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Hello,
I've updated my Nexus 7 first-gen recently to Android 5.0 and since than have spent a good amount of time using it. I use the tablet for work and fun through out my whole day, so snappiness is a big factor for me. With the 4.4 update, the tablet just got a lot slower, sometimes I needed to wait for a few seconds before I am able to kill a task. Clearing cache didn't fix the issue.
Made me think about that 5.0 update a lot. (Note that I actively started using the tablet only a few months ago. I had it for 2 years but broke the screen 3 weeks after buying it and only now I decided to repair it.)
The 5.0 update it self took a good 45 minutes. When I loaded it up for the first time, man it was buggy, I couldn't complete a single task without it bugging out. All of the Apps and settings were there untouched. The first thing I did, was go into recovery mode and cleared the cache. Then I cleared the cache for every individual app. And that boosted the performance by 100%. Next, the animations, I cut them down to 0.5x and turned on GPU rendering (just for testing) turns out that helped out a lot. I didn't notice a difference in load times, like some articles suggested.
However there are a few quirks, the sound lags behind the slider, so if I crank up the volume to MAX it will take a moment to do so. I often found my self having to tap the apps drawer button more than once to open it. And the killing of tasks is not as easy as before, now you have to slide from one side to the other in order to kill a task you can't just kick it to the side. Also, the auto-brightness is really aggressive so I disabled that. The WiFi status, when you click on a WiFi connection seems to be broken since in portrait mode all the letters are separated, and at first I couldn't make out any of it. And the biggest downer for me is the keyboard, I think they didn't do any favors with it. I have larger thumbs and it will take some time getting used to the keyboard. These are all small things, but they affect my experience.
Now the good stuff, where do I begin? The interface, it's great I like the design and the contrasts. Performance, I guess that's the biggest question since this is not exactly cutting edge hardware. To summarize it, it's good. I haven't had any issues since I cleared the cache, apps are running as they should, games as well, multitasking is as expected, fluid. Later on I switched the animations to 1.5x and 2.5x. no issues there. Boot up times, something completely irrelevant to me, but since there are people that would like to know, it takes around 30-40 seconds to boot up. However, Chrome is still the biggest enemy. If you want something to make your tablet miserable and make you wait and get frustrated because of it's unresponsiveness, you won't need to search far, just get Chrome.
All in all, the update was a step up, and an improvement.
These were my 2 cents on the subject. Hope it was of use to someone.
thanks for the review. I also updated a few days ago when the ota came through. So far, I'm experiencing terrible lag. I don't have anything stored on the N7 and don't have many apps. There is a ton of available storage on my 32gb. I did a factory rest about 3 months ago, as I like to every now and then to give the N7 a fresh start. I think I may have to yet again and keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, it's unusable at this point.
My experience has been variable, but not unexpected. In the past I have had issues with installing OTAs resulting in poor performance -- sluggish response to touch, certain apps immediately displayed odd lag, etc. Going from 4.4.4 to 5.0 was no different. So, I performed a factory reset and the effects were stark. The performance is exactly where you would expect it to be for Lollipop i.e. it is smooth.
HOWEVER, all is not well. There seems to be a set of problems that I suspect is related to Lollipop utilizing the ART runtime. Certain apps, even before performing a factory reset, were really really slow when running the first time. I have experienced this before: when I tried out ART when it became available on the Galaxy Nexus. Two common apps this occurs with are Facebook and Mint. Who's to blame? The app developers? Google? Don't know but hopefully these issues get resolved soon.
alphabets said:
thanks for the review. I also updated a few days ago when the ota came through. So far, I'm experiencing terrible lag. I don't have anything stored on the N7 and don't have many apps. There is a ton of available storage on my 32gb. I did a factory rest about 3 months ago, as I like to every now and then to give the N7 a fresh start. I think I may have to yet again and keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, it's unusable at this point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ugh, that is quite an issue. Have you tried wiping the cache? You should check your usage, you might be able to find out what's hogging your system, unless it's the OS it self.
AuroEdge said:
My experience has been variable, but not unexpected. In the past I have had issues with installing OTAs resulting in poor performance -- sluggish response to touch, certain apps immediately displayed odd lag, etc. Going from 4.4.4 to 5.0 was no different. So, I performed a factory reset and the effects were stark. The performance is exactly where you would expect it to be for Lollipop i.e. it is smooth.
HOWEVER, all is not well. There seems to be a set of problems that I suspect is related to Lollipop utilizing the ART runtime. Certain apps, even before performing a factory reset, were really really slow when running the first time. I have experienced this before: when I tried out ART when it became available on the Galaxy Nexus. Two common apps this occurs with are Facebook and Mint. Who's to blame? The app developers? Google? Don't know but hopefully these issues get resolved soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also tried out the ART on some devices, mine were not even supported. There were a lot crashes but I also noticed some performance improvements.
Does factory reset also wipe the cache?
My Lollipop experience with my 16 GB WiFi-only Grouper isn't as good as yours. First, I thought I messed something up by rooting it with NRT, but after a manual factory image (flash-all.bat failed out of the box) without root it didn't get any better.
Most time its not as responsive as my N5, I've already had 1-2 minute hangs followed by hung apps (Google Search/GNL, system in most cases) and heavy lagging under most conditions. From time to time its getting close to 75-80% of the smoothness experienced on the N5 (which has better hardware, of course).
I have no idea what went wrong, I've already enabled 2D GPU hardware acceleration, but I'll definitely wipe the cache in recovery once more - you never know...
Thanks for the extensive review - Chrome is just a pain in the a** if you don't have at least 2 GB memory available.
iolinux333 said:
Does factory reset also wipe the cache?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest wiping cache, because you get to keep your apps and settings.
DoNuT_1985 said:
My Lollipop experience with my 16 GB WiFi-only Grouper isn't as good as yours. First, I thought I messed something up by rooting it with NRT, but after a manual factory image (flash-all.bat failed out of the box) without root it didn't get any better.
