Attention Motorola users with 1gb ram

[mohit9206]

Have any of you experienced background apps force closing and getting kicked out of memory even though you only have 3-4 apps open?
This issue is exclusive to Motorola phones with 1gb ram.

Moto G (2014)owners are making a lot of noise in the Motorola forums regarding a memory management bug.Multitasking appears to be non-existent as apps are closing instead of running in the background.According to users, we aren’t talking about situations in which they have 10+ apps open. Its happening when only one or two apps are active. They simply force close. This not only includes major apps like Facebook and Whatsapp, but it’s also happening to the Camera app and even SwiftKey. Streaming music is also near impossible because whatever app is being used will just shutdown after one or two songs.

Moto G (2014) suffering from poor memory management, apps constantly closing | TalkAndroid.com
This is the particular thread in Motorola forums.
https://forums.motorola.com/posts/6168839e0e?_e_pi_=7,PAGE_ID10,3318945893
Thing is it isn't just exclusive to Moto G 2014 as i have Moto E and apps in background get kicked out even if only 3-4 apps are open.
I want to know whether Moto G 3rd Gen users with 1gb ram are also facing this issue? Is it Motorola's fault or Google's and how can this issue be fixed?

 

[mohit9206]

In the kitkat 4.4.4 update, Motorola chose to change the MinFree setting in a way that makes multitasking on the phone just about impossible as it kills off apps as soon as you switch to another app.This issue is easily fixed, but it requires unlocking the bootloader and rooting. Then you install MinFreeManager, pick the "aggressive" preset, check"apply at boot", and never see the problem again. Then you can switch between applications without them being restarted. It looks like Motorola did not fix this issue in Lollipop. This guide from Android Central about Fine tuning the MinFree settings (improving on Android's multitasking)with the aggressive settings is great way to fix the issue.
http://m.androidcentral.com/fine-tuning-minfree-settings-improving-androids-multi-tasking.
Some people complained that the settings reverted when the phone rebooted. This means they didn't use the "apply at boot" option in MinFreeManager:
Instructions for MinFreeManager - how to have it apply settings when your phone boots.
*Start MinFreeManager.
*Press the down arrow under the number pad to hide it.
*Press the three little dots that appear at the bottom-right of the screen.
*Click Presets
*.Select Aggressive
*.Press the three little dots again
*.Press Apply
*.Press the three little dots again
*.Press Apply At Boot
*.Press Quit
That's it - you're done and the settings will persist after reboot.

 

[neu smurph]

This affects the original Moto G as-well. I'd be hugely surprised if it doesn't affect the 1Gb 3rd Gen Moto G.

4.4 onwards gave OEM's more options in how to carve up the phone's RAM - Moto have taken advantage of this - only 888MB is actually available to the OS in the original 1GB Moto G - the rest is I think some sort of compressed Kernel Buffer. There is also a significant chunk of 'free' RAM (circa 90MB on a 720p phone, about 2.2 times as much on the 1080p Moto X Play for example) aggressively protected to keep available as a display buffer.

My semi-educated guess is that these are all tweaks to favour smoothness / lack of lag at the expense of multitasking. For non-root users the only solution is to eliminate as many always on background processes as possible (both system and user downloaded). So minimal or no widgets, forget live wallpaper, weigh up carefully the advantages of things like adguard (it reduces chrome RAM usage), and disable as much inbuilt fluff as you don't use and are able to.

Having done that I can most of the time run Chrome or Maps/Navigation alongside Play Music in the background on my 2013 G but it's still not 100% reliable.

By the way even high-end flagships (most of Samsung's current line) exhibit similar problems (although I think the cause/mechanism is different). 2GB + Moto devices seem to be OK as there is enough memory left for reasoable multitasking despite these tweaks.

 

[Megsh]

This affects the original Moto G as-well. I'd be hugely surprised if it doesn't affect the 1Gb 3rd Gen Moto G.

4.4 onwards gave OEM's more options in how to carve up the phone's RAM - Moto have taken advantage of this - only 888MB is actually available to the OS in the original 1GB Moto G - the rest is I think some sort of compressed Kernel Buffer. There is also a significant chunk of 'free' RAM (circa 90MB on a 720p phone, about 2.2 times as much on the 1080p Moto X Play for example) aggressively protected to keep available as a display buffer.

My semi-educated guess is that these are all tweaks to favour smoothness / lack of lag at the expense of multitasking. For non-root users the only solution is to eliminate as many always on background processes as possible (both system and user downloaded). So minimal or no widgets, forget live wallpaper, weigh up carefully the advantages of things like adguard (it reduces chrome RAM usage), and disable as much inbuilt fluff as you don't use and are able to.

Having done that I can most of the time run Chrome or Maps/Navigation alongside Play Music in the background on my 2013 G but it's still not 100% reliable.

By the way even high-end flagships (most of Samsung's current line) exhibit similar problems (although I think the cause/mechanism is different). 2GB + Moto devices seem to be OK as there is enough memory left for reasoable multitasking despite these tweaks.

To solve this issues, enable the debugging option in ur phones by taping several times on the build version of the phone.... This will enable the developer or debugging, after that jump into the options available in the new settings (development settings).... At the last part, an option for multitasking would be visible, one can adjust it according to his/her needs....

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

 

[hisense]

This issue came with the Gen 2 Moto G. Ultimately no tweak to settings makes a significant difference. There are long threads on this topic here, on the Moto Support page, and Google+. Bottomline is if you use a lot of social media and Google Chrome you are gonna get forced closed apps with 1gb ram. This is why they offer the 2gb version...which is the first time as a result if previous complaints.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[neu smurph]

To solve this issues, enable the debugging option in ur phones by taping several times on the build version of the phone.... This will enable the developer or debugging, after that jump into the options available in the new settings (development settings).... At the last part, an option for multitasking would be visible, one can adjust it according to his/her needs....

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

I've tested tweaking limiting background apps (a misnomer - the setting only affects caching of empty inactive processes - it has no impact on active background processes) and it isn't helpful. Cached empty apps are the first to be cleaned by the LMK anyway. It also has quite a noticeable negative impact on battery life.

The settings don't survive a reboot - there is a good reason for that.