Issues multitasking (white/black screen, etc) on the HTC EVO 4G LTE
Anyone experiencing any issues with multi tasking...I read a few things prior to getting the phone and now that I have it. It's hit or miss..sometimes it will bring me back right where I was..and other times it will reload the page...tho in "recent apps" the picture shows where I last was...
I haven't had any issues with mine. It takes Mr right back where I was. With the exception of the Phandroid app. That always defaults to the home page.
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if you "back out" of an app you are closing it out. if you just tap "home" or go to the pull down and access something else (an alert or somesuch, etc), that app you left should be right where you last left off from it.
if you have moved on to other things, after a while, the OS will see you have not accessed it in some time and then close it out (even if you had left it running in the background).
this is standard Android. some of you must not be used to Android and how the OS works.
if you "back out" of an app you are closing it out. if you just tap "home" or go to the pull down and access something else (an alert or somesuch, etc), that app you left should be right where you last left off from it.
if you have moved on to other things, after a while, the OS will see you have not accessed it in some time and then close it out (even if you had left it running in the background).
this is standard Android. some of you must not be used to Android and how the OS works.
HTC Sense 4.0 is really agressive in killing background tasks. That's why the OP is concerned.
if you "back out" of an app you are closing it out. if you just tap "home" or go to the pull down and access something else (an alert or somesuch, etc), that app you left should be right where you last left off from it.
if you have moved on to other things, after a while, the OS will see you have not accessed it in some time and then close it out (even if you had left it running in the background).
this is standard Android. some of you must not be used to Android and how the OS works.
I know how android works I've had it for years.... When I reenter the app it starts over.. Not all the time but sometimes.... I was told that that's how they want it to work and sense is aggressive when killing apps.. But in no way am I a newbie to android
ok well if you understand why its doing it then whats the issue exactly?
and i am not trying to say you are a newbie to anything. i dont know your experience with android hence why i made that statement.
so we know the OS can be aggressive with some apps and lenient on others.
would rooting the device and cooking a ROM change these characteristics?
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ok well if you understand why its doing it then whats the issue exactly?
and i am not trying to say you are a newbie to anything. i dont know your experience with android hence why i made that statement.
so we know the OS can be aggressive with some apps and lenient on others.
would rooting the device and cooking a ROM change these characteristics?
I didn't realize it was supposed to to that until after I made the thread... My 3vo woud always bring me right back where I was... So I didn't know if I was ding something wrong lol
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OK, I find this terribly interesting. It's a reply to htc evo 814 in response to his issue about Sense restarting - a related action, because in that case, Sense is bailing to make room for apps, instead of vice versa.
Quote:
I would first recommend that you check a few settings on your phone. Go into settings>developer options and under Application settings make sure Don't Keep Activities is unchecked and Background Process Limit is set to use the Standard Limit option. Once this is done, restart your Evo 46 LTE by holding the power button and choosing restart.
Does that mean that there is an easily accessible way to tune it??
OK, I find this terribly interesting. It's a reply to htc evo 814 in response to his issue about Sense restarting - a related action, because in that case, Sense is bailing to make room for apps, instead of vice versa.
Does that mean that there is an easily accessible way to tune it??
Very interested to see if there is...
The dev options are a cool thing to see on this phone Btw.... Makes me want to learn more about android and try my hand in development
Last edited by 3vodroid; May 28th, 2012 at 12:23 AM.
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ok well if you understand why its doing it then whats the issue exactly?
and i am not trying to say you are a newbie to anything. i dont know your experience with android hence why i made that statement.
so we know the OS can be aggressive with some apps and lenient on others.
would rooting the device and cooking a ROM change these characteristics?
A custom kernel can really make a difference. On the GNex some devs enabled zram which lets the phone keep even more apps in memory so they don't have to reload. It works great.
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OK, I find this terribly interesting. It's a reply to htc evo 814 in response to his issue about Sense restarting - a related action, because in that case, Sense is bailing to make room for apps, instead of vice versa.
Quote:
I would first recommend that you check a few settings on your phone. Go into settings>developer options and under Application settings make sure Don't Keep Activities is unchecked and Background Process Limit is set to use the Standard Limit option. Once this is done, restart your Evo 46 LTE by holding the power button and choosing restart.
Does that mean that there is an easily accessible way to tune it??
Interesting indeed.
"Don't Keep Activities" was a solution/troubleshooting step to a few One X problems I recall reading.
It is not totally customizable/tuneable.
Though right below the option to "Don't Keep Activities" you can set a "Background Process Limit", click it and you get the limited choices of "Standard Limit", "No Background Processes", and "At most 1 process", ... 2, ... 3, ... 4"
Last edited by PyroSporker; May 28th, 2012 at 12:46 AM.
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We might be able to get to the set points via System Tuner and root, but until custom recovery and full nandroids exist, I think fiddling with those would be insane.