Most time its not as responsive as my N5, I've already had 1-2 minute hangs followed by hung apps (Google Search/GNL, system in most cases) and heavy lagging under most conditions. From time to time its getting close to 75-80% of the smoothness experienced on the N5 (which has better hardware, of course).
I have no idea what went wrong, I've already enabled 2D GPU hardware acceleration, but I'll definitely wipe the cache in recovery once more - you never know...
Thanks for the extensive review - Chrome is just a pain in the a** if you don't have at least 2 GB memory available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One thing I forgot to mention is that after the cache wipe the tablet was fairly fast but I also went into Settings > Storage, and noticed I have a lot of app data which frankly shouldn't be that much. I then went and cleared cache manually on every app and as it turns out, I managed to scrape off another 1GB there. So, I'm not sure how that would affect the overhaul system performance but it sure helped me get the snappiness I have right now.
Looks like wiping the cache had an impact on performance. I wasn't able to play around much, but it definitely felt faster after first reboot.
Too bad I just noticed my user partion only had 6,x GB (8 GB image obviously) - there are so many ways you could f**k up an Android system - so I'll have to format user data once more, approximately the third or fourth time in the last week.
Sometimes I understand why people fancy those awful Apple devices, but let's hope the speed boost persists.
Go in and delete all the apps in system folder that can be installed from play store and are not needed. After installing the lollipop images you have 11mb in system which seems to be main cause of lag. I freed up like 160 mb and no lag or stuttering. Not sure why google kept things like dialer and other things unusable on the tablet in there.
Also get now launcher and delete launcher.
For even better performance get faux kernel (Set kernel up to his recommendations) and/or install aosp 5.0 F2FS with minimal 5.0 gapps.
Oh I do have a problem with WiFi being weaker on 5.0 though.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
i am getting terrible lag too. last week i updated with the OTA file. wiping the cache improved performance but only for a short time. i guess eventually if ii want the speed back on my 2012 nexus 7 i am going to have to root and go back to jellybean
KiljoyMcCoy said:
Go in and delete all the apps in system folder that can be installed from play store and are not needed. After installing the lollipop images you have 11mb in system which seems to be main cause of lag. I freed up like 160 mb and no lag or stuttering. Not sure why google kept things like dialer and other things unusable on the tablet in there.
Also get now launcher and delete launcher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that sped up things significantly. It's definitely a memory problem, because event on full stock setup you're getting glances of Lollipop smoothness.
But WTH is Google delivering a potentially lagging factory image? Couldn't they just resize /system by default in order to fit in all apps nicely? Well, that's Android - if it doesn't work, you have tons of options to fix it.
After my old N7 screen broke, I got a new refurbished 16GB unit for about US$100.
Had some bootloader issue earlier while trying to flash lollipop, and had to revert back to 4.2.2. Then it got all the OTA up to lollipop, and is running really well since.
Loving it now, better than most non-lollipop newer tablets around...
Lollipop is big disappointment. I hate new notification (double swipe down to access settings)
I am back on 4.4.4 Slimkat rom with Legokernel and f2fs
now is system smooth without lags
Listening to some of the advice in this thread, I rebooted into Recovery and wiped cache (I did it 3 times, because why not, right?)
In addition, I went into the developer settings and turned OFF "Force GPU".
After doing both of those, my performance seems to have greatly improved (specifically Chrome, which was borderline unusable).
For reference, I flashed the factory image from 4.4.4, and didn't get it OTA.
DoNuT_1985 said:
Sometimes I understand why people fancy those awful Apple devices, but let's hope the speed boost persists.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not any more! I have three new iOS devices and things are far, far worse since iOS 8 dropped. Apple now holds the lag crown. At least with Android you can revert back to earlier versions that worked. With Apple all you can do is whimper at the master's feet.
KiljoyMcCoy said:
Go in and delete all the apps in system folder that can be installed from play store and are not needed. After installing the lollipop images you have 11mb in system which seems to be main cause of lag. I freed up like 160 mb and no lag or stuttering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
UTTER nonsense. Stop it. System being full affects nothing; it's read-only.
Is there a way to disable the storage encryption that is enabled by default? Disabling this apparently had huge performance upgrade for the nexus 6
funtomi said:
Lollipop is big disappointment. I hate new notification (double swipe down to access settings)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swipe once with two fingers.
I've done cleaned every thing in this ROM, repeatedly. Hopefully CM 12 will make it work!
khaytsus said:
UTTER nonsense. Stop it. System being full affects nothing; it's read-only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
understand what you are saying but after doing so i have no lag.
Have 2 x 2012 and both were lagging. After trying other things i deleted stuff in system and both are very smooth now. Very happy with them.
Even wiped and re installed one and just deleted stuff in system, to make sure it wasn't something else or a combo of things i did prior.
Hello!
TW stops working several times a day, I've haven't managed to narrow down the apps that might crash it (unless everything I use on the phone crashes it). It sometimes crashes in the home screen, in Chrome, in YouTube. The two apps I use the most are WhatsApp and Facebook, and it has crashed when I'm using them, too.
I have the habit of pressing the home button to leave an app, and the phone always takes a little bit to reload all the icons. I know TW lags and stutters for many, this is not a complaint but an observation. I used phase beam as the wallpaper before, so I changed it to a solid black picture. That hasn't helped.
My phone is not rooted, though processes unused are stopped in App Manager.
Any assistance and suggestion would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Reset phone
BAD ASS NOTE 4
Hey guys,
I am facing the same issue, where TW crashes and I receive the message that TW has stopped working, however in my case it happens each time I reboot the phone. Once I OK the error message, TW reloads, and remains stable until I next reboot my baby, which I tend to do once a day, for good measure. This is not the end of the world, something I can live with, yet I do find it irritating that I cannot figure out what is causing this.
