Chrome freezes when trying to scroll

[bkenobi69]

I have a Motorola Droid 4 running ICS that I use with Chrome for web browsing. I constantly have freezing issues though I can't determine any common denominators between the sites. I've read moving ads cause issues but Google caused a crash this morning and I don't believe they ever have moving ads.

There are 2 scenarios that cause crashes though they could be partially related.

1) When the page is about 80% loaded, the phone often stops responding for quite some time even with good connectivity (both 4G and WiFi). The page either eventually loads after several minutes or I give up and reset the phone.

2) During page load, if I try to scroll the page down (drag finger up the screen) the phone becomes unresponsive. This is usually when the page is mostly loaded but I believe it also happens after the load meter is complete. In this scenario the phone generally recovers but the copy/paste header eventually displays.

In both cases I usually get the various crash dialogs for random apps as well as Chrome (wait, ok). Pressing either button is dramatically delayed and sometimes never takes requiring a restart.

I am fully up to date on all applications AFAIK. I have tried uninstalling or App Quarantine/Titanium Backup freeze to stop things that I've read eat CPU and aren't used anyway (Facebook, Twitter, Imgur, Motorola garbage, etc) but don't see much improvement.

I would love to fix this, but I'm not sure what else I can try at this point. If this is a known Chrome issue, what other browser would be better (Dolphin, FireFox, default, etc)?

 

[Mooncatt]

It looks like the Droid 4 specs are comparable to the Droid Bionic, which I have and also suffer the same issues with. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the phone is just flat obsolete. I keep it as a backup, but the processor and memory just can't keep up. In my case, it's constantly fighting with itself, opening and closing apps in the background as they all want to be used. I don't really have much on it any more, and what is on it is stuff I really want.

At the same time, all of those apps are being made more and more advanced, requiring more and more resources. My 1 GB of RAM is filled up very quickly. If Facebook messenger is closed to fit another app, it will try to reinitialize itself to keep communicating. Doing so means killing another app that will want to be in use. All of this happens in the background, but the constant starting and stopping hogs the processor and lags the whole phone. Chrome seems to be rather resource intensive (Not to mention ad laden sites in general now days), so it's going to lag often and lag hard. Android is designed to keep memory full, but it comes down to the apps are asking more from the phone than it can provide. On a side note, the constant starting and stopping that causes lag is the same thing that happens with memory boosters out there and why they are not recommended.

Probably your only choice short of simply upgrading your phone is to see if you can roll back your apps to versions in use around the time the phone was released in 2012. That could prove difficult, not very trustworthy if you can't go direct to the developers, Play may try to make you update them to current versions, and may be more trouble than it's worth. If price is a concern, you can get the Droid Mini for $8 right now through Verizon. It's not a blazing fast phone, but is a sizable step up I think from yours. I'm actually thinking of getting it to replace the Bionic as my backup. If you have an upgrade available, use the promo code "upgrade" when making a purchase with device payment plan. Yes, they will let you put an $8 phone on DPP at a rate of $0.33/mo. Lol. Of course for that price, you should be able to easily pay it off. I don't think that promo code works on anything but upgrading with DPP. It's a $100 off code for smartphones that's active right now.

 

[bkenobi69]

If there was a modern QWERTY phone available, I'd have upgraded by now. I have been eligible for at least 2 years. Short of that, I'm stuck with this old thing.

My assumption initially was that the newer versions of software that Play keeps pushing are causing issues for the phone due to expanding resource requirements. Sounds like that may be a big component. I froze everything that is considered "bloat ware" so I'm hoping I'll see some kind of improvement. Also, I'm testing Dolphin and CM Browser as alternatives to Chrome.

 

[Username6909]

All the carriers are slowing our "unlimited" data down it was on the news.