Memory leaks... you guessed it, 2.2 OTA.

[Bravozero]

I've noticed the past few days that while I've done the reset on the device and even installed LP+, plus MAYBE 20-30 apps compared to over 100 before, I'm getting a memory leak. The phone will run fine at times, other times it's very sluggish. I am manually killing apps and services instead of a task manager, and according to the monitoring programs I have installed, I never get above maybe 99 or 100 megs of memory. I've seen it as low as 15 megs when it's real sluggish.

Anyone else having issues with memory?

 

[racinwarrior]

its not leaking anything. it is opening applications in the background. that is how froyo works. i have 156 apps installed and have no sluggishness what so ever. you have another issue other than memory

PS. you obviously came from BB, as did I, throw out everything you think you know about mobile phone OSs and re-learn on android.

 

[Bravozero]

its not leaking anything. it is opening applications in the background. that is how froyo works. i have 156 apps installed and have no sluggishness what so ever. you have another issue other than memory

PS. you obviously came from BB, as did I, throw out everything you think you know about mobile phone OSs and re-learn on android.

You're right, I am used to Blackberry. Owned the POS' for over two years and was relieved when I picked up the DROID.

Alright, so any idea as to what the heck could be up with my device?

 

[Adiliyo]

there's most likely nothing wrong with the device, i'd look into what apps you have installed and try uninstalling any that aren't behaving to see if that helps.

the system is made to open apps in the background that it thinks you might use so that they open faster. when it needs the memory it will kill them.

the reason you would be dropping down so low could be that an app is not letting itself be killed off when the OS wants more memory.

 

[droidntn]

. I've seen it as low as 15 megs when it's real sluggish.

Anyone else having issues with memory?

See, this is where I get lost in the mantra I keep seeing and hearing that "Android can control it's memory useage, you don't need to kill anything".
I only have about 10 or 15 apps, I can reboot and the most I've ever seen is 37megs of RAM left, and most of the time it runs down to 10-15. Yea, it's sluggish.
I don't have that many things running.
Droid OS, Weatherbug, calendar in statusbar is all that's on startup. Right now, it's running at 21% while I listen to Pandora and type this.
If it leave it to it's own devices, it'll be down to 9-10 in about 1 hour.

But, it works and it is getting better seems like the longer Froyo is let run.
I just don't think Android, at least on my X, is quite as excellent at handling memory as some say it is.
It is an awesome lil thing tho.

 

[ntowell]

I don't understand why so many people out there are not understanding this. Android is not Microsoft Windows or Blackberry OS. It doesn't use all the same principals for managing memory.

The only time you are going to have a ton of free memory in Android is right after you use a task killer to forcefully close a bunch of programs; potentially causing harm to programs and instability in the operating system.

Android purposefully tries to use most all of the system memory so that it is able to launch apps faster. Over time the OS learns what is used the most and prioritizes the memory. So when you "kill" a bunch of apps all the time, it confuses the hell out of the OS because that's not what it was designed for.

So immediately after uninstalling task killers, the OS runs sluggish and crappy for a while until it learns from scratch how to load tasks efficiently. Quit installing task killers, quit looking at your memory.

The whole purpose of the OS is to utilize all the memory. Not leave 90% of it doing nothing, staying open. There aren't a million posts about NOT using task killers for nothing. If you think you need a task killer you don't know enough about Android to even have an opinion.

 

[ottscay]

NTO has basically hit it on the head; Android is supposed to use all of your memory (well, at least a large chunk). Killing apps, whether via a task killer or manually is simply going to make it more sluggish.

Now, it after a week of not looking at your memory and not killing apps your OS is still sluggish, then there is some other issue, but it's not a memory leak. So give the OS a while to learn to memory manage without you constantly throwing wrenches in its way, and if it's still sluggish we should try to figure out what is doing that.

(Edit: Also came from a BB, and it took me a couple weeks to accept this at face-value as well, but it's true, and even more true in 2.2, so just lay off the killing of apps and don't look at your "free memory", as that's actually wasted memory).

 

[dvader]

it doesn't matter to me if i had 1mb free or 100mb free.
on both of my dx's with 2.1, any time it dipped below 55mb the phone got very sluggish.
using a task killer to manually kill of things like amazon, amazonmp3, kindle, cityid, skype, ebay. would bring the phone back up to 80-100mb and the phone would then run again fine.

this was repeatable since launch.
now in my opinion, if the phone handled it's business that well, then i wouldn't have ever had to do that. but it didn't
i didn't have it auto close any processes, i only manually killed off apps that didn't need to run in the first place.

any explanations for that?

 

[heraldo]

Did you disable the auto backup feature?

