Question Apps/chrome refreshing

[bmcaps]

Hello all,

I have a moto g 5g (2023) with Android 14.

When I use Chrome, if I switch apps and come back to Chrome, my tabs all refresh automatically. Also, this seems to happen when I switch to other apps besides Chrome. The apps reset/reload when I switch to a different app then back again.

It is very annoying, and apparently a common issue.

Is there a setting to fix this?

Also, can I turn off 5g and use 4g LTE? It seemed faster for some reason.

Thank you all

 

[Sizzers]

Hello all,

I have a moto g 5g (2023) with Android 14.

When I use Chrome, if I switch apps and come back to Chrome, my tabs all refresh automatically. Also, this seems to happen when I switch to other apps besides Chrome. The apps reset/reload when I switch to a different app then back again.

It is very annoying, and apparently a common issue.

Is there a setting to fix this?

Also, can I turn off 5g and use 4g LTE? It seemed faster for some reason.

Thank you all

To switch from 5G to 4G only this should be in 'Connection' settings under 'Mobile networks' then 'Network mode' where you should be able to change it there.

What actual model do you have? This sounds like a limited RAM issue where apps are being closed down due to memory running out if you have several open at the same time. Perhaps not quite as bad as it used to be but Chrome is something of a memory hog as well.

 

[Mooncatt]

This sounds like a limited RAM issue where apps are being closed down due to memory running out if you have several open at the same time.

No, this is a Chromium issue. All Chrome based browsers do this, which is especially annoying on sites like Facebook that have a randomly generated feed or when in a post that then refreshes to the main page. I've heard there are some browsers that will not auto refresh when you tab out and back in, but I unfortunately don't know which ones they are. Maybe Firefox since it's not chromium based.

 

[bmcaps]

Thanks for the responses.

For unfortunate reasons I haven't used smartphones since the original Motorola droid over a decade ago.

I'm very disappointed with the progress of Android. I always thought after all these years it would be so fast, intuitive, and seamless.

Instead, I see glitches, strange performance issues, extremely annoying anomalies like the tab refresh issue which a lot of people complain about online. Even simple things like the "files" app display bar randomly disappearing when I am moving files.

Over a decade of work on Android and this is it?

Thanks all

 

[B. Diddy]

It's not a universal Android issue per se -- what you describe never happens on any of my Android devices (Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Tablet, Lenovo Tab M9, Samsung Galaxy A32 5G). It could be an issue with Lenovo/Moto's firmware being overly aggressive with killing apps in RAM in order to save battery, which is a common practice among certain manufacturers (especially Chinese ones).

See if there's a system app that manages RAM -- if there is, make sure Chrome is allowed to remain in RAM. Also, go to Settings>Apps, select Chrome, then look for a battery optimization setting -- make sure that's Unrestricted.

Do you typically have a ton of browser tabs open? If so, that uses a lot of RAM, which can force the system to refresh all of the tabs when you switch away and then back.

 

[Mooncatt]

It's not a universal Android issue per se -- what you describe never happens on any of my Android devices (Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Tablet, Lenovo Tab M9, Samsung Galaxy A32 5G). It could be an issue with Lenovo/Moto's firmware being overly aggressive with killing apps in RAM in order to save battery, which is a common practice among certain manufacturers (especially Chinese ones).

Consider yourself lucky, as Chrome is apparently designed to do this. I found this support thread that suggests how to disable the feature.

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/221987909/my-tab-chrome-android-keep-refreshing?hl=en

I don't use Chrome, so I can't test it. I do know the refresh is not tied to any specific manufacturer, memory management, or ram usage based on my experience and the reports found elsewhere on the web. Even when only having a single tab open on a basic webpage and barely using half my memory, it still refreshes on the chromium based browser I do use (Brave).

 

[mustang7757]

It's not a universal Android issue per se -- what you describe never happens on any of my Android devices (Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Tablet, Lenovo Tab M9, Samsung Galaxy A32 5G). It could be an issue with Lenovo/Moto's firmware being overly aggressive with killing apps in RAM in order to save battery, which is a common practice among certain manufacturers (especially Chinese ones).

See if there's a system app that manages RAM -- if there is, make sure Chrome is allowed to remain in RAM. Also, go to Settings>Apps, select Chrome, then look for a battery optimization setting -- make sure that's Unrestricted.

Do you typically have a ton of browser tabs open? If so, that uses a lot of RAM, which can force the system to refresh all of the tabs when you switch away and then back.

Agree I don't have this issue myself

 

[mustang7757]

Thanks for the responses.

For unfortunate reasons I haven't used smartphones since the original Motorola droid over a decade ago.

I'm very disappointed with the progress of Android. I always thought after all these years it would be so fast, intuitive, and seamless.

Instead, I see glitches, strange performance issues, extremely annoying anomalies like the tab refresh issue which a lot of people complain about online. Even simple things like the "files" app display bar randomly disappearing when I am moving files.

Over a decade of work on Android and this is it?

Thanks all

Try locking chrome in your recent apps tab that might help keeping it from clearing those tabs when it cleans Ram for more memory

 

[B. Diddy]

Consider yourself lucky, as Chrome is apparently designed to do this. I found this support thread that suggests how to disable the feature.

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/221987909/my-tab-chrome-android-keep-refreshing?hl=en

I don't use Chrome, so I can't test it. I do know the refresh is not tied to any specific manufacturer, memory management, or ram usage based on my experience and the reports found elsewhere on the web. Even when only having a single tab open on a basic webpage and barely using half my memory, it still refreshes on the chromium based browser I do use (Brave).

I'm not sure if that still applies to the mobile Chrome browser, because they removed the Memory Saver feature on mobile. It's only on desktop now: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/12929150?hl=en ("Important: You can’t personalize your Chrome’s performance on mobile devices with iOS and Android.") Since Chrome on my mobile devices isn't constantly refreshing pages and wiping out whatever data happened to be on a page that I had left before, I don't think it's a universal thing. I'm still suspecting some external factor, like low RAM or over-aggressive background task-killing.

 

[Mooncatt]

I'm still suspecting some external factor, like low RAM or over-aggressive background task-killing.

I've seen that speculated a lot, but I haven't seen any confirmation because no one ever seems to reply back if something fixed the issue. Even if it were the case, it doesn't make sense that it would happen within minutes of switching out when there's likely other background processes that should be getting cleared instead. Then there's people like me that don't even come close to running out of memory with 12 GB onboard and only running one tab (never could understand why people keep so many open instead using bookmarks), so the background sync or similar design function seems the most plausible.