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We might be able to get to the set points via System Tuner and root, but until custom recovery and full nandroids exist, I think fiddling with those would be insane.
Oh boy..... I have alot to learn... Lol
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I can confirm that the Evo has the same aggressive memory management issues present in the One X. Sometimes even the Sense launcher gets killed when i've opened enough tabs in Chrome.
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I can confirm that the Evo has the same aggressive memory management issues present in the One X. Sometimes even the Sense launcher gets killed when i've opened enough tabs in Chrome.
Same thing for me, although I haven't been using Chrome all that much, but definitely happens when I have several apps going. The first few days I didn't experience Sense getting killed and relaunched, but it has happened a couple times in the last 24 hrs.
It hasn't become unbearable or overly annoying .... yet.
I'm a Rhapsody user and there are issues getting the Rhapsody app to play in the background. I'll start the app, play a song, hit the phones home button to send Rhapsody to the background. Then I'll move on to other things, Facebook, Reader, and then Rhapsody will just stop.
I've brought the issue up to Rhapsody, just letting others know.
Google Play Music acts as expected, never closes when in the background.
Anyone else having problems with the System Panel app? It keeps turning off and on by itself (or could be crashing, but no Force close notifications). So it makes monitoring and history kind of out of wack.
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This is an issue with the aggressive memory management of the LTEvo/One X -- apps are much more likely to get killed and it looks like the monitoring of SystemPanel App is falling victim to that.
1) You can set SystemPanel App to "high priority", which requires that an icon show up on the taskbar. However, the memory management is so aggressive here that even a high priority thread can get killed. I can personally demonstrate this where I would go into Chrome browser, start opening links as new tabs, and then eventually the SystemPanel App icon will just disappear from the taskbar.... outrageous.
2) Strangely, my personal solution was, in addition to setting SystemPanel App to high priority, to get rid of using Sense altogether. I switched to ApexLauncher for my homescreen, which I found to consume a lot less memory, and inexplicably, SystemPanel app has not been killed as of late.
Let me know what you guys find.
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I can't believe that an app designed to be run in the background (a service app), like System Panel would be killed. these should NEVER be killed automatically by the OS. Are people also reporting that their music players (especially non-Sense players) are quitting in the middle of other multitasking activity??
I can't believe that an app designed to be run in the background (a service app), like System Panel would be killed. these should NEVER be killed automatically by the OS. Are people also reporting that their music players (especially non-Sense players) are quitting in the middle of other multitasking activity??
Yep, the minproc value is set a little too high - all sorts of apps bailing have been the subject of complaints here in and the One forums (where Sense 4 lives, iow). We had an HTC press release covered by Phandroid a few weeks back saying, thanks for the feedback but it's working as we intended.
Merged threads as this has turned into the multitasking discussion, maybe a few tidbits in posts above, including a tip for rooted users.
Still curious if switching launchers works around the problem. Can't see how it would... but surely we have users out there running 3rd party launchers that could give us some data points?
Still curious if switching launchers works around the problem. Can't see how it would... but surely we have users out there running 3rd party launchers that could give us some data points?
App bailing is controlled by system parameters (there are several that you can see running some of the various monitoring apps).
If you get less of a system load on memory for any reason, including some 3rd party launcher requiring less ram than Rosie (the Sense launcher), I can see how that would alleviate the issue.
Are you suggesting that replacing the Sense Launcher with any 3rd party launcher works around the aggressive mem management issue?
Quote:
Originally Posted by novox77
I can't believe that an app designed to be run in the background (a service app), like System Panel would be killed. these should NEVER be killed automatically by the OS. Are people also reporting that their music players (especially non-Sense players) are quitting in the middle of other multitasking activity??
Quote:
Originally Posted by novox77
Still curious if switching launchers works around the problem. Can't see how it would... but surely we have users out there running 3rd party launchers that could give us some data points?
It's crazy but true. You should've seen my disappointment and dread when I noticed that SystemPanel was constantly getting killed and that even Sense itself was frequently reloading -- I could go to AndroidForums, open up several threads as new tabs and then watch as my brand new phone started to freak out (I would get the "toast" notifications multiple times about how SystemPanel App was starting the monitoring service -- it was struggling to come back after dying).
When I was using Sense as a launcher, it was consuming ~200-250 MB of RAM, but with Apex, I'm at ~60-80 MB. I'm a little astounded too because I would just imagine regardless of how much RAM the launcher is taking up, that other apps would get kicked before High Priority ones, but it's really not clear what is going on under the hood. At any rate, using a new launcher has increased my happiness notably.
When I have time this weekend, I'll film a few videos of the memory management in action to help diagnose (and to get HTC off their butts with this whole "working as intended" garbage).
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I actually experienced it freeze up a bit today when I was on a call, a call was coming in, and it was trying to sync to my email. Only lasted a couple of seconds.
