Discuss Task Managers/Killers Here!

[RayStinkle]

so would it be a safe assumption that even the people who say that task killers should not be used because they use up the battery themselves etc.. Are ok with system pannel being run? I ask because I noticed it also can kill running processes and so I removed it thinking it was just another task killer. thanks in advance!

Yes the way to use system panel is just use it for information purposes only, and to kill the occasional misbehaving app. But not any type of auto kill.

I can't stress enough how useful the monitoring function is in system panel. Too bad it was free for months and just finally went paid last week. But monitoring gives a detailed breakdown of every any any app using CPU resources, and shows it on the timeline.

So all night if your phone is not sleeping you can see exactly what's using the CPU and killing your battery.

I'll also stress that any built in app written by Google (I can't confirm any HTC stuff) is written very efficiently and behaves properly. No need to kill gtalk, gmail, maps, web browser or any of those type apps. The proof shows up in system panel monitoring over your desired time period. These apps use 0.1% for me every time.

 

[akarol]

Just purchased it. Definetely worth the price (if not more). I'll try to use it more carefully this time and learn how to correlate it's graphs.

When you are trying to find the culprit, how exactly do you go about it. Please describe which graphs, charts, numbers you are looking at.

Thanks in advance...

 

[dragonsaints18]

I guess it's a personal preference. I downloaded the Android Task Manager from the market. It works great for me. The only app that conflicted and kept shutting down was the live screensaver. I ignored the app in the settings menu and it works great now. My battery life seems better when I use it. I am on the phone/internet all day and still have about the same life as my prior phone (Blackberry Curve) did. I did notice that even if you use the task manager, it helps to power the phone down all the way occasionally. This kills all the apps that are running. When you power back up the apps needed for the phone to function properly will re-load. When using the task manager, most required apps will re-start automatically, even when killed. If you are interested in the one I use, it is the Task Manager by Apollo Software.
Hope this helps,
Matt

 

[RayStinkle]

Just purchased it. Definetely worth the price (if not more). I'll try to use it more carefully this time and learn how to correlate it's graphs.

When you are trying to find the culprit, how exactly do you go about it. Please describe which graphs, charts, numbers you are looking at.

Thanks in advance...

in the settings, enable monitoring by selecting the checkbox. then just use your phone normally. after some time has passed, go to monitoring, then at the bottom press history.

now you will see 3 graphs, battery, then device usage, followed by cpu usage. battery is straight forward. the device usage is in blue, and you can see how that correlates to cpu usage below it.

so then at the top of that page, on the right you pick your time period, i have 8 hours sselected currently. the to the left you have plot, press plot and hit top apps. now you will see highest to lowest of what has used your cpu. click into each one, then scroll down, to see that individual process/app's usage. again, you can look back 8 hours, 1 day, 1 week, etc and correlate that with what you did on the device. so you line it up with the blue "device usage" graph and see what its been doing.

you will know right away just by looking at your "top apps", because my highest one is 2% and that is the android system OS.

and you can even check system panel itself to see what it uses, and its very very low, even with monitoring enabled.

the best app hands down.

 

[Eazy123]

Here's what I don't get: People are saying "Oh, Android handles its resources well". Then how come I exit out of Weather Channel and Android Market, then go into music player and it's lagging? So I look at what's running and lo and behold, Market and Weather Channel are still going, and the CPU is at 90 something percent. I'm not using them, so I would think that handling resources well would be to kill one that hasn't been accessed in a while in order for the one that IS being accessed to run smoothly. Or do I have it wrong? I'm new to Android, so bear with me

 

[RayStinkle]

Here's what I don't get: People are saying "Oh, Android handles its resources well". Then how come I exit out of Weather Channel and Android Market, then go into music player and it's lagging? So I look at what's running and lo and behold, Market and Weather Channel are still going, and the CPU is at 90 something percent. I'm not using them, so I would think that handling resources well would be to kill one that hasn't been accessed in a while in order for the one that IS being accessed to run smoothly. Or do I have it wrong? I'm new to Android, so bear with me

Again, I would use system panel to inspect that app. I think you are talking about the weather bug app, which I've heard has problems. But I don't know, I don't use it.