 

[waterwagen]

I've noticed the past few days that while I've done the reset on the device and even installed LP+, plus MAYBE 20-30 apps compared to over 100 before, I'm getting a memory leak. The phone will run fine at times, other times it's very sluggish. I am manually killing apps and services instead of a task manager, and according to the monitoring programs I have installed, I never get above maybe 99 or 100 megs of memory. I've seen it as low as 15 megs when it's real sluggish.

Anyone else having issues with memory?

I think you're having the same issues with sluggishness and slowdowns that I am on mine since the Froyo update. I haven't been checking the memory usage specifically, but the random nature of it's severity does make it seem like a memory issue. Total guess though.

 

[Neosurfur]

People sure are getting rather snappy about these task killers, eh?

First off, read this.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

 

[xelhabb]

Bravozero,

Former Blackberry owner here too! Storm 9530 was the last...

I was running 2.2 leak with Advanced Task Killer when 2.2 Official became available. When I found that 2.2 Official could be rooted, I decided to make the move.

As I did with my Blackberries, I performed a factory reset back to 2.1 using RSD Lite. I restored the phone contacts list and upgraded to 2.2 Official OTA. This time I DID NOT reinstall Advanced Task Killer. The phone never runs sluggish and I get a good 15 hours of solid performance out the Droid X.

As I did on my Blackberries, I will ALWAYS factory reset my Droid before upgrading to a new OS. I will always manually restore my settings and reinstall my favorite apps 1 at a time. It takes some time, but this is the BEST way to do it.

 

[droidntn]

People sure are getting rather snappy about these task killers, eh?

First off, read this.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

YES, they are!! LOL.
This "Whitson Gordon"...who is he?
Is he a credible resourse to be writing and advising on Android systems?

I don't give a lot of credibility to someone who just flat out says "root your phone".
Rooting a phone can be a very dangerous undertaking and has bricked some perfectly good phones.

If what he says is true, that's great. But, I'm yet to read anything like this from Google. Of course, it maybe out there.
Where is a certified Androidologist when you need one?

Not just someone offering advice that sounds good but could be wrong.
That said, my phone certainly runs better after a week on Froyo than when I first upgraded. No ATK...yet.

 

[Neosurfur]

YES, they are!! LOL.
This "Whitson Gordon"...who is he?
Is he a credible resourse to be writing and advising on Android systems?

I don't give a lot of credibility to someone who just flat out says "root your phone".
Rooting a phone can be a very dangerous undertaking and has bricked some perfectly good phones.

If what he says is true, that's great. But, I'm yet to read anything like this from Google. Of course, it maybe out there.
Where is a certified Androidologist when you need one?

Not just someone offering advice that sounds good but could be wrong.
That said, my phone certainly runs better after a week on Froyo than when I first upgraded. No ATK...yet.

Whitson Gordon

Check him out.

 

[droidntn]

Whitson Gordon

I do like to tinker around with scripts and other such things,

So, ya..hmmm......

Well, anyway, if there is validity to this, I wish there was a list of 'bad' apps that can cause your x a problem.

 

[ultravisitor]

People sure are getting rather snappy about these task killers, eh?

First off, read this.

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

I like this part:

"In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems?alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended?especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves."

 

[Bravozero]

I like this part:

"In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems?alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended?especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves."

DING DING DING!!!

Winner.

 

[Adiliyo]

the problem with just that one paragraph is that people who kind of understand the idea of a task killer then think "i know what to ignore, so i'll use it to kill everything i know is not critical"

then they go about killing everything else, worrying about memory, and never letting the OS learn their usage patterns and run efficiently.

also, if these "power users" actually do have an errant app that is forcing itself to stay open, they are never going to find it that way, and in turn will never actually solve their problem if they have one.

personally, if i find my battery is draining faster than normal and think it's an rogue app, i'll go to the battery manager and see what's been using my cpu and in turn my battery and go from there.


so to sum up:

task killers, not meant for android (especially 2.2+)

 

[droidntn]

Android purposefully tries to use most all of the system memory so that it is able to launch apps faster.
The whole purpose of the OS is to utilize all the memory. Not leave 90% of it doing nothing, staying open.

Respectfully, is this documented somewhere that we can read by the Android OS developers?
Or is this an opinion?
Again, respectfully.

 

[GenericMessage]

Alrighty...not sure how this thread has traveled to another rant on ATK Vs. No ATK.


Back to the OP's question (that has been sorta answered):

As you very well know now, memory leak isn't "real" with the Android OS.

I will ask you the same thing I ask everyone who has updated to 2.2, Be it on the Incredible, D1, or the big boy X;

Have you performed a full factory reset (no, not the one mentioned in the thread about how he "fixed" the 2.2 update).

But just a standard factory reset! My job IS mobile phones (and no I am not a phone jockey at the blue box store), and 9 times out of 10, that fixed 2.2 update issues (sluggishness).