Database Develop

Apps automatically starting up, by themselves

Hello all,
I recently bought my N1 about 4 days ago. So far its been great. Easily one of the best phones I've ever owned. However, I am having this problem where apps in android seem to startup by themselves. I'm using Advanced Task killer to kill em but ill kill them and then like a minute later they're back up and running without me starting them. Its quite annoying as my battery is taking a beating from it having to close and open apps and repeat. The biggest offenders of this are the voice apps such as voice search, voice dialer, Google voice (which isn't even setup), and the amazon mp3 store. A few third party apps I downloaded tend to do this as well.
Have any of you guys experienced this? Is there any way to fix it? Thanks in advance! XD
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

decoyjoe said:
Hello all,
I recently bought my N1 about 4 days ago. So far its been great. Easily one of the best phones I've ever owned. However, I am having this problem where apps in android seem to startup by themselves. I'm using Advanced Task killer to kill em but ill kill them and then like a minute later they're back up and running without me starting them. Its quite annoying as my battery is taking a beating from it having to close and open apps and repeat. The biggest offenders of this are the voice apps such as voice search, voice dialer, Google voice (which isn't even setup), and the amazon mp3 store. A few third party apps I downloaded tend to do this as well.
Have any of you guys experienced this? Is there any way to fix it? Thanks in advance! XD
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not worry about app running in the background, what you are probably seeing is the list of what was run, Android is verry good at managing memory, in fact I do not even use a task manager and I am fine with it.

Well that's the thing. Some of these apps that startup I have never run such as the mp3 store. So I close it and I get an additional 10megs of memory. But then it just starts back up. So I don't know how to stop it all together.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

There are apps that automatically run in the background but don't effect performance like Google voice voice dialer etc..what I did was add them to the ignore list. Trust me those apps are always running no matter how many times you close them
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Like has already been said, stop worrying about it. Those apps are NOT stealing memory, they're NOT using battery.

Free memory does not benefit you. Android will automatically load apps in to memory so that they are available to switch to fast as possible.
You should not kill apps unless they are bisbehaving. Killing off apps forces Android to load them back into memory if its algorithm thinks you are likely to use it. The act of loading data into memory uses power and Android tries hard to avoid it.
I was obsessed with managing my memory and running apps when I bought my nexus one. Everyone at that time suggested task killers so I got one of those. I had crappy performance with random sluggishness. I figured I just needed to kill off more apps. Eventually I read an article from an Android dev explaining this stuff and I backed off and have had a much better experience since.
I wish Google was more vocal on this subject. Everyone thinking auto task killing is a necessity on Android really gives it a black eye.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=712352
Jack_R1 said:
...
2) App that loses focus goes to background. That's the way OS is built. If you want apps to be killed on losing focus, get iOS 3 to run on your device.
3) The market has task killers because they can be written for multitasking OS, and because they help dealing with bad apps. Not for any other reason.
4) The OS loads some of your most used tasks when it runs, even if you don't know about it. Just loads in the memory, and allocates no CPU time. If you leave your phone unattended, your free memory goes down by itself. Why? Because free memory is wasted memory. You can check the "EMPTY" processes in Astro, for example.
5) The best task killer is careful selection of your apps. You see hangups? Find out the app that's doing it and remove it, or kill it specifically after running if it's necessary.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=678205
Remove your task killer (or, if you insist, just clear the auto-kill list), erase all you think you know about memory management - because you don't know - and stop worrying.

Apps starting randomly?

Why do several apps randomly start up?
It feels like I constantly have to open task killer and kill over a dozen apps even when my phone hasn't been touched since the last time I killed almost the exact same list of apps.
Att Navigator, stocks, countdown, etc. seem to be the regular culprits. Any help with this situation would be awesome.

I've noticed the same thing on my Aria. AT&T Navigator always restarts by itself and I've never even used it. So I just set ATK to auto kill.

Look at the sync settings and you can disable things you dont need (News, stocks etc)
A "Running" app behaves differently on android. The app may be "Running" but it is also "Sleeping" which means that it may not be using any resources (battery, cpu, etc).
Using a task killer may actually be hurting your performance and battery life.
http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/

I just check the running apps on my Aria and I understand why every single one is running. AT&T Nav is NOT running. You should check all the widgets you are using, having the widget on the home screen start app automatically.