If its not that app, I would still figure out with system panel and get rid of it. If it really is doing that, you'll be fighting it forever. But himw do you know that is lagging your music player? Is it placebo effect?

 

[Eazy123]

Definitely the weather channel app. But even if I get rid of it, why is it running? And why is Android market still running in the background? I can't get rid of that.

I guess it's an assumption that it's specifically what's lagging my music player, but when I fired up the music player, it paused for quite a bit before starting a song and took a little longer than usual to go through songs. I used the system panel to monitor what was going on in the background and sure enough, CPU usage was in the mid 90% and Weather and Market were both active. I just don't get why, and I wish it was mandatory for a developer to include a setting for each app where once it's closed, it's closed until you open it again, not running as a background process.

 

[RayStinkle]

Definitely the weather channel app. But even if I get rid of it, why is it running? And why is Android market still running in the background? I can't get rid of that.

I guess it's an assumption that it's specifically what's lagging my music player, but when I fired up the music player, it paused for quite a bit before starting a song and took a little longer than usual to go through songs. I used the system panel to monitor what was going on in the background and sure enough, CPU usage was in the mid 90% and Weather and Market were both active. I just don't get why, and I wish it was mandatory for a developer to include a setting for each app where once it's closed, it's closed until you open it again, not running as a background process.

i understand your frustration. but again, the market app is written correctly by google, it uses zero resources while in the background. same with gtalk, gmail, web browser, etc. you can count on those to be written to not use any resources in the background.

i was frustrated as all hell when i first was dealing with these issues. you can see my threads over at XDA where i am ripping google saying "i dont care about efficient task management, why are these running when i dont want them too!!!"

i guess in a way it comes down to the apps you install on your phone become a part of your phone's OS makeup. if you chose to install weather channel app, then it becomes a living part of the OS. i dont know if that makes much sense. and it certainly doesnt give you an answer to why its good or bad.

i've been trying to understand how android works for 3 months now with my nexus, why this app opens, but why this one doesnt. the ONLY thing that has helped me was using system panel to at least see what's going on. that was phase 1. phase 2 is dealing with the WHY do these apps do this or that, run now but not later, etc. i'm still learning myself.

but what i HAVE figured out is even the apps that do run, and show as active (not the inactive cached ones that use no resources), all these apps end up using 0.1% resources total over the course of 24 hours. so that's why i'm recommending to use that app to see just what exactly weather channel is going while its running. you may not find WHY it runs, but that it uses virtually zero resources when it does. and to just chalk it up as "this is the way an android phone functions, for better or worse".

 

[meyerweb#CB]

I can understand why some applications are running, but then there's the Amazon MP3 app, and for the life of me I can't understand why it's necessary that it runs.

However, upon checking the details on these running processes/apps, most don't even use much memory. HTC music player shows 8kb, etc...the internet shows 10mb but after setting the cache limit lower that uses less now.

I'm not bothering with the task killers. It just feeds my OCD and I'll never get anything else done that way.

Not only do they not use much memory, which has no effect on battery life at all, they don't use much, if any, CPU when sitting in the background.

My take is that task killers "work," but they're the lazy person's way out, and they can be dangerous if you just set them to auto and let them go. If you let something like ATK kill apps indiscriminately, there's a real good chance it's going to kill important processes, causing some things to not work, and other things to be unstable.


Why the lazy person's answer? Because the real background battery hogs on the EVO are those tasks that use the radio to send or receive data. If you just accepted the default EVO settings, you've got news, and weather, and Facebook, and location services, and a bunch of other things running, and forcing the radio to eat up battery.

