Develop Bugs

Low memory help!

I am fully rooted and running toasted delight beta 2 rom. I like to use a task manager and kill my programs every hour or so. How ever my free memory was about 170 or so. Now its 70mbs. What do I do other than restart my phone?
from my evo son!

In my opinion, I wouldn't worry about it. Task killers do not even seem necessary unless you are getting FC's or very bad performance because of a lack of memory (it would have to be at 30MB or less to reach a critical level)
Android memory management can usually do a pretty good job handling all the applications you have open, if memory runs low it begins a procedure of terminating the app's you have not used in a while, freeing up more space for newly opened apps (you can think about it like a stack really)
Android also performs something along the lines of pre-loading commonly used apps into memory. Even if you are not using the app, if it is commonly used then it can get partially loaded into memory. Thus, if you use an app killer to kill off an app or service, if you commonly use the app then android may still be loading it into memory (and therefore it will bring your total memory down).
anyone with corrections please do

having unused memory = worthless. In fact, I use a memory management prog to set any custom rom back to default memory management settings (off the top of my head something like 24mb of unused memory left is when it goes in to action).
I think this is a windows vs linux type thinking... I've noticed that, ever since I switched to linux I've gotten used to the fact that my OS is prepping things for the future (i.e. preloading stuff into memory that it thinks I will need). In the end it makes the system much snappier.

[APP] BFreeMem Alternative - Indirectly Freeing RAM

I think many of us are using some kind of task killer. BUT, I find task killer sometimes cause more problem than it solves. And sometimes it doesnt really increase free RAM.
What I did was create a simple app to force Android memory manager to free RAM (by unloading tasks based on its own logic). This way you eliminate 3rd party task killer wrongful termination of tasks such as those active ones required by widgets etc.
This app just basically starts and creates a huge heap (forcing Android to free RAM) and then closes.
(You may still see this task linger in memory after you run it, but it will be unloaded the next time you start other app. You will see your free RAM increased a lot)
====Edit
You May not see free RAM increase immediately after running. You will see RAM increase a lot a bit later after you have started other app (which forces BfreeMem to be unloaded from memory)
Tip: Just put a shortcut on desktop. Click it when your RAM is low (<50-60Mb) and it will do its job. Dont run it when your free RAM is above 90Mb.

I'm trying it
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This app should be tested by more Samsung Galaxy S owners to see if is working as it should be or not.

Try already.... No diff.... What's the difference?
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cosmoboi said:
Try already.... No diff.... What's the difference?
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Click to collapse
mib1800 already had got ur all private data, no more diffs.

cosmoboi said:
Try already.... No diff.... What's the difference?
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
You have to wait for BfreeMem to be unloaded. (If you are impatient use a Task killer to unload it and you see it frees up lots of RAM.
Basically BFreeMem is a very bloated. When it starts it force Android memory manager to unload other tasks to cater to its RAM requirement. After that if you start other app, Android mem mgr will unload Bfreemem thus freeing huge chunks.
I tweak it to works best if your free RAM is around 50-60Mb. When I run it and when BfreeMem is unloaded later, free RAM goes up to about 100Mb.
btw: this app requires no permission so your data is safe

AutoKiller is a much better alternative.

The concept sounds correct. Not entire sure if it will work in practice.

psychedelic'd said:
AutoKiller is a much better alternative.
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My purpose is to have something that does not circumvent Android memory manager which keeps track of tasks and their stats. It knows better what tasks are best to kill based on their usage/last access/active state/priority. Furthermore, if Android memory manager kill a task due to low memory, it will save the state for that task so that the next time that task is used the saved state is restored.
3rd party task killers sometimes mess this up by killing tasks which are actively use (resulting in those tasks being restarted just after being killed leading to wasted power and more lag) or killing dependent tasks such as those used by widgets without saved state causing widgets to malfunction.
snapper.fishes said:
The concept sounds correct. Not entire sure if it will work in practice.
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I am using it. It does free up RAM. Is it useful? Depends. If you have lots of active apps (widgets/service etc), those freed RAM is filled up soon as Android restore back those "killed" tasks. Not much gain here. On the other hand, if you have lots of zombie apps lingering in memory then yes. The extra RAM does give a boost to the next app you open

AutoKiller is less of a task killer and more of a memory manager. Sort of like what your app is trying to do, but much better. More information: http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details
Your concept is good, but having an app that continually increases ram usage will waste battery. Then having to kill that app manually in order to free up ram is tedious. Just my 2 cents.
The new task manager in Touchwiz has a function to manually clear ram any way, which works great.

