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Disappearing icons problem - any solutions?

andrewdoane

Member
Nov 6, 2009
50
0
Hello everyone. I've been a lurker for the last few months but thought I would post again to see if there has been any progress on the disappearing icons problem. That is, when I exit out of an app the screen is blank for 30 seconds or so before my widgets and icons reappear. I had it back in November 2009 and I still have it after 2.0.1 and 2.1 and 2.2 and the other 2.2. I see a million threads here and on other forums asking about it.

Just checking in to see if there was ever a solution discovered. Like all of you, I can always bring them back with a hard or soft reset. I'm just wondering if anyone has found a way to prevent it from happening in the first place.

I assume that it's related to available memory or processor or something, so every once in a while I think "I'm going to streamline this thing and give it all kinds of available memory" and it doesn't work. I kill all widgets and go to vanilla wallpaper and it still happens.

Anyone figure this thing out?
 
sure.. trade offs in everything I suppose. also, you didn't mention that you had a low memory problem until now. I have 86mb of memory and I still get it. I have never read of anyone who knows exactly where the threshold is. But from what I read, 86mb is pretty damn good. Some have 20-30mb. we only have hard a paltry 256 so we can only do so much really I would say.

Anyway.. you just do what you can. I move all possible apps to SD card and even most that are not native SD card possible with rooted apps that can move them. I clear caches with a cache app.. I keep up with keeping my system clean, etc.

so, for me, sure.. LP uses some memory but the tradeoff is worth it. You get a KILLER launcher - blows the system launcher out of the water in terms of functions and ability to configure - and helps the issue. as it does for many.
 
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Hi Andrew,
Ive also been a lurker here but from when the Droid first came out. Me and my mom both have had the droids and they got really slow and problematic after the new updates. I had to get a new phone under warranty and when i got my new phone, after installing all the same apps and everything the phone was running perfect. I also was using "Zeam" home application which works well. I now have my phone rooted though so my phone is lightning fast, as fast as my dads Droid2. I have yet to try a factory reset on my moms droid though to see if maybe its that the updates are leaving traces of the OS system behind and causing it to reload or think more. I know it sucks, but a factory reset might be the fix to all your problems.
 
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If I had to rank my annoyances with the Droid, the "disappearing icons" problem would be my biggest complaint. I saw it most when going into an app, switching orientation (eg: landscape to portrait) then exiting back to home. This was most horrible when using the Droid for navigation

There is an excellent thread on the LaunchrPro page that discusses this issue in detail. Note that this is an issue with _many_ launchers, and the thread I refer to discusses the issue in a general sense, and not specifically to the LauncherPro program. The low internal memory problem is common to all of us original Droid owners.

I must point out that using some of the tips in the LauncherPro discussion, i have fixed my lagging icon problem. There is some good advice there. I do use LauncherPro, and it's an excellent launcher app, but like other launchers it's not immune to this problem.

LauncherPro Forum • View topic - Fixed Launcher Pro lag when returning to home screen
 
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Maybe I'm over-simplifying this... but it seems counterintuitive to make my low memory problem better by running another application! Does it really work? Doesn't it come back to bite you in having too little memory in some other way?

Essentially you're trading one application (regular launcher) for another one (launcher pro). It's not like you're adding an extra app to what will already be running on your phone.
 
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Actually, after some tweaking LP is behaving much better for me than the stock home was. I still get the occasional disappearing of icons, but not nearly as bad as before.

The settings I had to change to get the improvement was the obvious "General Settings->Keep in memory" checked.

That didn't do it on it's own, I also had to check:
"Advanced Settings->Memory Usage Settings->Use homescreen caches"
"Advanced Settings->Memory Usage Settings->Build caches as needed"
"Advanced Settings->Memory Usage Settings->Prevent force-closes"

Set Homescreen cache type to compressed
and
Uncheck "clear caches on exit"


It got rid of about 95% of my disappearing icons on my homescreen. As an added bonus, launcher pro is pretty sweet.
 
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I got LauncherPro again and played around with the settings for a couple days, still had disappearing icons (although they did come back a little faster) and gave up on it. I am not satisfied with any of the 10 ways to get them to reappear. They always come back on their own anyway; it's just the frustration of having to wait. I still love you Droid, you're still the coolest thing I've ever owned bar none, but it's pretty ridiculous that this still happens.
 
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They always come back on their own anyway; it's just the frustration of having to wait.

not sure why you even tried. as every thread on the topic and every person who posts on the topic attests, and is pretty clear, there is NO fix. period.

LP just alleviates it.. greatly. so if LP is not good enough, your SOL as that is the best "fix" anyone has come up with. so enjoy the lag 8 out of 10 times while I enjoy it 1 out of 10 times :)
 
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