So you can use something like ATK to continually kill these apps every time they start up, or you can go into their settings and turn off updates on things you don't need (or extend the time intervals for things that don't really need frequent updates). If you look at the system panel app, the apps that aren't using the radio really don't use any resources when they're sitting in the background, so killing those won't make any difference in power consumption.

As an example, I started Maps and Sprint Nav, and have left them sitting in the background for 30+ minutes. Immediately after starting the apps, Maps showed 5s CPU usage, Sprint Nav 4s. Thirty minutes later, Maps showed...5s; Sprint Nav....5s. These apps, which people seem to think are important to kill, don't appear to draw any power when in the background.

For good measure, I turned on the GPS radio, and went into maps and Sprint Nav briefly to check my location and move around in the app a bit. CPU use in Maps went up to 12s, in Sprint Nav to 7s. About 25 minutes later, Maps is still at 12s, Sprint Nav at 8s. I can't find any entry for GPS separately. (For comparison, all the checking in System Panel has its CPU up to 2m7s.

The battery statistics don't show any independent usage stats for the GPS, either, btw. The heavy battery use in the battery monitor are "Android System", WiFi, Cell standby, Bluetooth and the Display.


When I first started reading about Android, I was pretty sure a task killer would be useful for increasing battery life. But real hands-on analysis of data just doesn't show me any advantage. There may be some badly written apps the continue to suck up CPU in the background, but the answer to that problem is to not use badly written apps. One post above complains about resource use by the Weather Channel app. If that's an issue, there are lots of other weather apps. I'm using Weather bug, and in the last hour+ I've been running System Panel to monitor applications, it's used a total of 1s of cpu. Oops, it's up to 2s. But that's still immaterial, compared to the real battery hogs.

If running ATK really improves battery life, you probably need to look at what it's killing, and see what those apps are doing.

 

[RayStinkle]

Not only do they not use much memory, which has no effect on battery life at all, they don't use much, if any, CPU when sitting in the background.

My take is that task killers "work," but they're the lazy person's way out, and they can be dangerous if you just set them to auto and let them go. If you let something like ATK kill apps indiscriminately, there's a real good chance it's going to kill important processes, causing some things to not work, and other things to be unstable.


Why the lazy person's answer? Because the real background battery hogs on the EVO are those tasks that use the radio to send or receive data. If you just accepted the default EVO settings, you've got news, and weather, and Facebook, and location services, and a bunch of other things running, and forcing the radio to eat up battery.

So you can use something like ATK to continually kill these apps every time they start up, or you can go into their settings and turn off updates on things you don't need (or extend the time intervals for things that don't really need frequent updates). If you look at the system panel app, the apps that aren't using the radio really don't use any resources when they're sitting in the background, so killing those won't make any difference in power consumption.

As an example, I started Maps and Sprint Nav, and have left them sitting in the background for 30+ minutes. Immediately after starting the apps, Maps showed 5s CPU usage, Sprint Nav 4s. Thirty minutes later, Maps showed...5s; Sprint Nav....5s. These apps, which people seem to think are important to kill, don't appear to draw any power when in the background.

For good measure, I turned on the GPS radio, and went into maps and Sprint Nav briefly to check my location and move around in the app a bit. CPU use in Maps went up to 12s, in Sprint Nav to 7s. About 25 minutes later, Maps is still at 12s, Sprint Nav at 8s. I can't find any entry for GPS separately. (For comparison, all the checking in System Panel has its CPU up to 2m7s.

The battery statistics don't show any independent usage stats for the GPS, either, btw. The heavy battery use in the battery monitor are "Android System", WiFi, Cell standby, Bluetooth and the Display.


When I first started reading about Android, I was pretty sure a task killer would be useful for increasing battery life. But real hands-on analysis of data just doesn't show me any advantage. There may be some badly written apps the continue to suck up CPU in the background, but the answer to that problem is to not use badly written apps. One post above complains about resource use by the Weather Channel app. If that's an issue, there are lots of other weather apps. I'm using Weather bug, and in the last hour+ I've been running System Panel to monitor applications, it's used a total of 1s of cpu. Oops, it's up to 2s. But that's still immaterial, compared to the real battery hogs.

