Related
Hi,
We all knew that we should not use task killer to kill apps, because when we hit the back button, the app will not active anymore ... but it will still occupy some memory (RAM).
When Android OS needs more RAM it will remove in-active apps to free some.
Related article: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/ (GOOD READ)
We should not panic when we see a huge list of apps when we start task killer.
Ok, got it there ...
Now, I installed this app called Quick System Info (FREE):
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/org.uguess.android.sysinfo/
Which you can use to see what kind of processes are still running or apps that are still occupying RAM. It could show you the amount of RAM and CPU resources that are being used by each app.
So, I went to the Quick System Info -> Processes, hit the "menu" button -> Preferences and set like this:
- Update Speed = Low
- Show Memory Usage [checked]
- Show CPU Usage [checked]
- Sort by = CPU Usage
- Direction = Descending
Go back and watch ...
Surprisingly, I saw "Market" app is eating 1% CPU resources once in a while ... again and again ...
Hey, I thought it (Market app) is suspended in the background? I don't have it active, I pressed the back button when I finished with it.
Why is it eating 1% CPU from now an then in the background?
Obviously, this will drain battery power for something that I don't need.
Any thought?
I am now wondering if I install other kind of process monitoring app, and see if the suspended Quick System Info is also eating CPU resources
Why should we not use task killers? I`ve used them on android for the last year otherwise like you say background tasks use resources slowing up the system.
Obviously dont close any system important apps but I`m always closing down background apps that I no longer require.
1% every now and again? I really wouldn't worry about that to be perfectly honest. The impact on battery life will be incredibly small, so much so I doubt you'd even notice if you weren't watching it like a hawk.
By far the biggest drain on battery life remains all of the wireless stuff (wifi, bluetooth and 3G internet) followed closely by the screen itself. Turn those off when not in use and the miniscule drain of suspended tasks won't be an issue.
I'm sure if Google thought suspended tasks would be an important factor in battery drain they would've designed it differently to start with.
Read this article
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
paulruk said:
Why should we not use task killers? I`ve used them on android for the last year otherwise like you say background tasks use resources slowing up the system.
Obviously dont close any system important apps but I`m always closing down background apps that I no longer require.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It does every minute or so, and so far I found only this app (Market).
I just found out this morning before went to work, so I don't have time to inspect more.
Too bad I cannot see CPU TIME (the amount of time the process took 100% of cpu resources).
Noiz said:
1% every now and again? I really wouldn't worry about that to be perfectly honest. The impact on battery life will be incredibly small, so much so I doubt you'd even notice if you weren't watching it like a hawk.
By far the biggest drain on battery life remains all of the wireless stuff (wifi, bluetooth and 3G internet) followed closely by the screen itself. Turn those off when not in use and the miniscule drain of suspended tasks won't be an issue.
I'm sure if Google thought suspended tasks would be an important factor in battery drain they would've designed it differently to start with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that 1% would be it occasionally checking in with the market to see if any updates have been released for the programs you have installed, so that it can give you a notification when the update is released.
i would imagine that is what it is anyway.
and yes, 1% every so often is negligible, and if you killed just that process, i doubt you would notice any difference.
gogol said:
Surprisingly, I saw "Market" app is eating 1% CPU resources once in a while ... again and again ...
Hey, I thought it (Market app) is suspended in the background? I don't have it active, I pressed the back button when I finished with it.
Why is it eating 1% CPU from now an then in the background?
Obviously, this will drain battery power for something that I don't need.
Any thought?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure about this..
Have you noticed that you will get a notification if there is an update to application that is installed in your phone?
I think the marketplace doesn't have a push notification yet. So it periodically will check whether there is any update to the installed application.
Allright, that might be it ... the Market is checking for apps aupdate.
And most probably 1% is not much (I don't know how to measure this and translate it to battery life time). 1% every minute ... hmmm
1 hour of 1% cpu per minute = X % of battery life.
If we have N processes?
N = email check, weather check, friendstream check, RSS check, whatnot check
I`ll give you an example why I use a task killer.
Sometimes I use an app that goes online every few minutes and notifies me of any updates. I can 100% be certain this app even when in the background uses enough cpu to cause the phone to slowdown. Dont ask me why, maybe bad programming but this is the exact reason why I need a task killer to get rid of it.
Once its gone the phone is fine again. it happends on a few apps I own, so when I finish with them, I kill them.
I wouldnt recommend a task killer that kills everything, you just need to be selective.
That is a perfect example for using task killer
What I wrote in the first post is about using task killer to just kill apps without knowing anything.
In the past, I just select all and KILL ... Then the HTC Sense got reloaded
I was scared it could corrupt my phone ... lol.
paulruk said:
I`ll give you an example why I use a task killer.
Sometimes I use an app that goes online every few minutes and notifies me of any updates. I can 100% be certain this app even when in the background uses enough cpu to cause the phone to slowdown. Dont ask me why, maybe bad programming but this is the exact reason why I need a task killer to get rid of it.
Once its gone the phone is fine again. it happends on a few apps I own, so when I finish with them, I kill them.