Anyone with a suggestion would be greatly appreciated. FYI, I am running stock at the moment.
Regards,
Raziel
I'd be tempted to odin to stock or flash firekat.
Raziel, I cleared TW cache and then wiped the cache partition earlier this afternoon. It seems TW hasn't crashed as often as it usually does, but it has crashed. It might remedy your problem, though, if you haven't tried this already. I'm avoiding resetting my phone.
If you rooted and tw goes crazy on you something went wrong. Delete everything you got. Turn of antivirus software. Download everything. Start by going back to stock then update then root then your good to go. If you start with a bad hicupp it will just keep getting worse.
BAD ASS NOTE 4
ChinWonder dude! Thanks a bunch for this suggestion... I cleared TW cache in Application Manager, then booted into Recovery and proceeded with wiping the cache partition. Honestly I feel like a bit of a noob right now LOL, I should have thought about this myself!! But hey thanks nevertheless, much obliged .
BACARDILIMON, as stated above by the OP, ChinWonder, as well as myself, in both cases the devices are not rooted. Thanks for the effort though . I'd like to add however that all of my previous and current Androids (S2, S3 and Nexus 7 2013) have been rooted, and in the last 2 cases, on day 1... hell I even made my own custom ROM for the S3 based on stock Bell 4.1.1 and stayed on it despite several available upgrades, I was getting such good performance and battery out of it, and FULL compatibility since I used a firmware base from my carrier, which is not the case for most custom ROMs found here, since none of them (or close to) are using Bell, but AT&T in most cases. From my experiences, I was always getting issues receiving voicemail notifications when using those. Long story short, I have been on the flashing bandwagon for a few years now, and tweaking the hell out of all my devices up to now, but this time, I feel this is the perfect (ok nothing is perfect) smartphone for me, as is, stock, and it performs like no other device I've had until now, and battery is just incredible!! getting regularly well over a day of charge, mostly average 36 hours, with 6 to 8 hours screen on time!!! WOW!!! seriously for the time being, I don't feel I want to root and flash and all that jazz, but instead I just want to enjoy this beast, the way Samsung thought of it, for a little while.
Again ChinWonder, thanks!
Raz
Okay so once again, another ROM has got bad after 2 weeks. FXP 349 build has got to be pretty much unsuable, the unlock button doesnt respond, and the UI crashes for a laugh now. Getting very frustrated with this phone. Its getting harder to not smash the hell out of it with a hammer.
I must be doing something wrong, but every ROM Ive used just degrades in performance to the point where I cant take how laggy it is, Ive missed phonecalls because the UI cant wake up and show the incall UI fast enough. There has to be something deep in this phone which causes bad performance.
Im moving to VanirAOSP, as it says in the title of the ROM that its fast and smooth. Lets see if it can outlast any other ROM I've tried.
Sorry for ranting, I just dont get it, is there some secret setting that everyones using and not telling about? Ive tried stock kernel with CM, williams kernel with CM, stock kernel with CrystalPA, same again with williams kernel. Art or dalvik, it seems to make no difference, no matter what, the UI will bug out. Im not moaning at the devs because I know the work they do is hard and is much appreciated. I just wish I knew why this phone cant last 2 weeks without needing to be wiped!
Every ROM gets laggy after a while. Just use some app to clear cache and thumbnails and you should be fine.
donk165 said:
Okay so once again, another ROM has got bad after 2 weeks. FXP 349 build has got to be pretty much unsuable, the unlock button doesnt respond, and the UI crashes for a laugh now. Getting very frustrated with this phone. Its getting harder to not smash the hell out of it with a hammer.
I must be doing something wrong, but every ROM Ive used just degrades in performance to the point where I cant take how laggy it is, Ive missed phonecalls because the UI cant wake up and show the incall UI fast enough. There has to be something deep in this phone which causes bad performance.
Im moving to VanirAOSP, as it says in the title of the ROM that its fast and smooth. Lets see if it can outlast any other ROM I've tried.
Sorry for ranting, I just dont get it, is there some secret setting that everyones using and not telling about? Ive tried stock kernel with CM, williams kernel with CM, stock kernel with CrystalPA, same again with williams kernel. Art or dalvik, it seems to make no difference, no matter what, the UI will bug out. Im not moaning at the devs because I know the work they do is hard and is much appreciated. I just wish I knew why this phone cant last 2 weeks without needing to be wiped!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a feeling you are installing too many apps running in background at once. My phone is super smooth, fast and responsive. I just either close apps after I am done with them (kill process) or don't install trash. Deleting some in-build rom apps which you never use could also help.
kwitu said:
I have a feeling you are installing too many apps running in background at once. My phone is super smooth, fast and responsive. I just either close apps after I am done with them (kill process) or don't install trash. Deleting some in-build rom apps which you never use could also help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!
donk165 said:
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could give you a tip about Facebook app and Messenger. There is an app that lets you chat using Facebook app, meaning you can get rid of Messenger. Google it and you will find it, I can't recall the name now.
kwitu said:
I could give you a tip about Facebook app and Messenger. There is an app that lets you chat using Facebook app, meaning you can get rid of Messenger. Google it and you will find it, I can't recall the name now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the way im doing it, i dont actually use messenger, its installed but frozen/disabled so it isnt used, this allows me to chat inside the facebook app but the only downside ive found is that the chat notification dont seem to be working. This was a fix I picked up while browsing the net. Ill try out this app if I can find it, the name would make it much easier to find
donk165 said:
Well VanirAOSP has sorted out my issues for now it seems. I dont really install many apps to be honest, I use the Micro PA Gapps package and I then remove Google Now Launcher, freeze the preinstalled launcher3, install Nova launcher. I have only 17 installed apps, Facebook is the only real hog app I think, I install messenger and then freeze it to get around the Facebook app not letting me use chat within the app. I do also play Marvel Contest of Champions, and I make sure to clear all running apps before playing games. I just feel like now on this ROM, the ram is clearing properly, swiping away apps is freeing up the RAM now.
