Droid and 2.2- has it slowed your droid down?

[sergey]

With 2.1, the phone was perfect. Very little lag.

So it came as a surprise that with 2.2, now the entire OS is laggy often.
When I unlock the screen it will freeze for a second when I swipe

When I switch from an application to the home screen it can take 5-10 seconds to populate the screen with my widgets and icons. And nothing has changed.

When I swipe from different home screens, sometimes it takes 2-3 times before the screen will respond.

Is there anything I can do improve this? Or this is just the way things are with Droid and 2.2?

If there are any non-root solutions, I'd like to try those out first before rooting.

 

[The_Chief]

Froyo is FAMOUS for screen lag. I would try LauncherPro, or another homescreen replacement. It may help a little bit.. but not much short of Gingerbread will fix it.

LauncherPro-->Preferences-->Memory Usage Settings-->Use Homescreen caches and Build Caches as Needed.

 

[Motormech]

I would have to second The_Chiefs comment about Launcher Pro. I installed it on my Droid 1 after the 2.2 update and it made a world of difference. I recommended it to two friends who installed it and had very favorable results as well.

 

[riffdex]

With 2.1, the phone was perfect. Very little lag.

So it came as a surprise that with 2.2, now the entire OS is laggy often.
When I unlock the screen it will freeze for a second when I swipe

When I switch from an application to the home screen it can take 5-10 seconds to populate the screen with my widgets and icons. And nothing has changed.

When I swipe from different home screens, sometimes it takes 2-3 times before the screen will respond.

Is there anything I can do improve this? Or this is just the way things are with Droid and 2.2?

If there are any non-root solutions, I'd like to try those out first before rooting.

What ROM are you using? Are you stock or rooted? Ever since I first installed Froyo, I have been dealing with a slower, less responsive phone. I hated what had happened, but I couldn't see myself going back to 2.1 and losing so much functionality. Of all of the Froyo ROMs I used to have, BB 0.4 was the best out of them (but still not perfect). I was at BB 0.4 for awhile and it was good enough, compared to the other ROMs I had tried. When BB 0.5 came out, I upgraded to it and it got a lot worse for my phone. I was having much worse lagging and problems with BB 0.5. So I switched to UD for awhile, and after testing it I realized it was just as bad, if not worse. At one point I tried out the MIUI ROM and I just didn't like it very much. Then, the other day I installed LFY 1.9, and my phone is the fastest it has been in quite some time. This ROM really agrees with my phone, and I am very happy that I finally found a ROM that is as fast as 2.1 was for me. You should try installing different ROMs. Different phones will work better with certain ROMs, I just know that LFY is working perfectly for me, and I think you should give it a try.

EDIT: I just now read your last sentence. I understand that you want to find out a way to fix the problem without rooting. But if you do end up rooting, take a look at LFY 1.9 for sure.

 

[takeshi]

Droid and 2.2- has it slowed your droid down?

Nope but I'm running Bugless Beast 0.5 and Launcher Pro with a 1/2GHz Slayher kernel.

I'd strongly suggest rooting and trying out some custom ROM's as well as Launcher Pro. You might want to start with Launcher Pro by itself if you're strongly averse to rooting for some reason.

 

[x026092]

unrooted & slow.... I'll try LauncherPro.

 

[x026092]

In installed LauncherPro, rebooted, enabled it & un-enabled it..... phone works great. now.

 

[DDave]

In installed LauncherPro, rebooted, enabled it & un-enabled it..... phone works great. now.

Interesting...

How can a home screen replacment, enabled, and then disabled, speed up a phone?

I've seen similar issues with repainting the screen with icons... I've attributed to to many icons and widgets running. I've limited my screens to 3 and that seems to help a LOT. (BTW I'm running Launcher Pro -paid version).

 

[x026092]

Interesting...

How can a home screen replacment, enabled, and then disabled, speed up a phone?

I've seen similar issues with repainting the screen with icons... I've attributed to to many icons and widgets running. I've limited my screens to 3 and that seems to help a LOT. (BTW I'm running Launcher Pro -paid version).

Beats me. Maybe it forced the OS to reset the home screen & clean up the config?? I'll update the status & see if it slows up again.