I wouldnt recommend a task killer that kills everything, you just need to be selective.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes thats a bit extreme killing everything.
I`ve also used startup auditor in the past. That stops some apps loading at startup , for example footprints, never use it so I kill it before it gets a chance to load up. Have to be careful what you limit though as some tasks are used by others.
That Startup Auditor is interesting, does it work as expected?
Or you encountered some quirks or issues with it?
Yeah, I don't quite like with the way Android startup (or HTC?), for example: FM radio ... it also started automatically after reboot.
paulruk said:
Yes thats a bit extreme killing everything.
I`ve also used startup auditor in the past. That stops some apps loading at startup , for example footprints, never use it so I kill it before it gets a chance to load up. Have to be careful what you limit though as some tasks are used by others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
gogol said:
That Startup Auditor is interesting, does it work as expected?
Or you encountered some quirks or issues with it?
Yeah, I don't quite like with the way Android startup (or HTC?), for example: FM radio ... it also started automatically after reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems to work fine, not sure what help it is though hehe, in terms of speed/memory savings. I stop the radio , bluetooth,google talk and footprints. But I also use it to start some apps automatically.
I found this list of what you can/can`t disable. You can still run them after startup, just they wont load automatically when you start the phone.
safe
Google Partner Setup
Network Location (if not using apps which need geolocation regularly. ie. Gmaps, GeoTag, etc.)
Bluetooth Share (if not using BT device)
Email (if not using email service other than Gmail)
Messaging (if using 3rd party sms app, ie. Handcent SMS. or if infrequent texter)
Calendar (if calendar is not used regularly)
Calendar Storage (if calendar is not used regularly)
Voice Dialer (if not used)
Google Talk Service (if GTalk is not used regularly)
Maps (if GMaps is not used regularly)
unsafe
Clock
Media Storage
Android System
Gmail Storage
Sync Feeds
Dialer
System Updater (not sure about this one)
My Uploads (not sure about this one)
Download Manager (not sure about this one)
Battery Save Like RandomKing
I find myself regularly repeating many of these suggestions on many threads to many different people on how to extend your battery life. When not in use, my phone loses at most only 1-2% battery per hour! So I'm making one thread in the Epic forums dedicated to maximizing battery life while trying to explain why these steps will work. Some battery improvements come at the cost of performance or lack of certain services. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of these steps.
Step 1: Brightness & Battery
Let's face it. Our Android phone screens are huge. This feature is the largest, and completely unavoidable battery-drain. The only way to limit it is to not use the screen... ergo... not use your phone. But that clearly makes no sense, so how to limit that drain? Well, a good step is to turn down your screen's brightness to the lowest you can read clearly, don't hurt your eyes! For night-time use, there's an app that can turn the brightness down even lower called Screen Filter(Thanks to iModMM for the find!). Also, choose a nice dark background, something in the black color range. For all phones, the darker the color, the less brightness used, less power consumed! But for our Epic's Super Amoled screen, specifically, a black pixel is technically an "off" pixel. That's right, every black pixel on your screen is a part of your screen not being powered, since the Super Amoled does not need backlighting. Blackle is also a good alternative to the standard Google site for a black themed search engine, though it doesn't seem to be mobile optimized. Also, lock your screen with that nice little button on the top right side of your phone. Don't wait for it to lock itself! As far as the battery itself goes, charging to 100% can be tricky. The moment that led turns blue, your phone has generally reached 100%, but it will generally trickle charge between 97 and 100 after that. A good way to charge to 100 percent is to use an external charger, which generally come with 1 or 2 spare batteries for about $20. This way, the moment your battery dies, shut down, and pop a fresh one in.
Step 2: Using a Custom Rom
At this point, there are many Epic 4G custom roms out, and if you're in this forum, you've likely rooted or are trying to root. Well I will not go into rooting directions here. Take a look at one and see how it fare's out-of-the-box for you. If you choose to use my customized rom, you will find a task manager with a preset ignore list, ready to use as a one-tap app-closing widget; as well as the service-freezing patch mentioned below in Step 8 ready for execution through a terminal, and my entire setup(among many other mods, apps, and tweaks tested for the greatest battery performance). These are just roms I've used myself to great results. Many others exist. Updated 7/6:
RandomKing's Customized Rom
2.2.1 EC05 v.1 Plus [Journaled w/Genocide 1.0] [Screenshots]
SyndicateFrozen Rom
2.2.1 EC05 v.1.2
Bonsai Rom
2.2.1 EC05 v.4.1.1 Not Supported on XDA. Sorry.
Midnight Rom
2.2.1 EC05 v.5.3
Step 3: Disable Unnecessary Services
First and foremost, disable all location services, wifi and gps based. This will affect certain apps like weather apps, you'll simply have to deal with static locations. Next, disable data sync. Contacts will not synchronize with Gmail while this is off. You will have to enable it sporadically. The Gmail app also will not function while this is off, I recommend using the email app and simply adjusting the refresh interval. You can always manually check your own email . Likewise, you may put your phone into airplane mode altogether if you don't plan to use it for an extended period of time, such as school, work, swim meet, movies, or on an airplane.