I think the difference is that this ROM is based on AOSP, whereas before, I was using CM ROM's or Crystal PA which is pretty feature rich. Ill stick with this and see if it will last. This ROM just feels noticeably faster and the UI hasnt crashed once yet, even with a theme on!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And? Are you still satisfied with this rom after a while?
Well the 'ROM decay' creeped back in. I tried to counter it by cleaning things up but I had a few problems, nothing was working, I tried fix permissions from ROM toolbox and then my phone stopped booting, tried hard reset with the button on the back, couldn't get into recovery, pretty much died on me. I eventually got into recovery and caches wipes and that didn't work, I tried reinstalling the ROM and gapps without losing my data, it just got stuck on the boot logo, then recovery stopped working again, I eventually got in and had to wipe data, reinstall ROM and I finally got the phone booting again.
I'm not satisfied to be honest, its frustrating that I have to wipe the phone or reflash the roms so often, never has a phone been this bad for me. I'm selling it and moving to the OnePlus One in a few weeks, this phone has been nothing but headaches.
donk165 said:
Well the 'ROM decay' creeped back in. I tried to counter it by cleaning things up but I had a few problems, nothing was working, I tried fix permissions from ROM toolbox and then my phone stopped booting, tried hard reset with the button on the back, couldn't get into recovery, pretty much died on me. I eventually got into recovery and caches wipes and that didn't work, I tried reinstalling the ROM and gapps without losing my data, it just got stuck on the boot logo, then recovery stopped working again, I eventually got in and had to wipe data, reinstall ROM and I finally got the phone booting again.
I'm not satisfied to be honest, its frustrating that I have to wipe the phone or reflash the roms so often, never has a phone been this bad for me. I'm selling it and moving to the OnePlus One in a few weeks, this phone has been nothing but headaches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IF you are going to stay or at least try for the last time, I suggest formatting /boot but please be careful as I dont really know what will happen if you reboot the device while /boot is empty.
As in PC, an empty boot partition will leave an inaccessible Operating System. If in phone they are the same then I guess it can be much repairable.
IF again it fails and you are still staying I suggest extreme formatting by using the PC Companion and start fresh.
These are still suggestions and I hope you will have a headache free adventures with One plus. Good luck
TechnoSparks said:
IF you are going to stay or at least try for the last time, I suggest formatting /boot but please be careful as I dont really know what will happen if you reboot the device while /boot is empty.
As in PC, an empty boot partition will leave an inaccessible Operating System. If in phone they are the same then I guess it can be much repairable.
IF again it fails and you are still staying I suggest extreme formatting by using the PC Companion and start fresh.
These are still suggestions and I hope you will have a headache free adventures with One plus. Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice, For me, its the lack of RAM on this phone which is my problem. After a reboot, i have about 300mb free ram, and as soon as I have more than one simple app running (or just one game), ill get a very slow UI, and I have to be very careful and patient with it or it will crash. To me, that is terrible, why would anyone think this is acceptable for a smartphone to just about be able to run an app and hold the interface together. When the System UI crashes, or the lockscreen, It frustrates me so much! The most important part of a touchscreen phone is the UI, without it, your just staring at a blank screen.
There has to be something deep in this phone (the kernel?) where its memory management is broken in someway, ive never experienced a phone be so unstable with 1GB of RAM. When I bought it, I was really hopeful it would be good, it was higher specced than my last phone, it had 4g, it had jelly bean updates coming out, and at the time, a future update to kitkat, and we had support from FXP and CM. What weve actually got is a half baked attempt at 4.3 by Sony, a cancelled 4.4 update, and weve been moved to legacy support by FXP when CM11 didnt even get to the stable point. We may have lollipop builds coming out which could be the savior for this phone, but im sick of waiting for something which might not happen. I just want to be able to rely on my phone and not spend half my screen on time waiting for something to crash and then restart.
Back on my Optimus L9, it has only 768MB ram and a lower clocked dual core CPU but that could run CM10 fine, I never ever had UI crashes, ever! I got lag from time to time, but nothing crashed. Thie SP has 100mb+ more RAM available and a higher clocked CPU but it feels so much more clunky and unstable compared to the L9, it should be the other way round. On my nexus 7 2012 which is similarly specced to the SP (apart from the tegra quad CPU) I again, had no UI crashes, I had lags, but at least things didnt crash. My friend has the Xperia L, which is lower specced than the SP and is only on 4.1, but again, he never gets UI crashes and generally, his phone can run games smoother than I can even though he has lower specs!
This phone, for me, just doesn't fit my needs. It cant really multi task how I would expect it to, and having the phone pretty much lock up if its writing to internal storage is a joke, installing an app from the play store, and not being able to bring down the notification bar to look at the progress without causing problems, to me just feels like something is seriously wrong. The lightbar was the only thing ive really liked on the phone to this day. At first, I was loving this phone, it was great, the only problem I had on 4.1 was that I couldn't play Injustice because it would close the game after a while. I thought, ill wait for software updates, hopefully Sony will fix it. Then the 4.3 updates came but they were buggy, but I held onto hope because at the time, 4.4 was in the pipeline. Then we got a few more 4.3 updates which did fix some bugs but this RAM problem was still there. So I gave up on Official software and tried out custom stuff. I've tried modified Stock ROM's where you get more features but the same inherent problems are there. Ive tried CM, but there hasnt been a stable release of 4.4 and the snapshot builds have also stopped. Vanir ROM is designed to be stable, its one of their highest priorities with their builds. And I definitely feel the difference, but this lack of RAM becomes more obvious with time, this week, I've seen my UI crash 4 times.
Ive done what you've said about fully starting fresh with PC companion Ive flashed stock FTF's and Ive done the PC companion method, Ive done that at least 5 times in the past. When I first do it, it seems like everything is okay. But without fail, after a month of use (usually less) the phone will bog down and the RAM issues return. Maybe my specific device has faulty RAM or something or maybe the storage is messed up. All I know is, this phone has not been enjoyable for me to use, lower specced phones are out performing it, and its value has plummeted in trade in stores like CEX, my old L9 that I traded into my local CEX is being sold for more money than an SP is.
Im sorry to rant but ive just had enough of this phone.
Ive got to flash the phone fully back to stock for when I sell it, so ill go back to full stock, and see if it will last.
donk165 said:
Thanks for the advice, For me, its the lack of RAM on this phone which is my problem. After a reboot, i have about 300mb free ram, and as soon as I have more than one simple app running (or just one game), ill get a very slow UI, and I have to be very careful and patient with it or it will crash. To me, that is terrible, why would anyone think this is acceptable for a smartphone to just about be able to run an app and hold the interface together. When the System UI crashes, or the lockscreen, It frustrates me so much! The most important part of a touchscreen phone is the UI, without it, your just staring at a blank screen.
There has to be something deep in this phone (the kernel?) where its memory management is broken in someway, ive never experienced a phone be so unstable with 1GB of RAM. When I bought it, I was really hopeful it would be good, it was higher specced than my last phone, it had 4g, it had jelly bean updates coming out, and at the time, a future update to kitkat, and we had support from FXP and CM. What weve actually got is a half baked attempt at 4.3 by Sony, a cancelled 4.4 update, and weve been moved to legacy support by FXP when CM11 didnt even get to the stable point. We may have lollipop builds coming out which could be the savior for this phone, but im sick of waiting for something which might not happen. I just want to be able to rely on my phone and not spend half my screen on time waiting for something to crash and then restart.
Back on my Optimus L9, it has only 768MB ram and a lower clocked dual core CPU but that could run CM10 fine, I never ever had UI crashes, ever! I got lag from time to time, but nothing crashed. Thie SP has 100mb+ more RAM available and a higher clocked CPU but it feels so much more clunky and unstable compared to the L9, it should be the other way round. On my nexus 7 2012 which is similarly specced to the SP (apart from the tegra quad CPU) I again, had no UI crashes, I had lags, but at least things didnt crash. My friend has the Xperia L, which is lower specced than the SP and is only on 4.1, but again, he never gets UI crashes and generally, his phone can run games smoother than I can even though he has lower specs!
This phone, for me, just doesn't fit my needs. It cant really multi task how I would expect it to, and having the phone pretty much lock up if its writing to internal storage is a joke, installing an app from the play store, and not being able to bring down the notification bar to look at the progress without causing problems, to me just feels like something is seriously wrong. The lightbar was the only thing ive really liked on the phone to this day. At first, I was loving this phone, it was great, the only problem I had on 4.1 was that I couldn't play Injustice because it would close the game after a while. I thought, ill wait for software updates, hopefully Sony will fix it. Then the 4.3 updates came but they were buggy, but I held onto hope because at the time, 4.4 was in the pipeline. Then we got a few more 4.3 updates which did fix some bugs but this RAM problem was still there. So I gave up on Official software and tried out custom stuff. I've tried modified Stock ROM's where you get more features but the same inherent problems are there. Ive tried CM, but there hasnt been a stable release of 4.4 and the snapshot builds have also stopped. Vanir ROM is designed to be stable, its one of their highest priorities with their builds. And I definitely feel the difference, but this lack of RAM becomes more obvious with time, this week, I've seen my UI crash 4 times.
Ive done what you've said about fully starting fresh with PC companion Ive flashed stock FTF's and Ive done the PC companion method, Ive done that at least 5 times in the past. When I first do it, it seems like everything is okay. But without fail, after a month of use (usually less) the phone will bog down and the RAM issues return. Maybe my specific device has faulty RAM or something or maybe the storage is messed up. All I know is, this phone has not been enjoyable for me to use, lower specced phones are out performing it, and its value has plummeted in trade in stores like CEX, my old L9 that I traded into my local CEX is being sold for more money than an SP is.
Im sorry to rant but ive just had enough of this phone.
Ive got to flash the phone fully back to stock for when I sell it, so ill go back to full stock, and see if it will last.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its okay and I have read all of your post
It quite saddens me that some people isnt actually having fun with their SP. Shockingly enough, my SP does not face those mentioned problems (heck most of those that appears in the forum) but some exceptions goes to Stock Rom bugs and game problems.
This is my first android phone, I actually always wanted one but i am a teenager - i dont make money. But since my dad bought me this lovely sp, I have finally gained so much knowledge about android and it somehow further strengthens my Linux knowledge.
Maybe I was just lucky. Perhaps. But who knows if something is still wrong with my phone
I understand things will get older - people will buy new phones, developer will stop developing, people who got bored of customising etc. In fact I have seen so much decline of SP since the discontinued 4.4 update.
This is my first smartphone and I love it. It has an awesome community and awesome devs, but now it is getting old. Which quite sad to me.
I am saving for Ara phone (i hope it doesnt fail like smartwatches do). Since you are quite involved with many developments (i mean you customise your phone much like others), I hope your transition to a new device is a breeze. And above all, doesn't have the bugs that SP has.
LOL, I thought I was the only one with a "faulty SP".
My XSP has the exact same problems as yours. It is very annoying to change ROMS (or wipe data) every month.
The RAM is SO BAD on my SP, even though it only have 1GB of RAM, it should be a lot better. I didn't have such problems on my Motorola Defy + as I have with the XSP.
I thank so much that we have very nice developers, always trying to improve our user exp., but for some people like me it's difficult.
TechnoSparks said:
Its okay and I have read all of your post
It quite saddens me that some people isnt actually having fun with their SP. Shockingly enough, my SP does not face those mentioned problems (heck most of those that appears in the forum) but some exceptions goes to Stock Rom bugs and game problems.
This is my first android phone, I actually always wanted one but i am a teenager - i dont make money. But since my dad bought me this lovely sp, I have finally gained so much knowledge about android and it somehow further strengthens my Linux knowledge.
Maybe I was just lucky. Perhaps. But who knows if something is still wrong with my phone
I understand things will get older - people will buy new phones, developer will stop developing, people who got bored of customising etc. In fact I have seen so much decline of SP since the discontinued 4.4 update.
This is my first smartphone and I love it. It has an awesome community and awesome devs, but now it is getting old. Which quite sad to me.
I am saving for Ara phone (i hope it doesnt fail like smartwatches do). Since you are quite involved with many developments (i mean you customise your phone much like others), I hope your transition to a new device is a breeze. And above all, doesn't have the bugs that SP has.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well atleast you have started on a better android device than my first one. My first was a ZTE Skate and this was back in the gingerbread days. 512MB RAM, Single core CPU, barely any internal storage. Im very used to using android in a minimalist way, but the SP just takes it to a whole different level for me, i cant take it! Im glad that you arnt having all the same problems Im having. The fact that not everyone is getting the problems is a frustration because unless its a widespread problem, people wont really be pulling together to fix it because they dont understand/experience the problems. It has to be some kind of manufacturing defect, maybe certain batches of RAM/Storage chips used in the SP are defective/bad performers.
I hope the XSP continues to work well for you!
Bruno_Puzoni said:
LOL, I thought I was the only one with a "faulty SP".
My XSP has the exact same problems as yours. It is very annoying to change ROMS (or wipe data) every month.
The RAM is SO BAD on my SP, even though it only have 1GB of RAM, it should be a lot better. I didn't have such problems on my Motorola Defy + as I have with the XSP.
I thank so much that we have very nice developers, always trying to improve our user exp., but for some people like me it's difficult.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a very weird problem, but its definitely RAM/Storage related.
I agree with you about the devs, I appreciate their hard work, it is great having all these ROM's to choose from when trying to solve the problems. It just seems it doesn't matter which ROM you are on, the problems will always be there. The problem must lie within the hardware or deep in the software side of things, beyond the ROM's like in the kernel or something. I dont know enough about those sides of a phone, but I can see just from using the phone, something isnt right.
It sucks that you are facing the same problems, but its nice to know im not alone in my experiences, its not just me.
If only we knew what the issue was, maybe there would be a chance to solve the issue.
I have the same problems with my phone exactly and am going to smash it with a hammer when I get a new phone. It is indeed so frustrating, I expect much more from sony!
i stopped to mess up with custom kernels, stock 207 is the best option.
Ondemand cpu governor + underclock to 1500mhz + greenify
Battery life + perfomance
My usage:
4 hours online gaming per day
+ some skype calls
Is there currently any ROM and/or Custom kernel, that doesn't suffer from the memory leak bug?
I am aware that similar questions come up on every other thread.
I also would love to try for myself. Stock KitKat and stock lollipop both suffer from the bug. On lollipop I have much more free ram, but chrome and other apps still redraw when multitasking.
Problem is, I don't want to unlock my bootloader yet, as I'm still considering giving back the phone.
Thanks in advance for any insightful advice.
ratyfu said:
I am aware that similar questions come up on every other thread.
...
Problem is, I don't want to unlock my bootloader yet, as I'm still considering giving back the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You seriously want an answer to that?
Just read "every other thread", then come to a conclusion and act accordingly. Or don't, since you don't want to unlock. Your choice.
doppelhelix said:
You seriously want an answer to that?
Just read "every other thread", then come to a conclusion and act accordingly. Or don't, since you don't want to unlock. Your choice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been reading "every other thread".
And yes, I seriously want an answer to that.
I never said, that I didn't want to unlock my bootloader, eventually I do want to unlock it. But according to your reply, I suppose you don't understand that. Nevermind.
Thanks, anyway.
Titan Prime will yield you the best results with memory, from my experience.
Besides that, all you can do is sit and wait for 5.1. And hope that it will fix the problem.
I've got a (german) XT1068, and I was on build RETDEALL 21.85-14 for the longest time (KK 4.4.4). The phone was sometimes close to unusable due to the memory issues: Almost every time I went back to my launcher (Nova) the widgets would reload (all two of them), every 5th time the whole launcher would have to be restarted. When listening to music, the player would often be killed when it's not the foreground app. This all was already with tuned settings and the like. Simply put, my Galaxy S2 was a much better phone, with better performance and multitasking (same amount of ram, but dual core only)...
I've updated to the 5.0.2 build that was (finally) released a few days ago (22.46-28). It's a world of difference. I would say the problems are either gone or at least they got the biggest of issues under control. So far I haven't had it running without a reboot for multiple days (installing xposed and associated modules tends to require reboots), but so far everything is looking perfectly fine. Widgets haven't reloaded even once, let alone the launcher. Multitasking works, even larger apps weren't killed (like reddit news, which tends to use quite a bit of ram after scrolling for a bit).
So I don't know whether it's fixed, but at the very least this is a fully-stock-option that works perfectly fine (for me), even though I'm rooted and use XPosed that is by no means necessary.
I also have the German OTA update. Everything works fine. As for the memory leak for me that is a thing of the past, was really bad in 4.4.4 and I had the same version as the above poster. Everything stopped in the background, in point of fact there was no multitasking. With 5.0.2 I can play music run a navigation app, surf the net no problem and still see over 400Mbyte free ram in setting all without the dreaded app has stopped working or seeing apps restarting.
Roldorf said:
I also have the German OTA update. Everything works fine. As for the memory leak for me that is a thing of the past, was really bad in 4.4.4 and I had the same version as the above poster. Everything stopped in the background, in point of fact there was no multitasking. With 5.0.2 I can play music run a navigation app, surf the net no problem and still see over 400Mbyte free ram in setting all without the dreaded app has stopped working or seeing apps restarting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4.4.4 didn't have a memory leak, just high minfree values I think.