If you're rooted....
I can't tell you why it does it, but I can tell you how to stop it. If you're rooted, spend the $.89 (approx.) for Autostarts. One of the best programs I've installed.
I was having the same issue, I use AT&T Nav, but it always seemed to show up on the task list even when I hadn't started it. For whatever reason, it's set to start whenever you get a text message! With Autostarts I was able to stop it (along with many other things).
Best of luck to you!

armyengineer51 said:
I can't tell you why it does it, but I can tell you how to stop it. If you're rooted, spend the $.89 (approx.) for Autostarts. One of the best programs I've installed.
I was having the same issue, I use AT&T Nav, but it always seemed to show up on the task list even when I hadn't started it. For whatever reason, it's set to start whenever you get a text message! With Autostarts I was able to stop it (along with many other things).
Best of luck to you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One caveat to this, BE CAREFUL. This is a powerful program and it will let you stop just about any service/program on your phone. You could really do some damage if you don't watch it.

battery died overnight

I charged my phone last night to 100% and unplugged it.
When I woke up now it was off. So I turned it on. It went to the LG screen, then Rogers, then went black. Tried it again, same thing.
So I plugged it into the wall and the silver battery icon came up flashing. 5 minutes later now it has 1 red bar.
Why would it die over night? Nothing was running.

It might be because of a widget,not stock.

Yeah.....u definitely had something running in the background.

Make a list of all apps you have installed.
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II w/ CM9

Same happened to me about 4 times.
Its usually a sync process that drains the phone. I guess Exchange server sync.

well I recently installed Go Launcher. I always go application manager and stop all when I am not using the phone though.
Other than this the battery has been better on gingerbread.

ok there are a few apps that keep starting up even though I stop all applications.
- messaging
- rom manager
- youtube
- winamp
- google +
how can I stop them from constantly opening?
youtube and winamp are both widgets on my screens. but on stock froyo if I "stop all" they wouldn't suck up power or anything.
I never use google + so I don't know why it's there.
rom manager don't use anymore since I am not rooted.

If you dont hav titanium backup pro then get it its so worth the couple bucks u can freeze apps so they cant run or u can totally for the other apps u use not much u can do about them running in the background. What kills my batt the most is auto sync and auto baackground data i always turn them off when im not using them

xstokerx said:
If you dont hav titanium backup pro then get it its so worth the couple bucks u can freeze apps so they cant run or u can totally for the other apps u use not much u can do about them running in the background. What kills my batt the most is auto sync and auto baackground data i always turn them off when im not using them
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
titanium backup requires root. I just upgraded to gingerbread 2.3 so I don't want to play with root right now.
I need help though because only since I upgraded these apps keep coming up.
I am KILLING apps with application manager. These pop up like minutes later.
- email
- google plus
- winamp
- gmail
- messaging
why are these popping up constantly? I never had this with froyo 2.2.2

umirin said:
titanium backup requires root. I just upgraded to gingerbread 2.3 so I don't want to play with root right now.
I need help though because only since I upgraded these apps keep coming up.
I am KILLING apps with application manager. These pop up like minutes later.
- email
- google plus
- winamp
- gmail
- messaging
why are these popping up constantly? I never had this with froyo 2.2.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the only way to do any thing about it is to root and task killers dont help any these things are accully worse cuz the os just opens the programs again and that uses cpu cycles

xstokerx said:
the only way to do any thing about it is to root and task killers dont help any these things are accully worse cuz the os just opens the programs again and that uses cpu cycles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know I read task killlers are not worth it.
But as I said, this did NOT happen with Froyo 2.2.2.
I don't even use google +, why would it ever open?
I didn't open my email, SYNC IS OFF. Yet it's there.
Messaging is open, not texting anyone. In froyo I always killed messaging when I was done. It never came back.
ROM manager has no reason to be open since I am not rooted.

apps like Rogers navigation - NEVER use just randomly pop up in the application manager.
Someone must have an answer for this.
My phone is NOT rooted. Stock gingerbread 2.3.

Hey umirin,
I too had noticed that the phone would constantly restart random apps that weren't being used, despite seemingly nothing happening. It pissed me off to no end, but the reason why it happens is because the programmers write in queues for the programs to start, such as 'screen on,' 'screen off,' and my personal favorites, 'wifi state change' and 'connectivity change.' There's an app called autostarts on the market (it costs about a dollar i think) that will let you disable all of these, so now I have no random apps starting and my battery life is much better There are free ones on the market you can try as well just to see, but they didn't give me nearly the access to all the queues that autostarts does. It's a damn good app. Also, if you want to freeze apps and you don't want to fork out for the paid version of Titanium Backup, AntTek App Manager can freeze all the apps you want for free good luck improving your battery life, I just bought a 3500 mAh battery on amazon to improve mine lol and now the phone is a beast.

the phone is just storing them in ram its not using cpu cycles or battery wile in ram its so if you do use the apps it loads faster