psychedelic'd said:
AutoKiller is less of a task killer and more of a memory manager. Sort of like what your app is trying to do, but much better. More information: http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details
Your concept is good, but having an app that continually increases ram usage will waste battery. Then having to kill that app manually in order to free up ram is tedious. Just my 2 cents.
The new task manager in Touchwiz has a function to manually clear ram any way, which works great.
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Click to collapse
OK. AutoKiller is changing Linux configuration. Unfortunately, it needs root.
I have used the TouchWiz TaskMgr clean Ram at safe level - it still messed up my widgets (Beautiful widgets, weather & toggle)
Bfreemem app does not continually run or increase RAM usage. You just run it when the free RAM is low (or close to threshold). At this low RAM level it just knocks other tasks out of RAM. btw: You should NOT run it when you have huge amount of free RAM. You should run it when RAM is low like <50Mb.
You dont really have to kill Bfreemem task manually since it will be quickly unloaded by the Android memory manager when RAM is required since its state is finished.
JUst put a shortcut on the desktop and click it when you feel RAM level is low and it will do its job.

Can it be used with autokiller?
It could be also automated to check if memory is low, and automatically kill applications. Battery drain would be present in that case tho..

Never has the default task killer from samsung messed up my widgets including Beautiful weather, I tried using task killer and never saw the benefits of it since andriod automatically keeps 40MB of free ram...

EarlZ said:
Never has the default task killer from samsung messed up my widgets including Beautiful weather, I tried using task killer and never saw the benefits of it since andriod automatically keeps 40MB of free ram...
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When I try the option Level 1 - Clear Memory (in Samsung task killer), my beautiful widget clock stop working.
Soniboy84 said:
Can it be used with autokiller?
It could be also automated to check if memory is low, and automatically kill applications. Battery drain would be present in that case tho..
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Personally, I dont use task killer. Not sure whether Autokiller kills tasks physically or just adjust some running config. Just have a feeling task killers (those that kill tasks physically) cause RAM leak. For example when my phone reboot, I can see at least 12 tasks (in Advanced Task Killer) and free RAM is about 95Mb. If I physically kill those tasks, my RAM may temporarily goes up to 130Mb but sometime later free RAM drops to 50-60Mb and there were no more tasks to kill.
When I use Bfreemem, my free RAM fluctuates betw. 60-100 Mb and I can still see all/most of those tasks that were there just after boot-up.
If you have one of those scheduler/timer app, you can just use those to schedule Bfreemem to run regularly. (I can build another timer app to schedule)

[Q] Which custom ROM offers the best ram management?

Is there a particular rom which offers better ram management to allow for apps to stay in the memory longer, and cached apps get less priority?
I'm getting annoyed of apps that are suppose to be running all the time in the notification bar, but they are constantly restarting because the ram gets too low, but in fact, there is enough ram, but it's being taken up by cached apps instead!
Maybe I'm asking too much. Are there ROMS which:
1) offer more ram by being "trim"
2) manage memory better for multitasking
I really wanted to keep this phone stock, but this is pathetic! I feel that my old phone, with a "huge" 256mb ram chip was able to run more software in the background than my GN is! I've stripped all the useful apps off this phone and memory management is still an issue.

isn't the kernel responsible for that and not the rom?

zephiK said:
isn't the kernel responsible for that and not the rom?
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Good question. I figured some roms are made lighter by removing stuff on it you don't need, and when it's done on a system level, I assumed that less ram would be needed for the os to operate.
Maybe someone can explain this?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

I mean yeah, to a extent.. I'd believe that ROM and Kernel both contributes to it but kernel is the bigger player when it comes to optimizing "RAM."
I use AOKP + Franco Kernel if that helps. No lag problems, never even had it when it came to stock ICS. You'd might want to check your apps and see if there's a bad app causing memory leaks.

EP2008 said:
Is there a particular rom which offers better ram management to allow for apps to stay in the memory longer, and cached apps get less priority?
I'm getting annoyed of apps that are suppose to be running all the time in the notification bar, but they are constantly restarting because the ram gets too low, but in fact, there is enough ram, but it's being taken up by cached apps instead!
Maybe I'm asking too much. Are there ROMS which:
1) offer more ram by being "trim"
2) manage memory better for multitasking
I really wanted to keep this phone stock, but this is pathetic! I feel that my old phone, with a "huge" 256mb ram chip was able to run more software in the background than my GN is! I've stripped all the useful apps off this phone and memory management is still an issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AOKP and a few other roms have the option to change the minimum ram before android os starts killing background apps. The default is about 80MB I believe. You can decrease it (do not forget to check set on boot), but I do not think it is recommended to go too low.
If you are having low memory issues its probably because of a rogue app. Install System Tuner and check for background apps that use more than ~10-20MB of memory.