Step 4: Task Killers and JuiceDefender
First, let's get JuiceDefender out of the way. It's a neat app, and in certain ways, effective. However, it's own effectiveness comes with certain contradictions. It disables nearly all signals, which will include, for example, Google Voice. In my experience, this app hindered certain other services, and if anything may have drawn further on my battery. My recommendation is to stay away from it. Now onto Task Killers, they are good, and they are evil. Let me explain. Many of us may find issues closing all the apps we open, and sometimes forget we left something open. A task killer can easily ensure that you've closed all of your programs. Now onto the bad. Task killers can try to kill certain system services. This is generally BAD. Certain services shouldn't be killed, and others can't be killed, and the ongoing battle only further drains your battery while trying to kill services that AREN'T actually bad. So on that note, the worst part of task killers is AUTO-KILL. Disable it! Kill it! Kill it with FIRE! I use Advanced or Adao Task Killer, with no auto-kill. It is one of the only widgets I use, and I simply tap it before I lock my phone each time.
Step 5: Widgets
If you don't need them, don't use them. Almost all widgets make continuous unnecessary calls to the Android system, and this can be a huge battery draw. Even simple widgets. Through all my testing, there's only 2 widgets I have approved thus far: Advanced Task Killer, Power Control. Other disapproved widgets: Pandora, Winamp, Weather(ALL OF THEM), etc.
Step 6: SetCpu, Voltage Control, and Over/Underclocking
As with much of this thread, this is opinionated and empirical theories. Through my testing, Overclocking is unnecessary, and guaranteed to draw on the battery. Most of these roms come from fantastic devs and are, by default, blazingly fast. Overclocking is completely redundant in my opinion, and I'm generally all about speed. Underclocking/undervolting may preserve more battery, but my opinion on the matter is similar to my feeling on widgets. If you don't need it, don't do it. If you feel the need to use these apps, a generally accepted setting for battery preservation is to undervolt to 800 max. and 100 min. (if your phone can handle it, some may experience wake-locks, raise min. to 200) on conservative governor, adjusting your profiles for when the phone is locked, unlocked and etc.
Step 7: Unnecessary Apps
Free apps are great, aren't they? But how many have you gathered, just because they're free? Now how many of those don't you use, but regularly draw on your phone regardless. There's an easy way to roughly check. Open your settings. Now go to Applications. Manage Applications. Take a look at which are running that you have not opened. Using a task killer prior, and waiting a couple minutes to see what re-opens may be a good way to check which apps are continuously running in the background and evaluate if they can be removed.
Facebook --- Notorious for running in the background. Disabling notifications may help.
Latitude --- Largest offender of location service usage. Neat app. Huge battery hog.
QIK/Fring --- Any video chatter really. If you don't use them, remove or disable them.
Browser --- Large ram usage. Try Dolphin Mini or Miren.
Step 8: Freeze Services
Using Titanium Backup Pro, MyBackup Pro, or Bloat Freezer (yes, non-free apps) freeze any of the following services:
sns --- (Will disable sns)
snsaccount --- (Will disable Facebook contact integration)
drm --- (May affect media programs like mediahub)
drmcontent --- (May affect media programs like mediahub)
systemupdater --- (Best disabled if on custom rom)
Enter the following commands into the Android Terminal to manually freeze the above services:
Code:
su
pm disable com.sec.android.providers.drm
pm disable com.sec.android.app.sns
pm disable com.samsung
Simply enter the previous commands into the Android Terminal while substituting "enable" for "disable" to manually defrost these.
If you would like a shortcut for this method, check out the patch in This Thread Also Included In RandomKing's Rom..
Step 9: Journaling
Journaling... some love it, some hate it. The fact remains, journaling enables extra write cycles. While this will prevent data loss, it also means more cpu usage. It follows that battery should last longer with journaling disabled. You can use chris41g's mod HERE to turn Journaling on/off at will.
Step 10: Turn it Off and Spend Time With Loved Ones
That's right. You're obsessing with your phone. Leave it be. Do something meaningful and memorable. Have fun with life! This is just a phone.
More coming as it comes to me! Including mods, apps, etc. aimed at improving battery life. Feel free to leave your own suggestions or questions! If this guide and it's features have helped you in anyway, leave THANKS so I know whether or not to keep up on it!
Y is this in q&a?
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA Premium App
Because its an answer to many questions posted here.
-Sent from my Random Epic.
many good suggestions here RandomKing.
this stuff is all so useful to us newer users out here, maybe this should be stickied (either here or in general).
jarcher1971 said:
many good suggestions here RandomKing.
this stuff is all so useful to us newer users out here, maybe this should be stickied (either here or in general).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I have no control over where this belongs, I just know its an answer to many questions and would be noticed here.