True, while it is in the ram it does not use CPU cycles. But when it loads them, it does. I've also noticed the phone slow down noticeably and even crash when there's tons of apps left in the memory. For some reason it just doesn't handle cleaning up the unused ones very well. But there are some apps that simply don't need to be loaded every time common events occur on the phone, such as changing connectivity from wifi to the cellular network. Consider this. You leave those (useless) background programs to load when the phone changes connectivity. Then you start your browser, which uses a considerable amount of ram. To make room for the browser, the operating system SHUTS THESE BACKGROUND PROGRAMS DOWN. Stay with me here. Later on, when your phone inevitably changes connectivity again, guess what those little background programs do? They start up again. And that consumes CPU cycles and battery. And they're used for nothing, which means all they amounted to is wasted CPU cycles and battery. In my opinion, it is sloppy programming by the app developers to require their apps to start every time an event like that happens. It consumes resources that are precious on a mobile system such as a cell phone. But it is very useful to leave commonly used apps such as your messaging service or browser in the memory. In fact, the messaging app was the only app I left to start on most of the events on the phone for that exact reason. It's just things like ROM manager and Titanium Backup starting themselves up just to hang out that is a waste.

Your right that's how it works but can't do any thing about it ecsept what was posted above
so strange i left my phone on all night just to see and i only lost 2 percent??

ok why does this do it in gingerbread 2.3 but it didn't do it in froyo 2.2.2?

Wait where did u get the update from. I goto update and it says its not avaia
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA Premium App

-Epix- said:
Wait where did u get the update from. I goto update and it says its not avaia
Sent from my LG-P925 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got the LG Updater tool from the LG website. As far as I know the update was for Rogers Customers. Updated from Froyo -> Gingerbread. But there are problems with the GB Baseband with ghost calls. The update here was released Feb 1, 2012. I'm just hoping they don;t say "We gave you the Gingerbread update so no Icecream Sandwich until 2013"

yeah figures att and lg couldn't do us all a favor

How much of a difference does closing apps make?

Hi, i'm thinking of buying an HTC one and i can't wait for it and i wonder how much of a difference does closing apps make in terms of battery life because it is obvious that having apps running in the background makes the OS feel a lot faster and if it's a minor downside than i'd rather have the upside of having those running in the background.

Hahaahahahahahahahahaahaha. Closing them neither increases battery nor makes the system feel faster... Have you come from an iPhone? (It doesn't make a difference on iPhones either)

nope im coning from glaxy nexus and it does make a difference in it though

According to what I've read, the newer android systems freeze the apps while in the background. I don't know what apps you'd keep open in the background, though. The only one I have keep running is my browser.

Im asking that if im surfing on net and then have to go somewhere, do i have to close apps and then put the phone in my pocket or is just locking your phone and putting it in your pocket is fine.

battle1 said:
Im asking that if im surfing on net and then have to go somewhere, do i have to close apps and then put the phone in my pocket or is just locking your phone and putting it in your pocket is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just lock the phone and put it in my pocket. Does fine for me. I get awesome battery life. Usually your screen is what eats up your battery anyways, again I say usually ;p (always an exception somewhere). Out of all the android phones I've had, this one has the best battery life. Not saying there aren't better, but I can go a whole day with moderate use and still have a little juice at the end of the day. Now granted, if you were playing music, you may want to stop that first, but I figured that was common sense...

battle1 said:
Im asking that if im surfing on net and then have to go somewhere, do i have to close apps and then put the phone in my pocket or is just locking your phone and putting it in your pocket is fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just minimize it to the recent apps tray, you can just restore the app where you left off ... Android manages apps extremely efficiently so you don't need to close them, force stop them in settings, use a task manager or any of the above. It actually drains your battery more to kill apps and have them start again, especially system apps that constantly run, than it does to just leave them running.

when you pause an activity (hit the home button, rather than the back button - or venture off to a different activity)
The app does not continue running, however it does preserve the application state (as long as dalvik doesn't kill it, due to higher priority memory allocation requests)
Apps can launch background services, which are NOT paused in the same way (depending on how they are created, of course). In order to force kill all services associated with an app, you'll have to use the app manager.
---
As far as performance/battery impact:
- You'd think "Oh, if i pause 50 apps then i'm going to run out of memory?" NO - the dalvik will kill them in the order it deems necessary to ensure a certain amount of memory is always free.
- This also means you cannot count on a paused app ALWAYS being where you left it off. In the middle of writing an important email? pause the app, go look something up in chrome, and come back to the email it MAY or MAY NOT BE where you left it off. (The dalvik could have killed it)
- Paused apps do not account for any CPU time, therefore there is no battery impact.
Services MAY account for cpu time depending on what they're doing - and they will run even when the app is killed depending on how they were registered.

So even in my Galaxy Nexus it's actually better if i don't swipe all the recent apps?

