Task Problem

[dbgrigg189]

Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to the android scene and I apologize for originally posting this in the All Things Root section, but I was immediately hooked once I got my MyTouch. I'm still running the stock OS but I have been considering rooting and going with a different rom to speed the phone up a bit. Until then though I am having a slight issue thats a little strange. I am using Taskiller and I have the on screen widget pulled up. Recently I have noticed that my phone has been randomly starting up apps on its on, GMaps being the most frequent. Since this obviously slows things down a good bit, I was wondering if anyone else has had a problem like this or knows what is causing it and how to fix it. Thanks a lot in advance and I have really been enjoying reading through the forum. And to all the devs, keep up the great work guys!

 

[dasudevil]

Are you noticing these via the task killer or are they actually loading up?

 

[Jnoc]

I have the same problem, they dont open but I find them in my task manager like they are running in the background or something. Gmap, IM, Voicemail, and Settings are almost always there when i open up my task manager. I can kill everything then 30 seconds later i have to kill them all again. Anyone else having this problem or know why I'm having it or how I can fix it?

 

[dasudevil]

I believe they run because that is what helps the phone work. Its part of the system setup. i think...

im on a rooted phone now and dont even notice them.

Then again i use Astro task killer. I feel that works WAY better.

 

[dbgrigg189]

I'm going to try a reset and see if that helps, I'll post up once I finish.

 

[ayush20m]

Tasks like IM, Settings and Voicemail will keep running in the background no matter what you do. These let the phone work normally providing you with features these smartphones should provide. Actually if you use a task manager it is recommended that you put these tasks in the ignore list, because every time you kill these tasks, the system takes up more memory trying to restart them.

These are inbuilt tasks and do not take up a lot of memory, so dont worry about it. If you have apps which you have downloaded from the market like games and they keep popping up even after killing, then you should start sweating, but usually they dont.

 

[dbgrigg189]

Like I said in the original post, its apps like Google Maps and a few other random apps, i already set all the core apps on ignore.

 

[ayush20m]

Do you have any other app that uses google maps like yelp or nav launcher? Some times opening an address from a browser also triggers google maps.

 

[dbgrigg189]

I did forget about one app that I had downloaded (tricorder, yea I know its super nerdy, but a kinda cool app for a few min) I just uninstalled it so lets see what happens

 

[Sos710m]

What are the core apps we should ignore in task killer? I've ben noticing the same thing. I want to root, I'm just too chicken.

 

[Trident]

Mike Cleron, an engineer on the Android Development team, explains application lifecycle.
video
It's really very interesting. Each application runs it's own process. Android is responsible for shutting down and starting application processes as necessary. You do not need a task killer!


Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[ayush20m]

usually the task killer does not show core apps which could cause a slowdown if killed. Some task killers have an option, if checked, show the core apps.

 

[ayush20m]

Mike Cleron, an engineer on the Android Development team, explains application lifecycle.

It's really very interesting. Each application runs it's own process. Android is responsible for shutting down and starting application processes as necessary. You do not need a task killer!


Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

From what I make of the video. At the end of your work you will have the last process still working, in the video it was the mail client. Now I wont suspect mail client to take up a lot of memory, but if it was maps or some other app running, it might. So dont you think it is a good practice to kill that last app?

 

[Trident]

Mike Cleron, an engineer on the Android Development team, explains application lifecycle.

It's really very interesting. Each application runs it's ow

From what I make of the video. At the end of your work you will have the last process still working, in the video it was the mail client. Now I wont suspect mail client to take up a lot of memory, but if it was maps or some other app running, it might. So dont you think it is a good practice to kill that last app?

No, it saves where an app was and relaunches the code from that point. Killing it will completely end the code. Now the application has to completely relaunch and run the code all over again when the system notices that it is missing or when you relaunch the app thus using more battery. It just messes with the normal flow of things. It doesn't help one bit. If anything, task killers do more harm than good. I see better preformance, faster speeds, and greatly improved battery life while not using a task killer. I get about 2 days on a single charge. When I used to use a task killer, I would only get one day to a charge.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[ayush20m]

No, it saves where an app was and relaunches the code from that point. Killing it will completely end the code. Now the application has to completely relaunch and run the code all over again when the system notices that it is missing or when you relaunch the app thus using more battery. It just messes with the normal flow of things. It doesn't help one bit. If anything, task killers do more harm than good. I see better preformance, faster speeds, and greatly improved battery life while not using a task killer. I get about 2 days on a single charge. When I used to use a task killer, I would only get one day to a charge.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

So overall if we dont use the task killer, we save on battery. But if we use it we save ram and it boosts the performance of the phone for that particular period. The problem that is bothering non rooted phones is that of speed. So since we can speed up the phone by killing all the extra open tasks why not use it? There is a trade off between speed and battery life, but that is the decision of the user.

 

[Trident]

So overall if we dont use the task killer, we save on battery. But if we use it we save ram and it boosts the performance of the phone for that particular period. The problem that is bothering non rooted phones is that of speed. So since we can speed up the phone by killing all the extra open tasks why not use it? There is a trade off between speed and battery life, but that is the decision of the user.

No, it should both save battery and provide faster speeds. In theory, anyways... In Linux, there is actual ram and then there is virtual memory. This concept also carries over to Android. It know how to balance everything perfectly so no one process can use to much or to little system resources.

 

[ayush20m]

Frankly, I used your advice and removed the task killer from my phone and I see no difference in speed. Not sure about battery life and will let you know once I see the change.

But before rooting, I would see a considerable increase in the performance. Like smoothness in going from one screen to another or running app after I would kill tasks. How does that happen?

 

[Trident]

Frankly, I used your advice and removed the task killer from my phone and I see no difference in speed. Not sure about battery life and will let you know once I see the change.

But before rooting, I would see a considerable increase in the performance. Like smoothness in going from one screen to another or running app after I would kill tasks. How does that happen?

I'm no Linux or Android expert, I'm only telling you what I have been researching over the last week. Some people do claim that, I'm looking into it as we speak.

 

[dbgrigg189]

well as an update, I uninstalled taskiller and I did notice a bit of a speed increase, not major, but some. I have since however rooted and started using Super D, and so far I am really impressed. A little for complex to install than some others but well worth it!