-Sent from my Random Epic.
has anyone noticed an effect on the phone's ability to sleep when you manually reorder the apps alphabetically in the app drawer? I kept having problems and factory reset 2x. Now I did find 3 troublesome apps that although not apparently running in the background, kept my phone from sleeping simply by being installed. I also stopped ordering my apps, deleted the troublesome apps and now it seems my phone is working correctly. I wonder if that (editing the default order) could also prevent the phone from sleeping? Any thoughts?
rando991 said:
has anyone noticed an effect on the phone's ability to sleep when you manually reorder the apps alphabetically in the app drawer? I kept having problems and factory reset 2x. Now I did find 3 troublesome apps that although not apparently running in the background, kept my phone from sleeping simply by being installed. I also stopped ordering my apps, deleted the troublesome apps and now it seems my phone is working correctly. I wonder if that (editing the default order) could also prevent the phone from sleeping? Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't say I've noticed this, but I've been on launcherpro for quite some time now. Perhaps you could share more details on your setup?
-Sent from my Random Epic.
I'm non rooted stock EC05. I used to use EDIT in the app drawer to rearrange my apps in alphabetical order (they don't arrange themselves automatically this way after rebooting). I had noticed in spare parts that my phone was never sleeping and killing my battery. I did a factory reset and it worked as advertised. I slowly added apps back until I found two that seem to prevent my phone from sleeping so I uninstalled them. Phone worked fine for a while but then started acting up again. I repeated the procedure, leaving only the apps my wife's phone had (hers always sleeps like a baby), but then my phone started up again. Tried another reset but this time decided to leave the apps in the order they put themselves and so far so good...wondering if that was doing something or if it is an app update that goes bonkers?
rando991 said:
I'm non rooted stock EC05. I used to use EDIT in the app drawer to rearrange my apps in alphabetical order (they don't arrange themselves automatically this way after rebooting). I had noticed in spare parts that my phone was never sleeping and killing my battery. I did a factory reset and it worked as advertised. I slowly added apps back until I found two that seem to prevent my phone from sleeping so I uninstalled them. Phone worked fine for a while but then started acting up again. I repeated the procedure, leaving only the apps my wife's phone had (hers always sleeps like a baby), but then my phone started up again. Tried another reset but this time decided to leave the apps in the order they put themselves and so far so good...wondering if that was doing something or if it is an app update that goes bonkers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. If you can't narrow it down to a certain app, I'm not totally sure what it could be. Have you tried clearing the data/cache of Twlauncher? You could try a launcher like LauncherPro, you don't have to be rooted to use a different one.
No but if the problem comes back up I will try some of those...these are the 3 apps that when loaded caused problems: NIV Bible, Document Scanner, [I now have relacement apps for each of these now] and most recently Espn Score Center, but my wife had all of thse but the doc scanner and had no problems
i would check in spare parts to see which apps may be holding a partial wake lock. for me the facebook app was not letting my phone sleep until i disable all of its notifications.
jarcher1971 said:
i would check in spare parts to see which apps may be holding a partial wake lock. for me the facebook app was not letting my phone sleep until i disable all of its notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Likewise. This is why I removed facebook altogether. The new mobile site has proven to be pretty useful now.
-Sent from my Random Epic.
Yeah I found the same thing...but I would log out of Facebook too. Also the problem reappeared after a factory reset and I had not gone into Facebook. Are you saying that even if you don't log in, it can stop your phone from sleeping? My phone started doing it again a few days ago for no apparent reason, and I was able to stop that behavior by: finding and moving 2 apps from the phone to SD card (I thought I had gotten all of them), clearing any cache from different apps, and rebooting.
jarcher1971 said:
i would check in spare parts to see which apps may be holding a partial wake lock. for me the facebook app was not letting my phone sleep until i disable all of its notifications.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That wouldn't tell me anything when I had the problem. The only thing was Android System....and....the phone wouldn't sleep even if in airplane mode! Which meant it had to be a process or app doing it all the time. I had never thought to clear cache, but I wonder why doing that works? Also there's a menu option in Spare Parts about Button Behavior which leads you to believe you can make the phone sleep but the menu says "only available in Ver 1.5". I've checked the market and can't find a ver 1.5 Spare Parts...
rando991 said:
That wouldn't tell me anything when I had the problem. The only thing was Android System....and....the phone wouldn't sleep even if in airplane mode! Which meant it had to be a process or app doing it all the time. I had never thought to clear cache, but I wonder why doing that works? Also there's a menu option in Spare Parts about Button Behavior which leads you to believe you can make the phone sleep but the menu says "only available in Ver 1.5". I've checked the market and can't find a ver 1.5 Spare Parts...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it means android 1.5, because that says "End Button Behavior", and no new phones have Call and End buttons on them. Because the "Fancy Screen Rotation" says 1.5 only also.
Sent from the only thing i need.
RandomKing said:
Step 6: Unnecessary Apps[/CENTER]
Free apps are great, aren't they? But how many have you gathered, just because they're free? Now how many of those don't you use, but regularly draw on your phone regardless. There's an easy way to roughly check. Open your settings. Now go to Applications. Manage Applications. Take a look at which are running that you have not opened. Using a task killer prior, and waiting a couple minutes to see what re-opens may be a good way to check which apps are continuously running in the background and evaluate if they can be removed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you mean "Now go to Applications. Running Services." Going to Manage Applications will show all non-system applications and not tell you what is currently running, AFAICT.
