Is there a way to prevent android from closing my apps so efficiently? Having my browser closed in the middle of a long forum post because of an incoming call is very annoying. Or trying to switch to the browser for instructions on how to configure an app, and then switching back to find the app has closed and I have to start over...
I have danger SPL, JACxROM, ext3, compcache with backing swap, etc... 85mb free on the phone. There's no reason to be closing things so quickly.
I never seem to have that problem with 92MB linux swap. Rebooting your phone once and a while does wonders to the speed also.
Related
Is there a script or a program that can stop certain programs from starting on boot?
Backgroud:
My issue is that I have AutoKiller, but I don't ever see it actually closing (killing)
programs automatically, and on startup my memory can go down to the 30mb
range. After killing programs that I don't use (read "Empty" apps) unless the need arises (read games/utlities) I'll have around 100mb.
Anyway, is there a way to get these programs to not run on start at all? It'll save me the time it takes to close these programs when I boot up the phone.
I'm using Cyanogenmod 6 (stable) on my HTC Dream.
Now, I know that there's been a change in Froyo (Android 2.2) whereby task manager apps can no longer kill running apps. That's fine. I can kill tasks in Running Services if I want. (Although I wish I had a faster way of accessing the Running Services...)
Anyways, I'm noticing that I'm having a problem with apps being closed by the system when I definitely never want them closing unless I close them myself. I was able to do this just fine in pre-Froyo ... but there are really some apps, like AndChat, that I don't want closing at any odd random time (I'm guessing this happens when the system decides it needs to free up some RAM or something). Is there a way to keep certain apps ALWAYS running unless I close them?
Please tell me there's a way to do this. I'm loving Froyo otherwise, but there are some apps that I don't want the system closing on its own.
Please tell me there's a way around this. I never had this problem pre-Froyo.
Can I maybe prioritize non-essential processes or something (So that maybe it'd close some other app instead of the one or two I want to keep running)?
Please help
If you do, then whatever you are trying to do that causes those processes to be killed will NOT WORK. You will get the magical disappearing application problem where a newly launched program will randomly die. It could get really messy if there isn't enough free memory to load the launcher -- you'll end up in battery munching loops at seemingly random times.
*sighs*
That's just ... sad. I understand what you're saying. I do hope there's still another way though. I really try not to have much running. But sometimes even if all I have running is AndChat and a browser, AndChat would close. It's really annoying.
Thanks for your reply.
The most annoying thing to me about the way FroYo manages apps is that my browser will often close when not being used, and upon returning to it only the last page displayed will reload but any other windows that were open do not.
This never happened in 2.1
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im reading that advanced task killer is good and bad, so is it bad to install or does it really work? im running CM7 Stable.
EverythingNook said:
im reading that advanced task killer is good and bad, so is it bad to install or does it really work? im running CM7 Stable.
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Everything I've read says you don't need it with Android 2.2 and above.
I use it, nice quick and easy way to close things (like emulators that normally won't shut themselves off.)
dsf3g said:
Everything I've read says you don't need it with Android 2.2 and above.
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me too but my friends have 2.3 and they use it.
I use it if videos start to stutter (ie youtube etc). It seems to help.
It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.
Product F(RED) said:
It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.
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alright ill stay away from it thanks!
That about sums it up. The only time an app should be killed is if a bug causes it to hang or slow down severely. Otherwise, let the Android system handle things itself.
In my experience it's nice to have for when you need to kill off a specific game or resource intensive app that seems to be slowing things down.
Product F(RED) said:
It's bad if you set it to Auto-Kill. The reason is because from 2.2 onward, if you kill (not Force Close) and app, it'll just restart itself. That being said, Linux is not like Windows. With Linux, the OS will fill up memory (RAM) with whatever it can, in this case applications, even if you're not using them. HOWEVER, it will only dedicate the CPU to whatever you're actually using, so whatever is in memory and isn't being used won't affect you (aside from poorly-coded apps). You can use ATK to kill an app if it's just one or two, but not everything.
If you set ATK to auto-kill everything or if you hit Kill Everything, you'll have a ton of apps restarting at the same time, slowing down your phone for a while and eating battery.
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so would you recommended going into the app itself and picking the apps i want to be closed? or could i also use the widget to close all of them?
I would only recommend going into the app itself, long-pressing on the app you want to kill, and then pressing kill. Closing all of them just forces a large number of apps to restart. I really only use it to kill certain apps that are more difficult to close.