Battery being drained by apps I didn't open?

Hey all - weird situation here. For the last few days or so my battery has been draining *really* fast and the phone is very warm. Yesterday I went to the battery settings to see what the culprit was and it was an Amazon app that I *never* open - so I disabled it. Same thing today. This time:
17% - Android OS
12% Amazon app suite
12% Email
11% DJI Go, a drone-control app.
I haven't opened anything Amazon ever (bloatware) or DJI GO in at least a month. How are apps I'm not even opening draining my battery? They're not running - at least not that I can see in the task manager. And e-mail? Nothing out of the ordinary.
I'm grateful for any theories as to exactly what the crap is going on with my beloved phone!!

thetastycat said:
Hey all - weird situation here. For the last few days or so my battery has been draining *really* fast and the phone is very warm. Yesterday I went to the battery settings to see what the culprit was and it was an Amazon app that I *never* open - so I disabled it. Same thing today. This time:
17% - Android OS
12% Amazon app suite
12% Email
11% DJI Go, a drone-control app.
I haven't opened anything Amazon ever (bloatware) or DJI GO in at least a month. How are apps I'm not even opening draining my battery? They're not running - at least not that I can see in the task manager. And e-mail? Nothing out of the ordinary.
I'm grateful for any theories as to exactly what the crap is going on with my beloved phone!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's talk about that disabling in a minute. I'm confused about that. First, however...
Some apps run in the background even though you have not manually opened them or are using them. The developers do this so they will open VERY FAST when you do click on them and they don't care your battery is being used. This is why I use Greenify -- I can put almost all apps like that into forced hibernation. IF/when I ever do use the apps, I click, they open. When I close them, Greenify puts them back into hibernation. (I don't use the Xposed version of Greenify, just the Greenify app.)
Obviously you don't want to Greenify something like your email app, weather widget, Facebook or anything that needs to be running in the background so you can get notifications. The apps you Greenify are the apps which like to run in the background even though you are not using them.
By any chance are you using Amazon photos backup service? I do. It's like Dropbox or Google Photos backup service. Photos and videos you take are uploaded for backup. If you have that turned on, that could be why Amazon stuff is still running? Just a guess.
Now, you say you disabled Amazon? How? Freezing it through Titanium Backup? Because if you froze it, there's no way it should be running at all. Which is why Greenify is better than freezing in most cases. I only TB freeze something which may need to by physically present for my OS to run correctly but which I do not want to run. There's some redundant CM ROM apps I freeze, as I don't want to take a chance on physically removing them, only to find out stuff crashes because it was important in some way I didn't realize. Freezing totally disables the app, and it won't even show up in your app drawer. If you unfreeze it, then it's there again. So, how did you disable it?

Chazz, you seriously are a real life superhero of my phone. You helped me get my GF a Maxx a few months ago - man, thank you so much!
Yeah, so I "disabled" some of these apps by actually trying to uninstall them (like Amazon), realizing they're bloatware, and instead dragging the icon up to "App info", where I have the option to force-stop or "disable" - whatever that is.
Here are a few screenshots from today:
So Android OS, Email, and Amazon app suite, none of which I've spent any real time on using, are having a race to see who can meaninglessly drain my battery the fastest. DJI GO, which again I haven't opened in a month, comes in at a distant 4th. I barely used my phone today except for about an hour of Pandora and maybe 30 mins of browsing.
Greenify - gotcha! Downloaded it and trying to kill some of this stuff - but nothing Amazon even appears in the listing of all apps. And email? What the heck? I can't really lock my e-mail out. It's just so strange that apps that I'm not even using are the ones draining the battery - any chance this could be a virus? Last I was paying attention, that wasn't much of a concern on Android...have I just had my head in the sand?
Many thanks again - I really appreciate the help!

In Greenify app, hit the "+" sign (on upper right of the app display) and it will show you more apps you can hibernate. I have over 200 apps, so I actually had to hit the "+" sign a couple of times to see the complete list. I think the initial offering is the low-hanging fruit.
For instance it will show my my Flashlight app. Right. I don't need my flashlight app running unless I am actually using my flashlight! So, I "greenify" it. It hibernates until I open the app. Once I close the app, THEN it goes back into hibernation until I need it again.
Right, you shouldn't lock lock out email. Is that personal email or work? I notice it's not Gmail. What are your fetch settings on that app? I have mine set for every 5 minutes. On my work email, it's an Exchange push server based so it's instant, but on my personal email (not Gmail), I have the IMAP fetch settings for 5 minutes. On some email apps you can even set fetch/check for every 30 seconds. That's a lot of pinging and could be draining the battery. Just a guess.

Seems to be working great, Chazz - thank you so much!!!