Or am I mistaken?
Thanks for this thread.
prodigyplace said:
I think you mean "Now go to Applications. Running Services." Going to Manage Applications will show all non-system applications and not tell you what is currently running, AFAICT.
Or am I mistaken?
Thanks for this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, there is a "Running" tab inside Manage Applications. An app doesn't have to have a service to be running.
Sent from the only thing i need.
zanderman112 said:
No, there is a "Running" tab inside Manage Applications. An app doesn't have to have a service to be running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for clarifying, Zanderman. Somehow I never noticed that tab before.
rando991 said:
That wouldn't tell me anything when I had the problem. The only thing was Android System....and....the phone wouldn't sleep even if in airplane mode! Which meant it had to be a process or app doing it all the time. I had never thought to clear cache, but I wonder why doing that works? Also there's a menu option in Spare Parts about Button Behavior which leads you to believe you can make the phone sleep but the menu says "only available in Ver 1.5". I've checked the market and can't find a ver 1.5 Spare Parts...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds to me like a system process may be the cause rather than any particular application. For me also I had issues early on with the SNS service forcing itself to restart continually and being a battery drain. It usually takes a force stop on that service followed by clearing data in the sns app and rebooting to fix. Don't know if that will work for you, but hope it helps.
Sent from the communications console of the NX-01 using a universal translator
My tips you can add:
1. I always, no matter what, always have brightness on lowest setting! If you have a hard time seeing in sun, than do auto, but turn off when don't need to, I have on low 24/7. Then at night, I have this app called screen filter which lets you lower brightness then default setting(good on eyes).
2. I always have auto-sync off. If you want emails etc. configure with ur preferences. And most of the time background data. But with background data off, you don't have access to market and have to enable for use. Don't get notifications. Lately, haven't been getting WhatsApp messages. This is optional.
3. In wifi settings, network notification turned off. Haptic feedback and all vibration disabled. Sounds on key clicks or anything disabled. Auto rotate screen off. No window animations. Screen timeout, 15 seconds. Keyboard timeout, 3 seconds. In location, use wireless networks and gps satellites unchecked.
4. No live wallpaper! No bright colors! I use a black background for wallpaper!! Try to go a little dark, not bright, stay away from white! Id recommened, the full black wallpaper. Also on ur homescreen, avoid widgets! Especially ones that use live web feed like, facebook, scorecenter. These are battery suckers!
5. I delete all apps I do not use! Stock and user. Download titanium backup to fix this issue. I freeze, system updates, swype, drm content, drm content launcher, sns, snsaccount. I uninstall the stock browser, use dolphin!! I also uninstall, all sprint bloatware, my files, gmail, email, talk, news and weather. Uninstall all stock and user apps you don't use! Check spare parts to see what runs in the background that you don't use. Another thing to add, I uninstall swype and android keyboard and use better keyboard gingebread edition 8.
6. Disable refresh interval in facebook, do it manually when you are going to use it!
7. Use setcpu. Undervolt to 800max and 100min on conservative governor. Set profiles, when phone is locked and etc.
8. Now lets talk about juicedefender and task killers. Juice defender will work and is a good app! BUT: if ur a person like me, I text a lot in whatsapp and when u lock screen it disables data, so u wont get texts. Download it, take a look at it, try it out. I recommend using agressive mode. Now lets talk about task killers. Personally, I think they dont work at all, and actually waste battery then save it. I just would say don't use one, and use samsungs stock task killer(actually works!)
9. Use a custom rom and kernel. Always be up to date on updates. I usually use, SRF and midNight. All about preference.
10. Extended battery FTW!!! Buy a seidio extened battery! May cost some money, but will greatly increase battery!!! Or get a cheap asian knockoff on ebay.
11. Disable data and put phone into airplane mode when it wont be in use for a period of time. Like at school or work. I usually keep data off during school. You will see a difference with data on and off.
12. Always keep wifi, bluetooth, gps, 4g off when not in use. They will drain battery crazy!!! Wifi will search for networks constantly, same basic thing with gps and bluetooth.
13. Also do full charges!! At night shut off phone and let it charge for a good 8 hours. Then in morning, turn on still plugged in. The charging indicator will be red, leave it alone till its blue. Go get dressed and eat some breakfast lol. Then when you come back it should be blue. And when on boot, let it finish media scanning, don't interrupt it!!
I can guarentee if you follow my tips, you will see a significant increase in battery life!
These are my tips!! I will add more if I can remember some more!
Typed this all on my Epic!!
I was wondering if there's any way to prevent android from killing programs immediately after i press the home button or switch to other programs.
For example, I'm browsing the Web when an sms comes in. Using home button (long pressing) I switch the task to answer and when I come back, the browser is gone and i have to load the page again (although it reloads in the same state).
It's really annoying. Reloading a webpage is not a problem but what about playing games?