Problem with multitasking : everytime I'm using the browser and switch to some other app and switch back to browser, browser restarts it self
I'm using nik_v4
use a different browser like opera,boat browser,firefox etc.
it depends, the system might be aggressively freeing up memory once you switch the application (that is if you are low on free memory) or another thing, it depends how you switch the application. in this case, a browser, you usually click Home and start another app (that send the current application in pause mode, in the background), but if you clicked Back to get back to the homescreen, the system will interpret this as a kill application sign, it will not keep it in the background. i'm not giving alternatives just trying to explain how stuff works. check if you are low on memory, try it with different browsers (i recommend Dolphin browser).
facing similar problem with firefox
andrei.je said:
it depends, the system might be aggressively freeing up memory once you switch the application (that is if you are low on free memory) or another thing, it depends how you switch the application. in this case, a browser, you usually click Home and start another app (that send the current application in pause mode, in the background), but if you clicked Back to get back to the homescreen, the system will interpret this as a kill application sign, it will not keep it in the background. i'm not giving alternatives just trying to explain how stuff works. check if you are low on memory, try it with different browsers (i recommend Dolphin browser).
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Click to collapse
i switch between apps using long press of home button still browser keeps closing and restarting i always have atleast 150 mb memory free
suggest a few memory hogging apps i'll remove them if i have
at least 150mb free means you don't have a memory problem. but this behavior is a bit odd. it might be from the current kernel you are using and it might be implementing a very aggressive memory freeing task manager (killing any application as soon as it is sent in the background). if you have installed a market task manager or any memory freeing app i suggest you uninstall them. you might also wanna try flashing a new kernel and see if it changes anything (make sure new kernel is compatible with your current ROM). i'm using niks 4.0 ROM with RCMIX-Vivo kernel and i don't have this problem.
I know that android is very good at handling background processes and ram but I have so many apps that I don't use at all. They consume big amount of ram and for instance, sometimes browser loads pages again when I get back to it from another app. I assume this is because of ram. So I guess, if I can shut down some running apps in the background, available ram would be more.
I can see them at settings-apps-running(or cached processes).
For example, right now in "running" section I have 9 processes and 3 of them are poweramp, awesome beats, accuweather.com and in "cached processes" I have 10 processes and 6 of them are beautiful widgets,calendar storage,google account manager, google search, calendar, google play store. Other processes are system services that I have no problem with. When I go to developer settings-background process limit and block them, there are no cached processes anymore but that probably has a side effect. I wish I could choose which apps I want in the background.
I can shut down these apps manually but every time I restart the phone, they are there again. How can I stop them?
if you rooted, you can use Autostarts or ROM toolbox from the playstore. it can change the receivers of the apps not to start at boot
CooLasFcuK said:
I know that android is very good at handling background processes and ram but I have so many apps that I don't use at all. They consume big amount of ram and for instance, sometimes browser loads pages again when I get back to it from another app. I assume this is because of ram. So I guess, if I can shut down some running apps in the background, available ram would be more.
I can see them at settings-apps-running(or cached processes).
For example, right now in "running" section I have 9 processes and 3 of them are poweramp, awesome beats, accuweather.com and in "cached processes" I have 10 processes and 6 of them are beautiful widgets,calendar storage,google account manager, google search, calendar, google play store. Other processes are system services that I have no problem with. When I go to developer settings-background process limit and block them, there are no cached processes anymore but that probably has a side effect. I wish I could choose which apps I want in the background.
I can shut down these apps manually but every time I restart the phone, they are there again. How can I stop them?
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The simple answer is that you don't need to stop them!
As you say, Android is already very good at keeping track of background processes, to the extent that if a new program needs more RAM, Android itself will kill a background process that hasn't been used for a while to free up RAM for the new program.
The Cached processes screen SHOULD be full of recently used programs; it shows that Android is doing what it is supposed to do and is shifting inactive processes out of active RAM in case you want to load it again, without completely dumping the process memory.
Now, as for the side effect you mentioned, that would be a significant hit on battery life. By holding programs in RAM as it is supposed to do, the OS can load the program quickly and cleanly and more efficiently by simply reading the RAM rather than reading flash, writing to RAM, then reading from RAM. The general mantra for UNIX based systems is that unused RAM is wasted RAM.
Another thing to note is that if you do not close tabs when switching active programs (including going to homescreen) then the Browser is designed to hold that tab in memory. Even if you close the Browser (excluding closing the tab specifically with the "little x"). Even if you reboot the damn phone, it will still load the tabs/pages you had open last. The pages are not held in memory as such, just what was open and what tab order, so if you do open the browser after a while, it will load the last page from scratch.
TL;DR version: The running and the cached processes will remain exactly where they are until a new program needs more RAM than is available, at which point Android will kill something to make room. You do not need to do this manually. It will cause more power drain by making very inefficient use of RAM/Flash memory. Empty RAM is wasted RAM.
whilst Chaos is right, I notice severe performance drops when ram is filled, despite Androids theoretical advantage. It doesnt work...
Best to prevent from loading altogheter.
Root, lose warranty, backup apps, uninstall or freeze apps so the bloatware is removed.
For others, change autostart settings in Romtoolbox. So they wont start on boot.
Search for safe stuff to delete. There are lists for that
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Or just dont install the apps that you dont really need.
Via GtN7000
LoVeRice said:
Or just dont install the apps that you dont really need.
Via GtN7000
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Lol, even then you might still need to remove bloatware lol
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Thanks so much for detailed answers.