If running ATK really improves battery life, you probably need to look at what it's killing, and see what those apps are doing.

Thank you for backing me up! If only everyone else would do what you did, your understanding of android OS increases dramatically. It may counter intuitive, but maps, web browser, etc use absolutely ZERO resources when you minimize them. System panel monitoring is so useful to demonstrate this fact. All apps from Google like gmail, maps, browser, gtalk, etc all are coded properly and use no battery when you leave them running. You can track each one (and all other apps too) using monitoring to see.

My system OS is the highest CPU user consistently and that's how it should be, and it only uses about 2% at most if that.

At first thought people would think killing maps would save battery. But It's just not true. You have to use system panel to see what actually is taking up your battery, then figure out why it is, and address it accordingly. Maybe that would be to remove. Hat app, or usually its just turning off its "always check for updates" setting within that specific app.

 

[Eazy123]

I trashed ATK and purchased the System Panel app so I can see the actual history of what apps have used what, which gives me a more detailed idea. Nothing shocking, really... regular system processes are pretty much what's using up my CPU. Either way, System Panel is definitely nice to have. I'm going to read the documentation on it to understand it better.

 

[rem_kujawa]

I have been using system panel full version for about a week now and love, but it does not have an automatic kill feature. Can I run ATK to kill the apps that keep showing up in system panel like Amazon MP3 player. Will this cause a problem?

 

[RayStinkle]

I have been using system panel full version for about a week now and love, but it does not have an automatic kill feature. Can I run ATK to kill the apps that keep showing up in system panel like Amazon MP3 player. Will this cause a problem?

It won't cause problems, but system panel's whole philosophy is that auto kill all is wrong and not necessary on an android phone.

Which apps are you trying to kill, The ones that show up in inactive cached? Those are the ones using no resources.

 

[dcohen2009]

I am Using Advance task Cleaner Pro instead - saves a ton of battery Life

 

[Eazy123]

Here's something I hope someone can clear up...

I exit the stock internet browser, and system panel still shows its using 20 percent of the CPU. What's that all about? I mean, you'd think that the stock browser would be the most efficient, right? Isn't that putting a burden on battery life? Dolphin has a force quit button, yet the stock browser doesn't? I don't understand...

On top of that, the engadget and abduction apps show in system panels inactive section, yet show they're using CPU. I'm extremely confused!

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Two questions:

How are you "closing" the browser?

Where are you seeing 20% of the cpu in System Panel? Are you sure you're not looking at the historical usage, rather than current? In the list of apps in System Panel, there's a vertical gauge to the left of each app that I think shows current CPU use by that app. If I exit the browser by clicking back until I'm back to some other screen, that CPU gauge stays at zero.

I think you're looking at total CPU by the app since the last reset, not the current cpu.

 

[RayStinkle]

Here's something I hope someone can clear up...

I exit the stock internet browser, and system panel still shows its using 20 percent of the CPU. What's that all about? I mean, you'd think that the stock browser would be the most efficient, right? Isn't that putting a burden on battery life? Dolphin has a force quit button, yet the stock browser doesn't? I don't understand...

On top of that, the engadget and abduction apps show in system panels inactive section, yet show they're using CPU. I'm extremely confused!

Ok now that is strange. Because I specifically test via browser and system panel shows it using zero resources. Others earlier in this thread confirmed the same thing with the evo stock browser. What is your exact setup details? Are you using monitoring and checking over a period of a half hour for example? Or are you only seeing that CPU usage a few seconds after using the browser?

Cause I will say that the stock browser IS coded correctly to not use any resources in the background. I've tested this for so many months now with same result. On my nexus one of course. Maybe its an HTC thing? Though other evo users already posted the same result using no resources. Maybe It's some unique setup you're using.