I'm running InsertCoin 1.5, have about 80- 90MB RAM unused. And I doubt that I had RAM shortage
Thanks for reply
Your brought up that old horse (debate) on why the android OS does or does not need task managers. Yes, the wonderful engineers at android, developed a platform unlike windows, manages processes (by some opinions) way better than Windows. When you switch screens, it freezes the process, and holds it until you come back. When the phone starts to run out of allocated memory, it starts to kill the (less used) processes.
Now, I've heard of allocation of process levels to cause some apps to continuous run, which would be an interesting development for some dev to take on. You can select what apps you'll like to constantly run even if you switch screens. This would help those who would want to quickly drain their battery for OS calibration purposes.
If I find such a solution, ill report back.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App
Android should never kill the 2nd process in line (aka the Browser when switching to SMS), unless you're extremely short on RAM. In low RAM conditions, it will kill the farthest from recently used app in order to free up RAM.
How often do you notice this? is it always killing the app you switch from? Because this isn't correct (unless you're literally out of RAM as I said).
martonikaj said:
Android should never kill the 2nd process in line (aka the Browser when switching to SMS), unless you're extremely short on RAM. In low RAM conditions, it will kill the farthest from recently used app in order to free up RAM.
How often do you notice this? is it always killing the app you switch from? Because this isn't correct (unless you're literally out of RAM as I said).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like i said. I had plenty of free RAM. So it's unlikely that I have RAM shortage.
I spent the morning examined things. Just figured I it out:
Flash this over and I have 3 apps in line.
Combine with Perfect task switcher, I got what i wanted.
Also, I noticed that switching by long pressing HOME button and choosing apps cause the app to restart while using BACK button won't
I don't know if this is Android behavior or my device's issue
But anyway, I got it sorted out
Thanks you u guys
I'm running CM7. Long pressing home and switching between numerous apps I've never had an app close on me. Must be a ROM/device combination situation for you...
can automatically stop certain programs from auto-starting? I downloaded the wonderful Elixir 2 program and it showed me (and yes, I know that the OS would have showed as well), that apps like Stocks, First Aid, and Trillian were loaded/running even though I had not started these apps since the last reboot.
Is there a way to stop rogue apps from autostarting?
Why do you need to stop them? What makes you think that they shouldn't start?
???
Well, I am not sure WHY they need to start, but I am sure that they take up memory. "First Aid" is certainly an app that can start up when needed, no need to run in the background. Same for the others.
That said, the original question remains. Anyone know of an app that can adjust the autostart of apps that have no business starting automatically?
Haven't tried it but may be worth a look:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/autorun-manager/com.rs.autorun
Interesting
First - Thank you for responding to the question! I have downloaded and run the app. It certainly professes to do what I was asking. Stopped some apps from loading, but others seem to be more persistent (does Titanium Backup need to run on boot? MyBackupPro? Don't think so). Thank you!
Read the hundreds of posts on task killers. Unless you are having a problem with a particular app, it is best left alone. If the memory being used for the app in question is "needed", android will kill it on its own.
Deleted because I realized I do not need to stoop to respond to nonhelpful posts (but really, people. when is "read random amorphous posts which are not on topic" a response).
only came across 2 apps that run constantly in background vs cached like their supposed to. Fbook and okcupid. autostart managers sorta work but they break functions
In a perfect world, every app on your device would start at boot and reside in RAM. I've never understood this idea that killing apps somehow conserves resources or saves power, because it does neither. In fact, it does the OPPOSITE. For instance, Trillian: Do you REALLY want to kill it whenever you're not using it, only to reopen it the next time you want to use it? That eats about 4 times more power than just leaving it running. NOTHING your cpu does eats more power than reading and writing to NAND. RAM should be as full as possible all of the time with as many apps as are recently or likely to be used. RAM operations consume FAR less power than NAND operations. Unless the app is simply an abusive piece of crap, like Amazon's market and music apps, there's usually a reason for them to run. Titanium Backup never starts unless it's got a reason to, in my experience, such as scheduled auto-backup operations. The better question to ask is why apps are starting at boot, not "Where can I get one more resource-hogging app to whip bad behavior into shape?"
loonatik78 said:
In a perfect world, every app on your device would start at boot and reside in RAM. I've never understood this idea that killing apps somehow conserves resources or saves power, because it does neither. In fact, it does the OPPOSITE. For instance, Trillian: Do you REALLY want to kill it whenever you're not using it, only to reopen it the next time you want to use it? That eats about 4 times more power than just leaving it running. NOTHING your cpu does eats more power than reading and writing to NAND. RAM should be as full as possible all of the time with as many apps as are recently or likely to be used. RAM operations consume FAR less power than NAND operations. Unless the app is simply an abusive piece of crap, like Amazon's market and music apps, there's usually a reason for them to run. Titanium Backup never starts unless it's got a reason to, in my experience, such as scheduled auto-backup operations. The better question to ask is why apps are starting at boot, not "Where can I get one more resource-hogging app to whip bad behavior into shape?"
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I agree with this 100%.
Yes But
Yes - I get all that, but it bugs the heck out of me that some of these apps feel the need to auto run and worse still, are classified as "self restarter" by the recommended app.
