Database Users

{Help} Pinpointing a memory leak

Hi all,
i have read all i can find on the forum on this topic and i wanted to ask is a specific procedure existed for determining a memory leak (if i have one!) i find the gwes.exe file starts at 12mb at boot and generally increases untill a soft reset. it can reach 18mb. whilst i am not sure if this effects performance it causes my memory usage to rise constantly for no reason i can determine!
my setup - rom miri wm6.5 v26.3 - premium WITHOUT manilla
interface - spb mobile shell
dialer - phone ex
not much else
any ideas hints kindly recieved!
regards
Mat

lemat1 said:
i have read all i can find on the forum on this topic and i wanted to ask is a specific procedure existed for determining a memory leak (if i have one!) i find the gwes.exe file starts at 12mb at boot and generally increases untill a soft reset. it can reach 18mb. whilst i am not sure if this effects performance it causes my memory usage to rise constantly for no reason i can determine!
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GWES memory consumption growth is as natural as gravity and it happens to improve performance. This happens because it is smart enough to keep resources in fast RAM so that next time they will not be loaded from (comparatively slow) flash memory. Basically this is the point in having RAM and the reason why you paid for it - it has to be loaded with stuff to make things faster. This sport of freeing RAM is just ridiculous in most cases (although not always, of course). You pay for it and then don't use.
Secondly, what you describe is not a memory leak. A memory leak is a situation of uncontrolled memory usage growth (if your GWES gradually ate all available memory to a point where device would crash that would be a memory leak). In general, there's nothing wrong with applications consuming more and more RAM as they work as long as they can free this RAM on demand. See for yourself: on your PC, load a memory-hungry application such as a web browser, note how much RAM it uses initially. Then use it for a while, RAM consumption will grow. Then minimize it and see how RAM usage drops dramatically. Even if an application uses half of all RAM it doesn't mean that this RAM isn't available for other programs when needed. When it's not needed, why not use it?

Does using high RAM have effect on speed?

Since the new official WM6.5 is using a lot of RAM, does this affect the speed of the device?
Or does it merely mean that there can't be as many apps open until it reaches critical level?

Not directly, it should not. Only if it reaches a certain level, as you said.
It's likely however that WM6.5 uses more processing power than 6.1, but I can't say for sure.

It should not affect the performance, I have been up to 80% or more and never experienced any lag issues.

Cool thanks for the replies

One of the biggest misconceptions about RAM on Windows Mobile or indeed most operating systems, is that it's a good thing to have lots of free ram available. It's not. It's a complete waste of resources. The most efficient use of RAM would be bouncing off 100% used as much as possible.

It's good to have free RAM up until you have nothing more to execute. Having more RAM ensures you never reach this limit and start swapping.
I may not use all 4GB on my PC at once, but when the next version of XXXXX game comes out, I may end up using more than I do now. The overhead ensures I don't have to go out and buy more memory to ensure reliable performance.

A little off topic, but seems like a good place to ask: Opera (using 6.1, original or TESS) often struggles rendering complex (and sometimes even simple) pages. When you scroll to a new part of the page there are delays while it redraws the new bits. When you scroll back, it has to redraw the original bits. There are annoying delays and large ugly grey areas while it does this. I often have 3-4 tabs open BTW.
The question is, can Opera be allocated more memory (since I have plenty, especially since TESS) or is it completely automatic under WM? I've poked around in the registry and there are a couple of keys for "memory allocation" and "heap allocation", or some such, under the Opera section, but they're just numbers, they don't look like Mbytes, if you see what I mean.
The slow redrawing thing feels like a memory problem, as though it's redrawing from storage cache rather than quicker RAM cache, that's why I ask.