Lollipop does have a memory leak (and thats mostly googles fault) and the memory management is very buggy when compared to kitkat. The memory leak doesn't show instantly, it shows after some time and you can just reboot the phone to "solve the problem".
If you want a really good rom for multitasking I recommend CM 11 or some rom based on it.
4.4.4 definitely has some serious issues on the MotoG, it was not just the min free values. I had tuned those (basically tried everything), but it made no real difference. So far, LP feels like it's a different phone.
I agree. I can't understand how people would go back to KitKat after trying lollipop. Chrome and other apps still redraw when multitasking though. :\
Let's see if 5.1 fixes that.
BTW: does anyone get graphic glitches in Tapatalk and chrome? Sometimes whole areas of the screen turn glitchy, until I switch to another app or press the back key. (Glitchy= pixels in all colours, like an overheated GPU on a PC would produce.)
I have a N6 purchased Dec 2015 new from Amazon. The only mods, if you can call it that is, I have unlocked the boot loader. I am currently running N6F26Y sideloaded via ADB.
The phone was great when I first got it but now after about a day or so of usage it becomes slow and sluggish and unresponsive I have to restart it to use it. I have done a factory reset a couple of times which gets it back to normal for a week or so and then the problem recurs. Occasionally I will delete the cache which also helps. Snapchat is one of the worse apps - crashes the phone regularly and is a very slow app.
Also the camera can get very slow often taking seconds to take one photo.
I love the phone but it's becoming unusable now. The contrast between this and a new phone (I have purchased a Moto Z) is like night and day. The Moto Z runs instantly, has no lag and is a nice phone. But what I like about the N6 is the large screen which makes it great for videos etc.
Short of perhaps flashing some custom ROM is there anything I could be doing?
I'd recommend flashing a rom like pure nexus, super stable that should fix your problem, otherwise you've done all you can and is the easiest fix
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
lchiu7 said:
I have a N6 purchased Dec 2015 new from Amazon. The only mods, if you can call it that is, I have unlocked the boot loader. I am currently running N6F26Y sideloaded via ADB.
The phone was great when I first got it but now after about a day or so of usage it becomes slow and sluggish and unresponsive I have to restart it to use it. I have done a factory reset a couple of times which gets it back to normal for a week or so and then the problem recurs. Occasionally I will delete the cache which also helps. Snapchat is one of the worse apps - crashes the phone regularly and is a very slow app.
Also the camera can get very slow often taking seconds to take one photo.
I love the phone but it's becoming unusable now. The contrast between this and a new phone (I have purchased a Moto Z) is like night and day. The Moto Z runs instantly, has no lag and is a nice phone. But what I like about the N6 is the large screen which makes it great for videos etc.
Short of perhaps flashing some custom ROM is there anything I could be doing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
It seems like some apps are really slowing down your phone. I use my N6 at home for web browsing mostly as I have a Pixel XL now. Just like you I love the screen size.
The camera has always been slow fore, because of the time it takes to focus...
Did you try using your phone a few days without Snapchat installed? Maybe you also have other misbehaving​ apps installed.
Uninstall Snapchat and other apps and start from here. Reinstall one per one with a few days interval. See if the issue still occurs.
Installing a custom ROM + kernel will likely speed up things a little bit. I second @Dugaldrob with Pure Nexus and I'd suggest ElementalX kernel on top. Running this combo on N6, N6P and Pixel XL and they work flawlessly.
I don't believe installing a custom ROM alone will fix your issue though. Stock ROM shouldn't cause the phone to slow down to the point you need to reboot to use it.
Finding the culprit will...
Good luck...
5.1 said:
Hello,
It seems like some apps are really slowing down your phone. I use my N6 at home for web browsing mostly as I have a Pixel XL now. Just like you I love the screen size.
The camera has always been slow fore, because of the time it takes to focus...
Did you try using your phone a few days without Snapchat installed? Maybe you also have other misbehaving​ apps installed.
Uninstall Snapchat and other apps and start from here. Reinstall one per one with a few days interval. See if the issue still occurs.
Installing a custom ROM + kernel will likely speed up things a little bit. I second @Dugaldrob with Pure Nexus and I'd suggest ElementalX kernel on top. Running this combo on N6, N6P and Pixel XL and they work flawlessly.
I don't believe installing a custom ROM alone will fix your issue though. Stock ROM shouldn't cause the phone to slow down to the point you need to reboot to use it.
Finding the culprit will...
Good luck...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
First step is to remove Snapchat. I rarely use the app and only because my daughter sends stuff on it. I am going to tell her to send me stuff via another method
If that doesn't work then it's a new ROM. I have performed ROM installs before but have never flashed a new kernel on a phone before so that will be a new experience. Hopefully I won't brick the phone
lchiu7 said:
Thanks
First step is to remove Snapchat. I rarely use the app and only because my daughter sends stuff on it. I am going to tell her to send me stuff via another method
If that doesn't work then it's a new ROM. I have performed ROM installs before but have never flashed a new kernel on a phone before so that will be a new experience. Hopefully I won't brick the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Don't worry, it's really easy. Also, if you are lost, there must be a ton of tutorials in general section. If you are lost yet, just ask and someone will point you in the right direction...
Good luck...
lchiu7 said:
I have a N6 purchased Dec 2015 new from Amazon. The only mods, if you can call it that is, I have unlocked the boot loader. I am currently running N6F26Y sideloaded via ADB.
The phone was great when I first got it but now after about a day or so of usage it becomes slow and sluggish and unresponsive I have to restart it to use it. I have done a factory reset a couple of times which gets it back to normal for a week or so and then the problem recurs. Occasionally I will delete the cache which also helps. Snapchat is one of the worse apps - crashes the phone regularly and is a very slow app.
Also the camera can get very slow often taking seconds to take one photo.
I love the phone but it's becoming unusable now. The contrast between this and a new phone (I have purchased a Moto Z) is like night and day. The Moto Z runs instantly, has no lag and is a nice phone. But what I like about the N6 is the large screen which makes it great for videos etc.
Short of perhaps flashing some custom ROM is there anything I could be doing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been running Pure Nexus and wanted to let peeps know I put Nitrogen on and man it's so smooth, my wifi tether is back and I went to sleep last night with 50% battery still. When I installed it I opted for the nano gapps I think so like 175mb for minimal apps and maybe that's why it's running so efficient. Maybe I could have re-installed Pure Nexus with a clean install and it would have gotten better but it was a good time to try something else. Also when Nitrogen got an update I was notified just like stock and it downloaded. I didn't even know these could do that. Anyways give it a try and you might just switch back. I was looking into new phones but if it keeps working so smooth with battery longer than a day then I'm fine for now.
Snap chat is not that big of an issue. What I have found to cause the device to slow down is normally almost full device storage and a crappy cache release code in apps. Some apps don't release their cache properly. So it causes lag. This is why a reboot seems to fix it.
While a custom rom may fix this issue it is not the solution. The proper solution is to find what is causing it and fix/repair/ditch it.
Worst offenders for crappy code in my thoughts. Other will disagree with one on this list I am sure. So don't bother. I know people swear by it. It runs like crap for me at times and causes my whole device to lag until I close it out.
1 Facebook
2 FB messenger
3 Google Chrome ( don't do it lol)
4 whatsapp
5 Hangouts
Mind you this is just a list on my usage. It may very per user and even device (considering different hardware)
zelendel said:
... It runs like crap for me at times and causes my whole device to lag until I close it out.
1 Facebook
2 FB messenger
3 Google Chrome ( don't do it lol)
4 whatsapp
5 Hangouts
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can confirm this, because I've removed these apps (-whatsapp) and also decrypted the data partition...
My N6 is fast.
Maybe a lite stock ROM and an other kernel is a good start.
NLBeev said:
I can confirm this, because I've removed these apps (-whatsapp) and also decrypted the data partition...
My N6 is fast.
Maybe a lite stock ROM and an other kernel is a good start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently I have FB, FB messenger, and Chrome but when I installed gapps I chose a super lite install so tons of bloat and google apps were not installed and my battery has gone way up and it's so smooth. I'm sure even when we don't use apps they're always doing something in the background. I bet you're right and a stock lite ROM would be good too with the minimal bs apps.
zelendel said:
Snap chat is not that big of an issue. What I have found to cause the device to slow down is normally almost full device storage and a crappy cache release code in apps. Some apps don't release their cache properly. So it causes lag. This is why a reboot seems to fix it.
While a custom rom may fix this issue it is not the solution. The proper solution is to find what is causing it and fix/repair/ditch it.
Worst offenders for crappy code in my thoughts. Other will disagree with one on this list I am sure. So don't bother. I know people swear by it. It runs like crap for me at times and causes my whole device to lag until I close it out.
1 Facebook
2 FB messenger
3 Google Chrome ( don't do it lol)
4 whatsapp
5 Hangouts
Mind you this is just a list on my usage. It may very per user and even device (considering different hardware)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice. Of the list of apps above I have only Chrome and Hangouts. I really can't see replacing either of them.
I also should have pointed out that the phone locks up randomly requiring a hard reset. I wonder if an errant app could cause that or I have some RAM problem. Certainly on a PC bad RAM can use in Windows a blue screen or something but perhaps Android isn't so forgiving?
lchiu7 said:
Thanks for the advice. Of the list of apps above I have only Chrome and Hangouts. I really can't see replacing either of them.
I also should have pointed out that the phone locks up randomly requiring a hard reset. I wonder if an errant app could cause that or I have some RAM problem. Certainly on a PC bad RAM can use in Windows a blue screen or something but perhaps Android isn't so forgiving?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would flash TWRP, flash supersu in TWRP to root, make a complete backup in twrp, then remove whatever Google apps you're not using with a system app removal app. Getting some of that bloat off the device should help. If it's still laggy, then look into a custom ROM. I run Tesla on my Nexus 6 with none of the issues you're having. I don't decrypt it either
Running abdroid 7.1 here. I dont get any slowdowns, at leas until the battery doesnt drop below 50 and 25 percent.
Im running a custom kernel and my phone is rooted. Everything else is stock.
Can you flash a custom kernel and presumably TWRP without wiping the phone? If so then might try that before a custom ROM
lchiu7 said:
Can you flash a custom kernel and presumably TWRP without wiping the phone? If so then might try that before a custom ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Since your bootloader is unlocked, flash TWRP and install the kernel, no problem.
Might give you a slight boost at first sight, but your device will likely slow down over time anyway...
Cheers...
I'm on 7.0 with the April SP. I have dozens of apps installed, including Hangouts. I use Firefox for browsing, I like it better than chrome (and you can install an ad blocker).
My camera slows down when the battery is under 40%, and the whole device slows dramatically, though not unusable, at or below 5%. But otherwise, no issues what so ever.
One solution that I have not seen suggested here is resetting the device and NOT taking the Google account backup of all your apps. I would suggest making a completely clean install of the factory rom you have and installing one or two apps at a time, most important to you first. And do this for a few days/weeks until you find the app that's misbehaving.
Although there are general bad players out there, this bad app could be unique to your device. Just because all devices of the same model have the same specs and components, doesn't mean that there isn't variability in parts quality.
I would do this before trying any new roms or kernels. Find the true problem first.
Good luck!
edit:
I had another idea: Go into your battery stats and network stats and storage stats and see if any app seems to be using too much of any, or all of the 3. This may get you the answer more quickly.