 

[Eazy123]

I could always be wrong, and that's why I ask. I really wish something like System Panel would come with documentation because it can be confusing for many people.

What I do is tap on internet, since it's in the active section. I backed out of it using the home button, although the back button does the same thing. There is no bar on the left of the icon, btw (I didn't even realize what that was for - THAT is the current CPU?)

Anyway, it shows the process info for Internet. I'm looking under current session - it says Total CPU time 5m7s, Time since start 30m24s, and Average consumption 16.8%. The average consumption is what I've been looking at all this time. If that's not the right thing, can someone please point me to where the current usage is displayed?

I was on the company's website and their documentation, while limited, does say that apps in the inactive panel are not using resources. Roger, I know that you said internet does not use resources when not in use, and I'm not calling you a liar because you've provided a lot of helpful info, but why would it be in the active panel, then?

 

[RayStinkle]

I could always be wrong, and that's why I ask. I really wish something like System Panel would come with documentation because it can be confusing for many people.

What I do is tap on internet, since it's in the active section. I backed out of it using the home button, although the back button does the same thing. There is no bar on the left of the icon, btw (I didn't even realize what that was for - THAT is the current CPU?)

Anyway, it shows the process info for Internet. I'm looking under current session - it says Total CPU time 5m7s, Time since start 30m24s, and Average consumption 16.8%. The average consumption is what I've been looking at all this time. If that's not the right thing, can someone please point me to where the current usage is displayed?

I was on the company's website and their documentation, while limited, does say that apps in the inactive panel are not using resources. Roger, I know that you said internet does not use resources when not in use, and I'm not calling you a liar because you've provided a lot of helpful info, but why would it be in the active panel, then?

Yeah you basically have it right. Except you get more info under the monitoring which unfortunately just went to the paid only version recently.

So yes the bar next to each process is the real time CPU meter. And yes the browser DOES stay as an active app, but maybe I should have clarified that the browser IS coded to sit idle when you hit the home button to send it to the background. Meaning the browser DOES not sit in The background and constantly reload a page, or keep performing some activity. The browser IS coded so that it will finish loading whatever you just clicked, then go idle after that.

Your CPU time is near identical to mine. My time says 4 min CPU usage, but only 0.4% average consumption. If you have monitoring function, you can see the actual timeline of the browser CPU usage, which again for me goes down to zero when I switch away from it.

The funny thing is I have similar numbers as you, but yours says 19% and mine has never gone above about 2%. It's very strange. Only suggestion is end the browser and reopen it and do a half hour test run. Not sure what else to say.

 

[Eazy123]

Yeah you basically have it right. Except you get more info under the monitoring which unfortunately just went to the paid only version recently.

So yes the bar next to each process is the real time CPU meter. And yes the browser DOES stay as an active app, but maybe I should have clarified that the browser IS coded to sit idle when you hit the home button to send it to the background. Meaning the browser DOES not sit in The background and constantly reload a page, or keep performing some activity. The browser IS coded so that it will finish loading whatever you just clicked, then go idle after that.

Your CPU time is near identical to mine. My time says 4 min CPU usage, but only 0.4% average consumption. If you have monitoring function, you can see the actual timeline of the browser CPU usage, which again for me goes down to zero when I switch away from it.

The funny thing is I have similar numbers as you, but yours says 19% and mine has never gone above about 2%. It's very strange. Only suggestion is end the browser and reopen it and do a half hour test run. Not sure what else to say.

I will try a half hour run, but I do now notice that the CPU usage does lower bit by bit as time goes by after I leave the browser. I think the reason it gets so high depends on where its at when I end it. If I'm browsing images, that's probably taxing the CPU more, so when I exit, naturally the CPU usage will be initially higher. I wonder how high your percentage is if you exit out of a Google image result list, sinceyou said yours doesn't go very high?