Why I don't use a Swap Partition anymore

I am convinced it hurts more than helps on a phone with a decent amount of memory such as the Evo.
I'm also convinced anyone talking about how swap could improve things usually isn't talking about an Evo. Most of the gushing reports of swap nirvana I have come across were written years ago** when android phones were new and had very small amounts of RAM.
Basically, what it comes down to is this:
Android has ways of managing memory.
Tons of tweaks and scripts (eg task killers, v6, juwe, carodope et al) have tried to improve upon this.
If you add swap into the mix you have a mess. They fight each other.
In my experience it adds significant, experience-wrecking lag, even on a fast SD card.
And for what?
So you can occasionally run a large app (and on an Evo it would have to be *very* large), pop over to different app, and resume the original large app slightly faster than you could have using normal memory management techniques.
For me it's clearly not worth it. If you have had a great experience with swap on an Evo I'd love to hear about it.
** some background reading for those new to swap:
http://zerocredibility.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/why-android-swap-doesnt-make-sense/
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Swap_and_Compcache
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

What about if you would set swapiness real low like 0-10
Then only when the extra memory is absolutely needed it would be used. I find that even using tweaks like v6 smurf ropeadope jade etc only running fairly aggressive settings keeps things running smooth. Bad part is that it kills multitasking.
In my evo running memory settings that are fairly balanced keeping recent apps that I'm using in memory will result in the odd reeboot because of low memory. Not excessively so but I usually know when its coming. It depends on how much I'm using my phone too.
How big of a swap have you played with and what swapiness settings?

What memory monitoring tools do people use?
To answer your questions, I mostly used a 64 MB swap partition, and occasionally a swap file on the main SD card partition, but did not try a large swap file on the order of 256 or 512 MB.
I also experimented with swappiness values of 0 10 and 60.
I would periodically check the output of the "free" command to see if the swap partition was even being used.
Swappiness 10 rarely seemed to cause any paging at all. 60 showed a lot of usage, but also seemed to create a lot of lag.
I used Go Task Manager to look at memory usage. I would launch a lot of fat apps (the xda app is a huge memory hog for some reason) and see if switching between them was any better or worse than usual. I don't think I ever said to myself "this is noticeably better".
For whatever reason, I can't get Go Task Manager to ever report more than 300, maybe 305 MB of memory was being used, swap or no swap.
I noticed using swap does not show any more memory is "available". I think of a swap file as something akin to a windows pagefile. It used to be pretty easy to see when you were using a lot of virtual memory in Windows, but I'm not sure I am using the right tools to monitor performance on android.
One might think running a kernel that allows swap would allow the phone to behave as if it had more memory "available" (even if a performance hit was associated in accessing the extra "memory"). I guess either this assumption is incorrect, or (my personal suspicion) other memory management strategies are baked in to my current ROM+kernel combo that already monitor memory usage and usually step in and kill things before memory usage ever gets above a certain level.

best way to manage memory and processes

I use system panel lite to the what processes are running and how much memory is being used how can I manage this properly so I can save on resources. my phone seems like it is using a lot of memory and cpu as well
I tried system auditor and I don't think that works well at all

I use OS Monitor to monitor processes and memory usage and I use Autorun Manager to control what apps allowed to run at startup and run by itself (enable/disable recievers).
I don't use any task management app. Android OS automagically do it for you.
For more information about task management on Andoid, I recomend you to read this article:
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
Hope it helps.

I use Android System Info (prev used it on the N1).
Has tabs for system, tasks and apps as well as 'overall'
and tracks memory and cpu%.

buzzcomp said:
I use OS Monitor to monitor processes and memory usage and I use Autorun Manager to control what apps allowed to run at startup and run by itself (enable/disable recievers).
I don't use any task management app. Android OS automagically do it for you.
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This. Unless you have a poorly coded app, I wouldn't even worry about it. I haven't used a task manager since my G1 days.

Unused ram is wasted ram. There is absolutely NO NEED to manage memory in android yourself, and you end up wasting battery/time/effort trying to so.
Tl;dr, android caches more recently used apps in memory, and clears memory when needed. Don't manage it yourself.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

In addition to what the guys above me said, you should look at what apps are always running in the background and pay attention to the permissions apps ask for before downloading them. Many apps will rerun themselves right after being closed by task managers making it a vicious circle of death for your battery.

I use system panel paid version with monitoring enabled to keep my processes in check. System panel is by far the best method on android. I just check the history over the last 2 hours, or I check it in the morning to see what it tracked all night while idle, and its by far the most accurate and most complete picture you can get to see what an android phone is doing.

dmuhamma said:
In addition to what the guys above me said, you should look at what apps are always running in the background and pay attention to the permissions apps ask for before downloading them. Many apps will rerun themselves right after being closed by task managers making it a vicious circle of death for your battery.
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Any app that starts with priority 300 is a service and will just start back up when killed. I like to look at processes with memory usage app by twistbyte. With this you can see all apps running and what priority they are running under. Know that any app running in 300 will use battery in background.
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