ArtieQ said:
It should not affect the performance, I have been up to 80% or more and never experienced any lag issues.
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I fully agree with you.
The only problem is that programs that use lots of memory will not start. In fact I can play with Xtrakt only if I disable manila, otherwise the system not have enough memory to start it.
Sorry for the bad English

im sorry but if your PC or phone whatever you like is using alot of RAM, say %90, then this is going to cause the device to slow down.
once you reach a certain limit of RAM left, it has to start using disk space as temporary RAM and as such everything becomes slower.
RAM makes it quicker ONLY when the program you want is loaded into the RAM. So in windows if you have alot of programs running in the task area, then yes these programs will run up very quickly. But try then to open up another program when your memory is briming and you will find that it will slow it up.
To have memory running at a high percentage used is bad practise. In theory its good because it means things are loaded, but its only the things that are loaded that notice the speed benifits. There needs to be a cut off point.

adamrob69 said:
im sorry but if your PC or phone whatever you like is using alot of RAM, say %90, then this is going to cause the device to slow down.
once you reach a certain limit of RAM left, it has to start using disk space as temporary RAM and as such everything becomes slower.
RAM makes it quicker ONLY when the program you want is loaded into the RAM. So in windows if you have alot of programs running in the task area, then yes these programs will run up very quickly. But try then to open up another program when your memory is briming and you will find that it will slow it up.
To have memory running at a high percentage used is bad practise. In theory its good because it means things are loaded, but its only the things that are loaded that notice the speed benifits. There needs to be a cut off point.
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Your understanding of the OS and therefore your conclusions are wrong. Desktop Windows is a different beast to Windows Mobile. When physical RAM gets low in Windows, it swaps data out to the disk. In WM it doesn't, it asks programs to close down (then forces them if none of them do), on a least recently used basis. For this reason, in WM, you might as well have applications using free RAM since they're effectively 'cached' and ready to be called up quickly. Should you start another process that requires that RAM, then the old processes will be closed very quickly. In WM, free RAM is wasted RAM.

Hi
For this reason, in WM, you might as well have applications using free RAM since they're effectively 'cached' and ready to be called up quickly. Should you start another process that requires that RAM, then the old processes will be closed very quickly. In WM, free RAM is wasted RAM.
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Exactly Which is why having the HTC task bar shut down applications on clicking the cross is a complete waste of time. Windows Mobile is designed to leave applications loaded even when you close them, that way they are ready immediately when you want them again. This saves times and also power.
As already stated Windows Mobile will close applications automatically if required to free up some space.
Empty RAM is a complete waste, and is an argument against increasing RAM in Windows Mobile devices to silly headline amounts as even in standby that RAM has to be kept powered even if not being used.
Regards
Phil

X10 Memory Leak?

I have noticed behaviour pointing to a memory leak on the X10 - After turning the phone on, I get less and less free memory after running ATK - over 110 MB right after turning the phone on to ~70 MB after 24+ hours.
The phone is heavily modified/customized, so it may not be an SE sw bug (ADW, Smart Keyboard, handcent, k9, etc...)
What's the best process tool you can recommend to look into this?

Let the phone handle the memory. dont worry.

+1 on that. Android its linux based and us meant to work like that. Empty memory is wasted memory.
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Sent from my X10i

Android may be Linux based, but if *after killing all idle processes* memory is systematically dwindling, that means/may mean that one or more of these processes is allocating memory which it is then NOT being released - either by the process (more probable) or the system itself (less probable).
In other words, for the same set of running processes/applications , the memory usage should *not* systematically go up over time.
Linux itself has no automatic GC. Android does (Dalvik VM), but it takes some care from developers for that to work properly - no "loose" pointers to unused but still-referenced data, etc....

acmbc said:
Android may be Linux based, but if *after killing all idle processes* memory is systematically dwindling, that means/may mean that one or more of these processes is allocating memory which it is then NOT being released - either by the process (more probable) or the system itself (less probable).
In other words, for the same set of running processes/applications , the memory usage should *not* systematically go up over time.
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I disagree, as processes are used/exercised the kernel will allocate the memory they need, after switching on the phone the processes are idle and occupy a small amount of memory. As they are used the process size will grow in main memory as they store or cache common data used by the process. That is why applications such as facebook may be slower at start off as the data needs to be supplied, once this data is cached it will run much faster as the data is already in main memory.
Linux/Android works on the principle that it's a waste not to use as much memory as possible.