On a cold power-up (I charge with the power off), and without running any apps (in response to the Titanium reference above), the following apps not only started, but restarted when stopped: Appstore, Ebay, Elixir, Mortplayer Audio Book, MyBackup Pro, ROM Manager, Stocks, Titanium Backup, Trillian, Wordsmith, and XDA. Mind you, I am not including apps that SHOULD start up (swype, timeriffic, lookout, etc).
Why any of those apps start on power-on is beyond me, and why almost all of them are set by their respective authors to restart if they are shut down, is even more perplexing. Hence my desire to try to reign them in, especially since they are taking 20MB each of RAM. That's the story
jdmba said:
Yes - I get all that, but it bugs the heck out of me that some of these apps feel the need to auto run and worse still, are classified as "self restarter" by the recommended app.
On a cold power-up (I charge with the power off), and without running any apps (in response to the Titanium reference above), the following apps not only started, but restarted when stopped: Appstore, Ebay, Elixir, Mortplayer Audio Book, MyBackup Pro, ROM Manager, Stocks, Titanium Backup, Trillian, Wordsmith, and XDA. Mind you, I am not including apps that SHOULD start up (swype, timeriffic, lookout, etc).
Why any of those apps start on power-on is beyond me, and why almost all of them are set by their respective authors to restart if they are shut down, is even more perplexing. Hence my desire to try to reign them in, especially since they are taking 20MB each of RAM. That's the story
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Got me on a few of those, but other ones make all kinds of sense. Any app store sort of app is going to start to authenticate with the service. Amazon is known to do this abusively. The same would probably apply with audio books. MyBackup Pro is probably assuming there's a scheduled function to perform. Stocks is just part of Sense and it doesn't go away. TiBU has never started on any device I've had it on unless 1 of 2 things was the case; I ran the widget or had something scheduled. Trillian SHOULD start up because it's a chat client. If it's not running, it's not much good as a chat client. Not sure what Wordsmith is. XDA will start because it's set by default to sync on a regular basis if you're signed into it.
I don't know what to tell you. You're probably never going to find a way of permanently killing an app connected to a market, and if you do, whatever you use from that market probably won't work right. The best I can say is figure out why those apps you listed do what they do. There's probably a reason that can be fixed or better understood. Some, like Trillian, will self-start no matter what because failure to do so is a MUCH more aggravating issue than the app starting with nothing to do.
only 2 I have that aggravate me is Fbook and okcupid. understandable if both run and autostart for push capabilities but I've disabled sync and push and still runs in background vs cached in background like it's supposed to
dyetheskin said:
only 2 I have that aggravate me is Fbook and okcupid. understandable if both run and autostart for push capabilities but I've disabled sync and push and still runs in background vs cached in background like it's supposed to
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I don't think Facebook is worried about their app being accused of greatness or winning development awards!
loonatik78 said:
In a perfect world, every app on your device would start at boot and reside in RAM. I've never understood this idea that killing apps somehow conserves resources or saves power, because it does neither. In fact, it does the OPPOSITE. For instance, Trillian: Do you REALLY want to kill it whenever you're not using it, only to reopen it the next time you want to use it? That eats about 4 times more power than just leaving it running. NOTHING your cpu does eats more power than reading and writing to NAND. RAM should be as full as possible all of the time with as many apps as are recently or likely to be used. RAM operations consume FAR less power than NAND operations. Unless the app is simply an abusive piece of crap, like Amazon's market and music apps, there's usually a reason for them to run. Titanium Backup never starts unless it's got a reason to, in my experience, such as scheduled auto-backup operations. The better question to ask is why apps are starting at boot, not "Where can I get one more resource-hogging app to whip bad behavior into shape?"
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True however some of the apps that are residing in RAM, pop up and do updates and checks that do eat data and cpu than if they were killed. Most apps don't do this and typically it's bad to kill apps because the act of killing it uses CPU and especially the act of that app starting back up uses more CPU.
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RAM is not an issue so don't even consider it one, even if your RAM is full it doesn't matter. This doesn't run like Windows does where things slow down if you don't have enough RAM.
Most apps that use resources in the background I uninstall, but for others (I think I only do this to 1 app) you can use "autostarts" to disable them from starting upon launch, or stopping them from starting upon other events that may trigger an app to automatically start
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.elsdoerfer.android.autostarts&hl=en
It has much more control over when apps automatically launch than the other app I saw posted on the main page- also it doesn't kill them, just prevents them from starting so it's not like an app killer.
Hope this was what you were looking for.
Let it be
Just let the programs start to let the phone fully awaken
Then kill the apps with any klling apps app task killers and so on
gutiejor said:
Just let the programs start to let the phone fully awaken
Then kill the apps with any klling apps app task killers and so on
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No. Don't do this.
POQbum said:
True however some of the apps that are residing in RAM, pop up and do updates and checks that do eat data and cpu than if they were killed. Most apps don't do this and typically it's bad to kill apps because the act of killing it uses CPU and especially the act of that app starting back up uses more CPU.