 

[BigRedGonzo]

I have been rooted and running a custom ROM (simply stunning), rooted and running stock, rooted with a custom ROM and kernel (Chevno1 7 slot low voltage 1.0GHz,) rooted with stock ROM and custom kernel and am now back to completely stock. I honestly cannot tell much of a difference between any of the above combinations, especially from a speed standpoint. The screen lag that I have encountered has been in all the launcher offerings that I have tried, i.e., the stock launcher, ADW.Launcher and in Launcher Pro. I prefer ADW and Launcher Pro to the stock offering because of their customizability, but I occasionally get lag in all three. Most of the time, the lag occurs when repainting the home screen after returning from an app. Anyway, this is just my $0.02 worth.

BigRedGonzo

 

[Turdbogls]

the problem is with the OS. it doesn't matter what launcher you are running, it will ALWAYS happen unless google fixes it. basically the OS sees your launcher as an application, and the native app killer kills it off while you are in another app to open up memory. so once you hit the home button, it basically has to restart the launcher from scratch, and this is where you are seeing the redraws. i have had issues on EVERY custom ROM, stock ROM, Stock launcher, ADW launcher and Launcher Pro.

there is a command (needs root access so stockers are SOL) that helps out a lot, but i still get it. i have tried everything, read every thread about this, and it still happens (although a lot less than before)

but i have done the terminal
su (enter)
echo ro.HOME_APP_ADJ=1 >> data/local.prop (enter)
reboot

then i enabled compcache, took away animations, keep in memory option on launcher pro is checked, clear cache once a day, and reboot once a day, and i get about 3 redraws a day. it is annoying, and i am thinking of switching back to a 2.1 ROM until we can get 2.3 on the Droid. i was happy with 2.1 and launcher pro, but i feel it will be slow compaired to 2.2.....i dunno. it is a terrible problem that should never happen...the only reason it does is because we only have 256MB memory, while the newer devices (x, inc, D2 ect) all have 512mb memory so the task killer doesn't usually have to kill the launcher off.

 

[TKazNC]

I have noticed that my App Drawer took an extremely long time to refresh after going back to the home screen after using an app. This happened when the home screen lagged so it got me to thinking; maybe refreshing the app drawer was a culprit in creating the home screen lag.

As an experiment I hid all my apps from the app drawer which is a preference in Launcher Pro. I then used Folder Organizer (FO) to create a shortcut for my apps and replaced the default App Drawer shortcut in the Dock with the new FO shortcut. Lo and behold, I seldom get the lag I experienced prior to this new configuration. I still get a occasional lags but only infrequently.

I am not sure why this works but I would guess that when the home screen launches it waits for all the elements to load, including the App Drawer, before you have access to the home screens. If someone with a bit of coding experience with home screens can explain the sequence of launching a home screen this may explain why my new configuration seems to work.

Curious to see if someone else could try this to see if it works for them as well.

Tom
Unrooted, Stock Droid 2.2 using LP

 

[Turdbogls]

I have noticed that my App Drawer took an extremely long time to refresh after going back to the home screen after using an app. This happened when the home screen lagged so it got me to thinking; maybe refreshing the app drawer was a culprit in creating the home screen lag.

As an experiment I hid all my apps from the app drawer which is a preference in Launcher Pro. I then used Folder Organizer (FO) to create a shortcut for my apps and replaced the default App Drawer shortcut in the Dock with the new FO shortcut. Lo and behold, I seldom get the lag I experienced prior to this new configuration. I still get a occasional lags but only infrequently.

I am not sure why this works but I would guess that when the home screen launches it waits for all the elements to load, including the App Drawer, before you have access to the home screens. If someone with a bit of coding experience with home screens can explain the sequence of launching a home screen this may explain why my new configuration seems to work.

Curious to see if someone else could try this to see if it works for them as well.

Tom
Unrooted, Stock Droid 2.2 using LP

hmmmm....i will give this a shot and report back tomorrow. interesting concept tho.
i do notice it hase to load all those apps again, so maybe this will work. its not as "pretty" as the app drawer but if this gets rid of the lag for me, color me happy

edit: OK so i tried this and got Good and bad results. the phone snapped back to the home screen EVERY time after a night of fairly constant and heavy use. however, for some reason the new "app drawer' (which was the app folder i created) never really stayed there, i had to add the shortcut about 4 times in the 10 hours or so i had this setup. however this was using a different app than folder organizer. i just downloaded FO and i am giving that a shot, so hopefully, with everything i have done to fix this, this final "mod" will finally fix it completely. will report again tomorrow.

edit: OK, so using Folder Organizer and Hiding all apps in the settings, has given me GREAT results. i had ZERO redraws in the last 24 or so Hours. i think i have finally fixed this issue. i couldn't have done it without the help of TKazNC so thank you.

google needs to fix this so i can get my app drawer back tho.

