably that 'quit all' script kicked in.
There could be something in settings, where you could chose apps which would not close ever unless quit..
I would love if Android apps were quitable without any automatic mem management.

Suggest to grab AutoKiller or MinFreeManager, which are just frontends to Android's memory management (also they reapply settings at boot time, as the system file that's being modified is reset every boot.)
See what your current settings are, and lower them (e.g. use "moderate" preset). Just search XDA for autokiller or minfreemanager for more info.

Pressing home should only move that application to the background (pressing back should close it).
If you are pressing home and applications are still closing then there must be a task killer of some sort in place closing it for you.

Lennyuk said:
Pressing home should only move that application to the background (pressing back should close it).
If you are pressing home and applications are still closing then there must be a task killer of some sort in place closing it for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You obviously have not read the topic.
No task killers, tasks dont neceaarily close, its juast that u cant be sure they will remain in memory.

Lennyuk said:
If you are pressing home and applications are still closing then there must be a task killer of some sort in place closing it for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes - it's the standard Android process management rather than a 3rd party task killer.
I guess the browser is given a low priority and is one of the first apps to be killed.
Regards,
Dave

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.

Running apps without launch

Hello guys, ive juz got my iconia a few days ago.. its my first time using android. Its relatively new to me compared to apple. Ive notice that a few apps is running without me opening e application. is tis normal? ive tried to force close.. but after awhile it comes back up n running again?

What apps?
Wysłano z Acer A500

burnout69 said:
Hello guys, ive juz got my iconia a few days ago.. its my first time using android. Its relatively new to me compared to apple. Ive notice that a few apps is running without me opening e application. is tis normal? ive tried to force close.. but after awhile it comes back up n running again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally speaking, yes, this is normal.
Those apps are put into standby and some apps run automatically like Systemupdater, Acer Sync etc... Other apps, like Photo Browser 3D, nemoPlayer, even Maps etc - will start but not in the sense of 'start' like we would think. They are ready states (as I understand them) and in some cases will stay ready or swap out when resources are getting light and the OS needs more headroom.
"By default, every application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application's components need to be executed, then shuts down the process when it's no longer needed or when the system must recover memory for other applications."
So even if you don't launch and application manually, it could easy start up on it own if a component of it was executed (on some level).
It is not recommended to force-close applications unless the application is causing problems - in which case, uninstalling it is the better option.

gammaRascal said:
Generally speaking, yes, this is normal.
Those apps are put into standby and some apps run automatically like Systemupdater, Acer Sync etc... Other apps, like Photo Browser 3D, nemoPlayer, even Maps etc - will start but not in the sense of 'start' like we would think. They are ready states (as I understand them) and in some cases will stay ready or swap out when resources are getting light and the OS needs more headroom.
"By default, every application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application's components need to be executed, then shuts down the process when it's no longer needed or when the system must recover memory for other applications."
So even if you don't launch and application manually, it could easy start up on it own if a component of it was executed (on some level).
It is not recommended to force-close applications unless the application is causing problems - in which case, uninstalling it is the better option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes those r the apps that has been running.. tried closing them by using android task manager.. for a moment it will juz start again..by uninstalling them, wats the risks of running my other apps? will it caused any problems?

burnout69 said:
yes those r the apps that has been running.. tried closing them by using android task manager.. for a moment it will juz start again..by uninstalling them, wats the risks of running my other apps? will it caused any problems?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I (though others would say the opposite) do not recommend uninstalling anything that came preloaded with the tablet. Both for stability reasons and future updates - if however you're really REALLY obsessing over getting back a dozen megabytes of allocated memory from those minor apps then you're going to have to go the whole long road down root avenue and backing up those applications etc ad nauseam. You can get all the info you need throughout the forum.
My advice is, don't worry about those native apps running in the background - if the OS needs more resources it will manage them on it's own. It's not like Windows where you can kill running programs or processes willy-nilly from the task manager when you want to free up memory - in Android, the OS does this as it sees fit, on its own. If it wants more juice, it will make more juice available to itself.

I had the same issues.. a quick fix i ran was to root my tablet and install "bloat freezer" from the market.
it simply stops the processes from running, so your not un-installing them just stopping them from running, Im now seeing my free ram running at appx 65% free at any time which is much better than before.
If i do want to use skype or whatever i simply unfreeze them and freeze them again when finished..
hope this helps..
<edit>
just to let you know i have frozen all of the acer bundled apps

Freezing apps is an option. I don't do that so I have no experienced opinion as far as that goes.

i agree with gamma
These apps are not really running. They are connected to context menues.like when younare in camera app and you click the share image menus.you will see the apps that can share the image such at Facebook Picasso dropbox and so on.these are the apps setting in static mode.I know in nor totally correct but its the closes I can do to describe.if your statement needs the memory or CPU cycles these apps might be using it will shut them down..I have tested this theory by launching many apps and logging processes.
task killers running in the background work against the built in memory and resources management's.
Good luck.if im wrong anyone please correct the post.just do so nicely
Don't make the blonde geeky chic cry giggles

yyiinn said:
I had the same issues.. a quick fix i ran was to root my tablet and install "bloat freezer" from the market.
it simply stops the processes from running, so your not un-installing them just stopping them from running, Im now seeing my free ram running at appx 65% free at any time which is much better than before.
If i do want to use skype or whatever i simply unfreeze them and freeze them again when finished..
hope this helps..
<edit>
just to let you know i have frozen all of the acer bundled apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That does freeze those apps.but if the system needed that ram it would do the same.it gives foreground ape priority.if that or those apps need the resources.the system will kill the lowest priority apps.
Of course thee are some rogue apps that do not play fair.if you find them then uninstall.I use advanced task killer.but never let it run in background.just can launch it lookat what's running. Then close it it will not restart itself

I understand the memory management. But i would rather applications especially skype to run when i want and not as the system see's fit. Social jogger was another culprit they were my biggest bug bears..

yyiinn said:
I understand the memory management. But i would rather applications especially skype to run when i want and not as the system see's fit. Social jogger was another culprit they were my biggest bug bears..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can freeze those apps with titanium backup.just remember to unfreeze before you do OTA. update

yyiinn said:
I understand the memory management. But i would rather applications especially skype to run when i want and not as the system see's fit. Social jogger was another culprit they were my biggest bug bears..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those apps are not running. The may be started at boot but only partially, then they are "paused" and cached for quicker loading if needed.
Android does an awesome job at memory management and will kill apps when it needs more ram.
I dont like it either since i dont use social jogger, nemo player, acer sync and many more so you have two options
If you are rooted flash a rom without all that crap in it.
Or
Use a file manager with root access and file manipulation like 'rootexplorer' and rename those files so they wont run.
I rename them to socialjogger.apk.bak
Just adding the .bak to the filename is enough.
But dont piss around you can smoke the tablet and have to do a factory reset via recovery if you mess with the wrong file.
Just post a list of thing you wish to remove and we will be happy to let you know whats ok or not.
Oh and btw... the ipad runs a crap ton of stuff in the bckground too, apple jst desnt show you like android does.
Sent from my unknown using Tapatalk

[Q] Suspended or Closed?

Hi,
I likes to use Weather and twitter,FB apps of Win8.But hot to close them after opening them?I have to go to Task manager to kill them.
When i go to task manager there was Suspended written in left side of Application name.
What does it indicate?
What is difference between Suspend & Killing??
Sorry for Bad English

My basic understanding is that it is sort of like a mobile OS (Android, iOS...). Suspended apps are kept in RAM for quick resume but not actively processed. They can also be cleared from memory automatically as soon as it is needed for something else. In theory, you shouldn't have to worry about it, just let it do it's own thing. In practice, task manager is there if something goes wrong.

Correct, Supended apps are held in memory, but they do not use any processor nor do they have any effect on battery life. Very effecient way of multitasking like Windows Phone 7.5.

someone tweeted about it to Sam Moreau in channel9.
and he explained people have to stop thinking about "closing" an app and have to close apps to get your computer work fast. of course they have to tweak it.
and difference with killing, its apps are suspended so they eat some memory but its not like it will kill your memory.
with all apps suspended and all, still I use like 10-15% less memory than windows 7. which is amazing

This is not completely true. Several days ago, I was playing with Windows 8 and I have noticed that it got significantly slower. So I opened a task manager and weather app was using 60% of the CPU. In background. I am not sure, what was doing but I guess that it was drawing weather animation?
Also another drawback is that you cannot control what is in "app switching menu". You just have to keep sliding apps to the right and hope that you find one you are looking for. Apps you don't need don't close and apps you do need might suspend/close.

matejdro said:
This is not completely true. Several days ago, I was playing with Windows 8 and I have noticed that it got significantly slower. So I opened a task manager and weather app was using 60% of the CPU. In background. I am not sure, what was doing but I guess that it was drawing weather animation?
Also another drawback is that you cannot control what is in "app switching menu". You just have to keep sliding apps to the right and hope that you find one you are looking for. Apps you don't need don't close and apps you do need might suspend/close.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But its because its Dev Preview. and remember these apps are just place holders to have something to show in windows 8. its not like they will be there in the end, since they aren't optimized for example.
so the point is... you will not have to close the app. but since its a dev preview it will have problems. sometimes i cant even type here in IE desktop because it gets slow i guess for the spellchecker. and it wont stay that way in the end, they are fixing all this stuff, adding new features and making awesome apps for stuff like photos, people, messenger hub. stuff like that. but these apps you see like [email protected] and weather are just placeholders.
also developers have to optimize everything for their apps.
and the apps switching is for tablets, the swipe thing. you only click on the left of your screen and it goes to next app. if you pause a second and click again you will go back to your last app. also you can use scroll wheel. and alt+tab and win+tab. and ctrl+win+tab, ctrl+alt+tab.
so you don't have to think these apps you got in dev preview are going to be in RTM or beta. and apps will not be optimized to run nicely (like they do in WP7).
this OS needs work and it will have alot of bugs.