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RAM is not an issue so don't even consider it one, even if your RAM is full it doesn't matter. This doesn't run like Windows does where things slow down if you don't have enough RAM.
Most apps that use resources in the background I uninstall, but for others (I think I only do this to 1 app) you can use "autostarts" to disable them from starting upon launch, or stopping them from starting upon other events that may trigger an app to automatically start
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.elsdoerfer.android.autostarts&hl=en
It has much more control over when apps automatically launch than the other app I saw posted on the main page- also it doesn't kill them, just prevents them from starting so it's not like an app killer.
Hope this was what you were looking for.
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I use autostarts also on startup and when I'm running I use auto memory manager both great apps
I have been using Autostarts for a long time now and am very pleased with it.
gutiejor said:
Just let the programs start to let the phone fully awaken
Then kill the apps with any klling apps app task killers and so on
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Click to collapse
I read that this is a bad habit carried over from pre-froyo days where memory management was different and this was recommended then. I don't have a link but trust me and don't just kill stuff like that.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
I recently installed two apps from the App Store both by Disney. I noticed on the Settings/Battery screen that both apps are using 21% battery when playing and 10% when not playing. When I tried to Force Stop I noticed that both kept using about 10% percent battery power. I thought that the Force Stop actually stopped the app from using the phones resources. I even tried using Advanced Task Killer which also failed to completely stop the app from consuming the system resources. The only sure why to stop them was to uninstall them, which sucks because they were fun games to play.
My question is what's the point of Force Stop if it doesn't actually stop the app and how do you stop an app from running without uninstalling?
The force stop is just like an end task in Windows.. it just kills the current task.. it does not mean stop it forever. If the app is called again it will start up again...
Now there are apps that are automatically called if the are stooped, mainly service type tasks, but there are some bad / misbehaving apps out there for sure.
This type of behavior is why taskkillers can actually cost you more battery usage, because the app is always having to start-up again and why with the current revision of Android - Gingerbread on up it is not recommend to use them.. the kernel is best at managing resources.
The main question is why is the Disney app running all them time? I'd bet it has some suspicious permission and is phoning home quite often... I wouldn't run it at all with that kind of behavior..
After you force stop those apps, are you resetting the battery list by charging to full again? Cause those percentages will still appear in the usage list even after you stopped them because that data was already collected. You'd have to start the tracking over at that point.
RogerPodacter said:
After you force stop those apps, are you resetting the battery list by charging to full again? Cause those percentages will still appear in the usage list even after you stopped them because that data was already collected. You'd have to start the tracking over at that point.
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Thanks for the reply, how do I start the tracking over? I have the phone at 100% charge and it's still there but instead of taking 10% now it shows 2%. I tried several times to restart the count and every time the game app comes back showing that it's using battery.
I've attached three screen shots so you can see what I'm talking about. The three screens shots are of Disneys app Temple Run: Brave. The first is just after I closed the game app, the second is after I Force Stopped the game app and the third is after charging my phone 100%, disconnecting the charger and resetting the battery status. The app starts up again and uses about 2% which I can't stop it unless I uninstall the app. It does go away if I reboot the phone itself but who wants to restart there phone just to close an app?
I also have installed another Disney game app Where's my Perry and is similar except when I restart the battery app it doesn't start up again until I play the game app.
mrtraveler said:
Thanks for the reply, how do I start the tracking over? I have the phone at 100% charge and it's still there but instead of taking 10% now it shows 2%. I tried several times to restart the count and every time the game app comes back showing that it's using battery.
I've attached three screen shots so you can see what I'm talking about. The three screens shots are of Disneys app Temple Run: Brave. The first is just after I closed the game app, the second is after I Force Stopped the game app and the third is after charging my phone 100%, disconnecting the charger and resetting the battery status. The app starts up again and uses about 2% which I can't stop it unless I uninstall the app. It does go away if I reboot the phone itself but who wants to restart there phone just to close an app?
I also have installed another Disney game app Where's my Perry and is similar except when I restart the battery app it doesn't start up again until I play the game app.
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Hmmm well you're pretty much doing exactly what I suggested. I don't know what that app could be doing. I'd need to see a system panel screen shot of maybe an hour or 2 collection of data monitoring to get a better idea. It must be running a service. If you go to settings, apps, running apps, does it appear there? And even after you force stop it? That list only shows running services, not activities. Does it show up there?
RogerPodacter said:
Hmmm well you're pretty much doing exactly what I suggested. I don't know what that app could be doing. I'd need to see a system panel screen shot of maybe an hour or 2 collection of data monitoring to get a better idea. It must be running a service. If you go to settings, apps, running apps, does it appear there? And even after you force stop it? That list only shows running services, not activities. Does it show up there?
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I'm not sure what's going on with the app. I've attached two more screen shots. To answer you questions No it doesn't appear to be running on the Running apps page and yes it was showing that it was Force Stopped.
Is there a way that I can collect data to see what the app is doing? Does my phone have to be rooted, bootloader unlocked, etc?
Oh by the way you've been Thanked. :good: