Develop Bugs

What causes the Home Screen to crash?

Relatively often I find when turning the Desire on I get a white spinning circle and the home screen has basically crashed. Most of the time this clears itself but sometimes it doesn't and I have to turn off/on the phone (* see below).
What background apps/services are known to do this? I'm pretty sure I'm killing something using Task Panel, I shouldn't be.
* I've found pressing the Search button and then accessing the People App (from the Phone option) clears the crash.
Thanks

If you're allowing any process to automatically kill other processes, you're asking for trouble. First disable that, its pointless and uses more resources/battery than it saves.
If you still have an issue with the home app locking up, in my experience its usually a badly written widget. If you have any widgets on your screens that aren't "original" I would start by getting rid of them and then re-adding one-by-one over time until you find the culprit. Check the comments/reviews of them too, if they're locking up the phone people will usually comment about it on the Market.
If that still hasn't fixed it, I'm not sure what else would be locking up the home app, my next suggestion would be a hard-reset to "clean up" and go from there.

foner78 said:
If you're allowing any process to automatically kill other processes, you're asking for trouble. First disable that, its pointless and uses more resources/battery than it saves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean? I use Task Panel, that kills apps/services. Is that what you mean? But I'm not using it to kill system services just :
BlueTooth share - I don't use Bluetooth, why does this still run?
Photos - HTC Photo App
Gallery - Nexus One Phto App
FM Radio
MyBackup Pro
3G Watchdog - Monitor data usage
ShopSavvy - Check prices elsewhere
Footprints - What a pointless app!
TrainTimes UK
Facebook App
These are killed when I put the phone in standby or I click Kill All.
I really don't see why most of these have to run, when I turn the phone on but there's no option to stop them doing it. I really don't need a lot of these running all the time!
I'd also think, if I kill an App and it's needed, it would just reload itself. So when the Home Screens re-loaded, it would be running again in the Task Manager but there's nothing there.
foner78 said:
If you still have an issue with the home app locking up, in my experience its usually a badly written widget. If you have any widgets on your screens that aren't "original" I would start by getting rid of them and then re-adding one-by-one over time until you find the culprit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only widget I'm using that doesn't come with the HTC Desire is the HTC Notes widget. Thanks btw.

As foner78 has already suggested, I would try first try removing your task killer (TaskPanel) so as to eliminate it as the cause of your issue.
It is also worthwhile reading up on how Android manages processes/multitasks - good sources are here and here.
The Desire is my third Android phone, and whilst I've tried using task killers, I've come to the conclusion that leaving the OS to handle it itself is the best option.
Regards,
Dave

This is also my second Android phone.
I would definitely recommend you read the links posted by foxmeister to get a better understanding of processes/activites/services on Android and why you don't need to play any role in killing them.
The short version is... you have nothing to gain from killing processes in this way and you do risk having problems with your phone. Right now, you DO have a problem with the home app and you are randomly killing processes. Logically it makes sense to rule this out as the cause.
Got to be worth trying, surely!?

Thanks guys.
I removed Task Panel and put on Advanced Task Killer instead. Advanced Task Killer lets you filter out system services, so you can only kill Apps. Problem fixed.

bradavon said:
Thanks guys.
I removed Task Panel and put on Advanced Task Killer instead. Advanced Task Killer lets you filter out system services, so you can only kill Apps. Problem fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Geez, talk about missing the point...

Well I'm glad that you've got rid of the problem, though I would still urge you to stop ANY automatic process killing as that still leads to problems and has no advantage. There are many topics on here to explain why, and the links posted previously. Do yourself a favour and learn about android processes. Your understanding of processes from other systems such as Windows simply does not apply here.
Still, you can lead horse to water...

The explanation from the Android devs is quite nice and help understand how it works but in reality is not always like that.
If you use any task amnager to monitor the memory usage you will notice that overtime the OS will consume a lot of the memory to the point that will render the OS slower.
What i mean is that even if Android works perfectly managing the memory we cannot say the same about the applications we install.
I've used/tested pratically all the top 100 apps for Android and a LOT of them will not work as the devs say.
I know it is not an Android problem, but still from time to time you need to kill some of those apps manually.
My opinion is to not get rid of the task manager, but just stop the auto-killing process. Then if you notice some slow down on the system, use it to check what apps are holding back memory (after you have closed them for a while).
Once you found what application is giving problems, search an alternative because the one you are using is not developped correctly.

cgrec92 said:
Geez, talk about missing the point...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not missed any point thank you. I asked for advice why the home screen was crashing and I was given it. I read that informative document over at Android HQ and now have a better idea of how Android memory management works.
It still means I want to be in control of the apps running on "my" phone. Some apps consume way too much memory (although as that document describes, that "usually" isn't a problem) and some connect with my phone's data connection way too often. It also annoys me Apps I never ever use still insist in running all the time, like the Stock Control App and Footprints (does anyone use that?). The latter seems to do more than it appears (usually if I kill it, it takes the home screen with it). I don't kill those two any more but it still annoys me they run.
It looks like Android is much, much better than Windows Mobile at App memory management but that too claimed to kill apps when memory was low. Except it never did.
Since "not killing" system services/apps my Desire's Home Screen hasn't crashed once. I see no harm in killing Third Party Apps, as Krpano says it can sometimes be necessary.
It's always really annoyed me Windows Mobile has no ethos of a simple "exit" button, so few apps have it. On Android I've yet to come across any app with an exit buton. Some apps say they have one but it merely hides the app to the background. We should be given the choice of exiting an app, when we're finished with it. Windows, Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) and MAC OS all have such a feature as default.

bradavon said:
I've not missed any point thank you. I asked for advice why the home screen was crashing and I was given it. I read that informative document over at Android HQ and now have a better idea of how Android memory management works.
It still means I want to be in control of the apps running on "my" phone. Some apps consume way too much memory (although as that document describes, that "usually" isn't a problem) and some connect with my phone's data connection way too often. It also annoys me Apps I never ever use still insist in running all the time, like the Stock Control App and Footprints (does anyone use that?). The latter seems to do more than it appears (usually if I kill it, it takes the home screen with it). I don't kill those two any more but it still annoys me they run.
It looks like Android is much, much better than Windows Mobile at App memory management but that too claimed to kill apps when memory was low. Except it never did.
Since "not killing" system services/apps my Desire's Home Screen hasn't crashed once. I see no harm in killing Third Party Apps, as Krpano says it can sometimes be necessary.
It's always really annoyed me Windows Mobile has no ethos of a simple "exit" button, so few apps have it. On Android I've yet to come across any app with an exit buton. Some apps say they have one but it merely hides the app to the background. We should be given the choice of exiting an app, when we're finished with it. Windows, Linux (correct me if I'm wrong) and MAC OS all have such a feature as default.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OR you can just let Android do all this for you...

cgrec92 said:
Geez, talk about missing the point...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was a bit harsh my friend!

While I respect the point that it is YOUR phone and of course you can choose how you use it, we are simply offering you advice. Please don't take offence at this, but some of the things you say in your last post show us that you still do not understand Android processes.
I would just like to explain that very often when you see an app "running" in the background using a Task Manager, it is not actually running at all... by which I mean it is not consuming any CPU time. These apps are simply left resident in the memory so that they are quick to resume if/when you come to use them again. When memory is short and another task tries to grab some Android makes a decision about which of those applications you are least likely to use again soon and kills it. Literally kills it, erasing all traces from memory. This is of course totally transparent to the user.
On older Android phones the "cleanups" often resulted in pauses in the user experience and this is why I used a Task Manager on my G1. However the Desire has so much more memory and CPU time combined with the updated Android code that this all happens without you seeing it. I would suggest to you that the only reason you are aware of these apps in the background is because you have gone looking in a Task Manager which is giving you misleading information.
I don't recommend removing the Task Manager, it is useful when an App does "go bad", but I strongly recommend disabling all automated task killing. By running that you are using actual CPU time and battery resources, which has a greater impact on overall system performance than the resident background applications. You may disagree based on your PC or WinMo experience, but it simple is the case with Android which manages tasks and memory very differently to those.
The final point is... having 30MB of free memory on the device is no different to having 40MB free. As long as a process has space to load and run it the "free" space is irrelevant on these devices. When a process doesn't have space Android makes space by killing the background apps in the most efficient way possible.
I hope you'll consider my advice carefully and at least try it, you will have a better Android experience if you do, but of course if you choose to do things your way then I still hope you have a good experience with your Desire

Close an Application?

Hi
This might be a stupid question, but anyways:
I bought me a HTC Desire yesterday and im very happy with it.
Now i installed the Advanced Task Killer as i heard its a good app.
Now, every time i open something, like the SNESoid Player, or even my SMS(Messages), and the close it by pressing the Home or back button, i see afterwards in the Task Killer that its still running!?
So, how do i "close" an application, or is this just normal? It's pretty weird to me.
Thanks

This is one of the most asked and answered questions. Search and you shall find.

You probably used a WM device before Android I can imagine. Android OS handles all that stuff automatically, you shouldn't worry about apps not closing because when an app isn't used it isn't using either memory or CPU. When a new application opens and needs memory, the one(s) still running will close and give space for the new one.

As "ArtieQ" said it's not recommended to use a task killer.
But if you really need to stop a program you can use your native task manager, from "settings">applications>manage applications - then when the list of applications loads, you can press menu button and choose "filter" and then "running". Now when you choose an application from the list, it will show you information for it and an option to "force stop" it, that is to close it.

Thanks alot!
Well, i used a crappy iPhone 3G before..no multitasking you know

I was looking for an answer to this question and find something here but I am still a little bit confused : many applications that I have tested dont close if I press the home or the back button and they don't have any "quit" or "exit" command or menu entry. I was facing some battery issues with all these apps in the background. It's true that uninstalling some of them and force closing others in the app manager solved the issue but it is really not confortable to go in the app manager every time after using the phone to close the apps and save battery. I am wondering if an auto-close application exist in the market...

Advanced task manager has an autokill function within It's settings. It also has a desktop widget that you can press to kill apps when you want. You will probably want to add some of your apps to the ignore list though so notifications etc still work ok
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

hans moleman said:
Advanced task manager has an autokill function within It's settings. It also has a desktop widget that you can press to kill apps when you want. You will probably want to add some of your apps to the ignore list though so notifications etc still work ok
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember that installed somthing like advanced task manager and it ended up by eating my battery charge cause it was running all the time. I'll test this and report back.
Thanks for the tip

Instead of using a task manager/killer consider using 'autostarts' which is an app (paid) which allows you to stop apps starting automatically.
For example, maps gets started when you do almost anything and once started really eats your battery.
I've been using autostarts for a while now and would definitely recommended it for battery saving.

thanks for this tip iain2510

Task killer not killing apps

I have tried 3 different task killers but each one do not seem to be killing the task even though it says it is.
When i open the "killed" apps, they open to the last screen before they were killed.
I am using the froyo ROM. On 2.1, when the apps were killed and then re-opened them, it always went back to the main screen.

perhaps stop using them u only disturb androids internal memory managment.

I prefer using task killers, it made the phone quicker when i was on 2.1

U should search Google, for why android doesn't need task killers.
Cyanogen even mentioned it in his tweets.
Tadkillers are pointless on android
Sent from my Desire using XDA App

nope they are not.
but i agree they are useless on daily operation
i am using them to kill everything after boot, since android loads everything into memory.
which is not usefull either.
after that one kill, i am also not using any.

Thanks, I find the task killers are very convenient to use.
When I kill a app, I prefer to go to its main home page rather the last page I was on.
Can others confirm if there having any issues regarding this?
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

Right after experimenting a little, i have discovered the following.
The task killers are killing apps. I have done a test to confirm this.
I have opened many apps and then gone into the menu then RUNNING APPLICATIONS. There it shows me all the opens that i have opened. So i then kill nthem using a task killer and i go back to RUNNING APPLICATIONS. Now these apps are not there so they have been killed.
This "issue" that im having may be standard feature of froyo.
So can anyone open a few apps, use them for a few seconds and then kill them. When you re-open them, do they go to the last page you were on or do they go to app main page.
thanks

Can anyone just do a quick test for me on there desire?
It will be much appreciated.

[Q] How to kill or close apps in HTC One X

Hi Guys,
I've noticed that when i "remove" (flick upwards) an app from Recent Apps, it does not really kills/closes that app. I know i can go to Task Manager and kill that app. My question is that is there any way (settings) that enables "Kill" of the app when i remove it (using upward flick) from the Recent Apps.
I tried looking up for this but was not successful hence a new thread (i was somewhat sure someone must have ask for it already).
Thanks

veerm said:
Hi Guys,
I've noticed that when i "remove" (flick upwards) an app from Recent Apps, it does not really kills/closes that app. I know i can go to Task Manager and kill that app. My question is that is there any way (settings) that enables "Kill" of the app when i remove it (using upward flick) from the Recent Apps.
I tried looking up for this but was not successful hence a new thread (i was somewhat sure someone must have ask for it already).
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont believe that there is a setting where you can change that. If you want to kill an individual app, use the task manager but in general, there is really no need to be killing all of your apps - the Android OS is designed to have apps sitting there not closed (and the HOX has 1gig of RAM so your shouldnt see any slow down anyway!).
Some custom ROMS for other devices do have a setting where you can set longpress backbutton to kill the app that you are in. Havent seen this in any One X roms yet but im sure it will come

It has been written many times before but can't be said enough, task killers isnt helping the system at all! Android OS itself controls the ram memory and closes the apps that isnt used in case of running out of memory
Skickat från min HTC One X via Tapatalk 2

App killers are phone killers!!1
Even if you force close the app, it may reopen immediately. some apps do this on their own. you dont need to worry about it.
the phone will prioritise the currently running app over cached or paused apps when it needs to. this is an autonomous feature (you don't have any control over it)
I stopped using App Killers and found performance/battery-life/usability to be exactly the same.
remember, Android has your back.

Megabunny said:
Even if you force close the app, it may reopen immediately. some apps do this on their own. you dont need to worry about it.
the phone will prioritise the currently running app over cached or paused apps when it needs to. this is an autonomous feature (you don't have any control over it)
I stopped using App Killers and found performance/battery-life/usability to be exactly the same.
remember, Android has your back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah but those apps are open and fill up almost whole 1GB RAM and when somone wants play game it is laggy cos not enough ram ..
Even when am broqsing internet is so laggy ..
But when u not doing with mobile it doesnt drain battery cos cpu is idle 99%

gifton1 said:
the HOX has 1gig of RAM so your shouldnt see any slow down anyway!).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well you will see slow down because it's an HTC One X..somehow HTC have managed to reduce the performance of a quad core processor to something that resembles a dual core device...juttering and slowing down..hogging all the RAM and re-drawing the launcher constantly
well done HTC. This the last time you're getting my money.

Megabunny said:
...
the phone will prioritise the currently running app over cached or paused apps when it needs to. this is an autonomous feature (you don't have any control over it)
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, however, the priorization is all wrong. When I send my browser to the background just to open an email for an address, most of the times the browser gets closed.
So, when I revert to the browser it has to start all over.
When I look in taskmanager, I see many programs that should be closed before closing the browser, because the browser was the lastest used application.
I would love to have more control over the dumb task closer of the HOX! For instance:
- really close applications that have been in the background for at least a certain amount of time (so games can have more memory without stutter!)
- close applications in reverse order of latest used instead of used most memory
- try to leave at least a certain amount of memory free (and let ME choose this amount)
So, when many tell that task killers are not needed they are only right for non-HOX devices. In other words, the HOX task killer that works automagically has serious issues preventing us to multi-task!

Bright.Light said:
- try to leave at least a certain amount of memory free (and let ME choose this amount)
!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
linux caches stuff in memory to make it quicker when you do want it. unused ram is wasted ram. it is not like windows.

[Q] should I use task killers?

I have about 68mb free on ram and I noticed that useless apps are still running (e. g. Facebook, office suit, and other useless apps). I try to force stop them via settings but they still turn on by them selfs. Also, I think this is the reason why my battery does run out quick since theres apps runnimg in the background. Should I get a task killer e

No.
Using a task killer is like playing god, let the phone kill the app.
And anyway, apps usually start again and consume more ram after you have killed them.
Sent from my Xperia Play using Tapatalk 2

TwilightLoz said:
I have about 68mb free on ram and I noticed that useless apps are still running (e. g. Facebook, office suit, and other useless apps). I try to force stop them via settings but they still turn on by them selfs. Also, I think this is the reason why my battery does run out quick since theres apps runnimg in the background. Should I get a task killer e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keiran is spot on. Try un-installing apps you don't use (be careful with system apps) and you can also stop apps from running at boot with something like Autorun Manager
Remember to make a nandroid backup before you do anything, just in case it goes wrong

TwilightLoz said:
I have about 68mb free on ram and I noticed that useless apps are still running (e. g. Facebook, office suit, and other useless apps). I try to force stop them via settings but they still turn on by them selfs. Also, I think this is the reason why my battery does run out quick since theres apps runnimg in the background. Should I get a task killer e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No! Free RAM is wasted RAM.
Sent from my HTC Desire S using xda premium

Task killers do more harm than good

Facebook and other apps will start anyway after "killing" them, maybe itz time for root and delete those apps from autorun?
Wybazgrane za pomocą Neo V w tapatalk 2.

I feel that the reason you use the task manager is only to fully quit programs/games which you KNOW will just eat up memory for no good reason, and won't reload and take up more memory. I've done this when using apps such as OnLive, where I want to kill the program compeletely so it doesn't freeze my game when I exit out. Yah, I could have ust quit the program completely, but sometimes things come up and..... I also use it to kill processes which OBVIOUSLY are causing the phone to hang. In short, I use it as a KILL command and I make sure to use it sparingly. I think of it as a super force quit option. If you think of a task manager as that, then you should be fine with one. I understand that people think that having almost no RAM free is the right way to go, and I somewhat agree, but I feel that there are times when you should free up the ram so you can replace a bad thing with a good one. I don't want my browser, whcih is lagging all over the place for some reason to take away ram from my game, my keyboard, or my voice recognition (I use it a lot). Nope, I could be better served killing the browser completely and instead loading up some programs I use more freqently, or perhaps just reloading the browser in general.

Beez thats what I meant. I just want to use it to only disable the autorun. Is there app that does that? My phone is rooted.

There's an app called Android Assistant that has an option to disable apps from starting up on boot, and so does Rom Toolbox. Rom Toolbox has a lot more options, but Android Assistant is easier to use.

I like using the Autostarts app. It costs a buck but it works wonderfully at removing programs/processes from boot