 

[sergey]

Thanks for the advice!

My droid is way more responsive now!

 

[x026092]

Thanks for the advice!

My droid is way more responsive now!

What did you do?

 

[TKazNC]

Well, the lag has reared its ugly head once again. After a day or so the lags became more and more frequent until they happen almost each time I go back to the home screen. A restart seems to have solved it for now but I'm not confident that it will last.

Well, it was a shot. Hope the others that have tried this are getting better results. As for me, time to root!

T

 

[The_Chief]

Root away (and make a backup!) but keep in mind that rooting will not "cure" screen lag. That's an Android 2.2 issue and not likely to go away until the new Gingerbread Android comes out (we hope). The Motorola Droid will almost certainly NOT get Gingerbread officially, so rooting will get your phone ready for the Gingerbread custom ROMs that will inevitably hit the streets. I for one can hardly wait!

 

[TKazNC]

Root away (and make a backup!) but keep in mind that rooting will not "cure" screen lag. That's an Android 2.2 issue and not likely to go away until the new Gingerbread Android comes out (we hope). The Motorola Droid will almost certainly NOT get Gingerbread officially, so rooting will get your phone ready for the Gingerbread custom ROMs that will inevitably hit the streets. I for one can hardly wait!

Thanks for the info. Now to read the daunting How to Root thread to find the best practices. The issue I am having is that I am using Mac OSX 10.4. Seems I need to find access to a PC to use the listed methods, which I can do. Just need to make the time...

Cheers, T

 

[Droidood]

Well, the lag has reared its ugly head once again. After a day or so the lags became more and more frequent until they happen almost each time I go back to the home screen. A restart seems to have solved it for now but I'm not confident that it will last.

Well, it was a shot. Hope the others that have tried this are getting better results. As for me, time to root!

T

Yup, this is what I've been complaining about since 2.2 came out. Rebooting fixes it temporarily, but then it slowly regresses until the lag is unbearable again -- usually within 24 hours.

It really seems like there's a memory leak...

 

[x026092]

Yup, this is what I've been complaining about since 2.2 came out. Rebooting fixes it temporarily, but then it slowly regresses until the lag is unbearable again -- usually within 24 hours.

It really seems like there's a memory leak...

Well I guess they're priming us to go back to a WM7 phone next year.

 

[Snaz]

I somehow managed to hold off on my update...(((GASP))) and am still running 2.1, unrooted......

all these threads make me nervous....should I stick with a while longer...or is the lag worth the extras.

 

[Droidood]

I somehow managed to hold off on my update...(((GASP))) and am still running 2.1, unrooted......

all these threads make me nervous....should I stick with a while longer...or is the lag worth the extras.

Extras? The only extras I got were the extra problems... lol

 

[riffdex]

Extras? The only extras I got were the extra problems... lol

zz for me I was having problems w/ 2.2 since I updated. But I wasn't willing to go back to 2.1. I tried many 2.2 ROMs but all of them sucked for me. Last week I installed LFY (Liquid Frozen Yogurt) 1.9 and I have had absolutely ZERO problems and my phone has been faster than 2.1 by a longshot. I don't know how I lived without having it before. I was very disappointed with the performance of my phone ever since I installed Froyo and I was to the point where I was almost willing to pay the $600 for a Droid X or a different, faster phone but all that has changed. I haven't read about anyone having problems with LFY but I guess it's possible. Anyways, don't bump it till you try it guys!

 

[sergey]

What did you do?

Go to the android market and look for "LauncherPro" not "Launcher Pro". If you search with the space, you won't find it.
Then install the app by some guy named Federico- it's an orange icon with a home logo on it.

And why does the android market search get totally confused over a space? I don't know, maybe I am asking too much from Google. You'd think that a company based on a search engine maybe might have the know-how to make search a tad easier with more relevant results.

For some reason installing this improves the lag greatly. It is still there, though.

 

[x026092]

Go to the android market and look for "LauncherPro" not "Launcher Pro". If you search with the space, you won't find it.
Then install the app by some guy named Federico- it's an orange icon with a home logo on it.

And why does the android market search get totally confused over a space? I don't know, maybe I am asking too much from Google. You'd think that a company based on a search engine maybe might have the know-how to make search a tad easier with more relevant results.

For some reason installing this improves the lag greatly. It is still there, though.

I did that & went back to the original Home screen, phone works great now.