Not to get into a GC flame war here: The principle you mention is right, its just that after one KILLS these processes (facebook for example) ALL OF the memory allocated by facebook should be relinquished to the system (ergo, appear as free).
I.e. if I start up my phone, and just have processes A B and C running and have lets say 120 MB free, and after using the phone for a while kill everything and *restart* ONLY processes A B and C, then I should have 120 MB free. At least tendentially (may have a different set of resident libs at the 1st and 2nd points in time, some other minor stuff may be different, etc..). However, I find that doing this over and over results in less and less free memory being available as time passes.
I am not saying I am *right* but a good process inspection tool would help to ascertain what is going on.

acmbc said:
Not to get into a GC flame war here: The principle you mention is right, its just that after one KILLS these processes (facebook for example) ALL OF the memory allocated by facebook should be relinquished to the system (ergo, appear as free).
I.e. if I start up my phone, and just have processes A B and C running and have lets say 120 MB free, and after using the phone for a while kill everything and *restart* ONLY processes A B and C, then I should have 120 MB free. At least tendentially (may have a different set of resident libs at the 1st and 2nd points in time, some other minor stuff may be different, etc..). However, I find that doing this over and over results in less and less free memory being available as time passes.
I am not saying I am *right* but a good process inspection tool would help to ascertain what is going on.
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Wrong.. it should NOT be returned to the system.. but it should be marked as "disposable" IF another process wants to use it. That is the way linux usually do.. That is why the "Free"-value is misleading. As the "Free"-value is not the sum of "Free" and "Cached" values. when you "unload" a lib it is not completely removed from memory, it is just marked as "cached" instead. Saving tremendous ( ) amount of battery and time when, if, the user wants to use it again before overwritten by another memory-hungry application..
Regards // OwL

does all this mean we don't really need advanced task killer?
or does the advanced task killer kill the cpu process? ( as a result longer battery life)

robbyf66 said:
does all this mean we don't really need advanced task killer?
or does the advanced task killer kill the cpu process? ( as a result longer battery life)
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advanced task killer kills the application itself, so that nothing more is executed by that application thread(s). wether dependent libraries are kept loaded or not does not affect battery time when not used. Advanced task killer does not actually unload any libraries it only kills the process.
I personally hardly never use advanced task killer, as it is not needed as long as you make sure to run applications that does not keep the phone from going into sleepmode. Those programs are just simply bad coded.. I instead have a CPU-meter application in the task-bar and if I see that the CPU-time is extensivly used after the application has been put to background, then I might use a taskkiller to stop the bad application. But that scenario is rare... I usually get 50h+ of battery time per charge, whatever I do with it.
Regards // OwL

Available Memory, how much do you typically have?

Good day!
I've tried a few different apps now, Memory Usage, Advanced Task Killer, and I seem to hover between 110m to 25m. I kill some apps and it jumps back up to 110 and then slowly works its way back down to the mid 20's. Is this normal?
Tips? What is your available memory like?

To sum it up: Free memory is useless memory. You should have as little memory free as possible.
Explanation. Android handles memory management really well. When an app is opened and needs more memory it will shut down unused processes and free up memory on an as needed basis. For apps this can be everything from pausing individual functions all the way to saving an apps state to disk and restoring it the next time it's opened.
Task killers are mostly solutions looking for a problem, I've been running without one for months and my amount of free memory fluctuates as expected when surfing the web and things like that but so far there haven't been any times where I've had to free up memory. So don't stare yourself blind on memory meters and try freeing up memory. Android handles that well enough on its own.

+1..
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That's good info! I kinda knew I was making something out of nothing with the numbers. The phone has been fine in terms of performance.

my 2 cents....i typically have between 30-60mb free. phone does not lag or anything. i used task-killer for a few days when i got phone, then actually thought about what it was doing and the way the system (linux based) is designed. i ditched it and have not looked back!
ps. my phone is rooted R2BA024 firmware, fwiw.

I usually have like 80 mb free ram just for the case and i use task manager to kill apps that are using data connection when i dont need them

I got totally obsessed with task killing but having read a lot of the lads reports on here I am on my third day of not touching it and I have to say my phone is doing fine all by itself!

goth50 said:
I usually have like 80 mb free ram just for the case and i use task manager to kill apps that are using data connection when i dont need them
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I think you'd be better off setting up data synchronisation properly. I'm assuming you're talking about background syncing of course. So that you don't accidentally kill an app in the middle of a sync which might cause corruptions. I've had that happen when synching my gmail to a linux machine and the network went down, the cleanup required was insane and I lost a whole months worth of mails from the google servers.

ddewbofh said:
To sum it up: Free memory is useless memory. You should have as little memory free as possible.
Explanation. Android handles memory management really well. When an app is opened and needs more memory it will shut down unused processes and free up memory on an as needed basis. For apps this can be everything from pausing individual functions all the way to saving an apps state to disk and restoring it the next time it's opened.
Task killers are mostly solutions looking for a problem, I've been running without one for months and my amount of free memory fluctuates as expected when surfing the web and things like that but so far there haven't been any times where I've had to free up memory. So don't stare yourself blind on memory meters and try freeing up memory. Android handles that well enough on its own.
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Heh...handles memory very well, but how about the battery life!? The more apps you have- the less power you've left.

mymagicmyhero said:
Heh...handles memory very well, but how about the battery life!? The more apps you have- the less power you've left.
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That's debatable, most background apps drain miniscule amounts of power. The exception naturally being things that makes use of the hardware while backgrounded by playing music, syncing, calculating pi or things like that. Most apps though, just hang out in memory not really doing anything. A lot of the time, if not most, it's more efficient staying there as opposed to shutting it down and starting it up again later.

+1 yes, just hanging out idle in memory wont cost you any battery, the memory will be on an base current either way, what does cost you battery is the read and write actions to memory so if you frantically clean out that memory your phone will have to write alot more to it working with your different apps resulting in a slower (less prepared) device sucking more battery then neccessary. Leave the memory handling to your device ;-)
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

Droid2 RAM Memory question.

Sorry if these are DUH questions, but while I've been working with computers since the mid 80's, I'm fairly new to the smart phone game and unfamiliar with the way they work internally.
Is the RAM on these phones a physical chip (like a PC) or is it a software defined allocation (virtual)?
Also, and more importantly, if it is software defined, is it possible to allocate more of the phones internal storage memory to RAM?
I've noticed that while I'm only using about 7% of the internal storage, RAM is typically running at about 80% used.
The device is rooted, running 2.3.2 and currently running the stock VZW rom.
Any insight on this would be appreciated.
Thanks!

I imagine android uses virtual addressing instead of physical addressing but I'm not sure.
I CAN tell you, though, that android (specifcally the dalvik vm) is designed to keep things in memory instead of freeing it to reduce load times, etc. If it starts to run out of memory it unloads things, probably on a LRU basis.

I see. So then the amount of available RAM really doesn't matter as it works more like cache?

It's not really much different in windows... if your usage is under certain limits, very little will be paged out. 99% mem in use is fine in windows. 101% is not.
I guess the main difference is that closing an app is not as integral to android as it is to windows, so those of us who are accustomed to closing apps to save memory feel a bit odd.
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

True, but a windows system with twice the memory of another, will usually run better. Which is what prompted me to ask this question to begin with. I figured if there was a way to re-appropriate some of the unused portion of the storage area to the frequently used area of RAM, it would make the system run faster and smoother. I just don't know if it's possible or if it even makes a difference with the Android/Linux OS.