When I was using Sense as a launcher, it was consuming ~200-250 MB of RAM, but with Apex, I'm at ~60-80 MB. I'm a little astounded too because I would just imagine regardless of how much RAM the launcher is taking up, that other apps would get kicked before High Priority ones, but it's really not clear what is going on under the hood. At any rate, using a new launcher has increased my happiness notably.
Really glad to hear that reducing mem footprint relieves the issue somewhat. This is near dealbreaker for me, since I know I would not be able to tolerate the malfunction for very long.
If this is indeed working as designed, the designer(s) should be summarily terminated. This is unacceptable. If this must be there to support Sense on ICS, then my logical conclusion is that Sense should be scrapped.
Then again, I'd prolly prefer the Sense Camera app over any AOSP app... can't win.
I can confirm that using Nova Launcher made my experience much better today. My Sense was starting to reload and show me a "Loading..." screen every time I hit the Home key.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. It's helped me keep my sanity :-)
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I was doing a good job avoiding problems until I started surfing on the browser. It didn't take much. 2 different sites on 2 tabs, and my System Panel disappeared. Exited the browser, and System Panel came back. Interestingly, I didn't notice exactly when SP went missing, but Tasker sent me a notification saying memory was low. That was when I noticed it was gone. Time to give the customer launcher a try.
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Strange but I am not experiencing any of this but it sounds like some of you are trying to run/do to many things at the same time. I know Apple has limits like this in place too and why it "sort of" multitasks the way it does.
I did have a problem with Tango hanging the other day and trying to use voice in SMS but it turned out to be another app EVA not releasing the microphone.
Strange but I am not experiencing any of this but it sounds like some of you are trying to run/do to many things at the same time. I know Apple has limits like this in place too and why it "sort of" multitasks the way it does.
I did have a problem with Tango hanging the other day and trying to use voice in SMS but it turned out to be another app EVA not releasing the microphone.
Android has always been this way, it was simply harder to force the condition before.
It seems to be the combination of less available ram and a higher threshold setting for minimum free memory.
It's going to affect some people not at all and others quite a bit because it does depend on how much the user is doing at once as well as the size of the tasks involved.
Coming from the Evo 3D, I'd guesstimate that, all else being equal, we've lost the ability to load the equivalent of a few extra web pages.
if you "back out" of an app you are closing it out. if you just tap "home" or go to the pull down and access something else (an alert or somesuch, etc), that app you left should be right where you last left off from it.
Well I'm not sure where I am going wrong here. I read that HTC multi-tasking link that says not to keep too many apps open. However, I can't keep a single task open.
I try and back out of everything I am not going to use anymore. I even checked running apps and the only ones on there are the ones that always run like "maps". However, when I play the game 'Cartoon Wars' I can't leave the game for anything. The second I press the home button or the task button to check a text or change a song, it restarts Cartoon Wars... almost every single time. There is almost never a time I go back to the game to have it sitting the way I left it. Mind you, I only leave the game for a few seconds tops and I never "back out" of it, always use the home or task button...
Needless to say, not being able to do anything but play my game out of fear of losing my progress is REALLY frustrating.
this new sense/ics and how it wants to much RAM space... is a big deal for me.
i know, i can use custom ROMs that might help this.. or go full ICS, but then i am also loosing a lot of what i like about evos. I like sense and what it gives me.
so..it actually has me looking at the S3.
but the radios history in past samsungs have me on the fence.
I am waiting to hear more from sprint users review of the new S3.. GPS performance.. after release.
i know, i can use custom ROMs that might help this.. or go full ICS, but then i am also loosing a lot of what i like about evos. I like sense and what it gives me.
so..it actually has me looking at the S3.
So... you don't want to load any custom roms because you like Sense so much and your solution is to get a Samsung?
I am saying.. Since I am looking at going custom ROM without Sense.. Then I should look at S3, which has 2Gb of RAM too..
Or, if you like Sense, try viper's rom - debloated Sense with the minimum free memory value set to something less agressive, some say that does the trick.
Or the SGS3 - that's shaping up to be a nice phone, too.
I'm going to stick with Sense, debloat it, tinker it, and then decide if I want to try anything more radical.
I'm going to stick with Sense, debloat it, tinker it, and then decide if I want to try anything more radical.
Please let us know if/when you come up with something that works. I am still waiting on my LTE, but discussions of its camera ("all marketing, it's a blur-fest with grotesquely over-sharpened edges") and multitasking ("there's only 600MB ram free due to gfx mapping, and sense takes 500 of that") leave me absolutely horrified. Since I got mine secondhand and am still waiting for it to arrive, I don't think I can return it. I was so excited for this phone... is it really that bad compared to the SGS3?
Looks like Samsung is more than hype this time. The RAM makes the multitasking issues disappear, and the camera samples look incredible compared to the LTE, both zoomed out and zoomed all the way in (though I haven't seen comparisons with turned down HTC's ridiculous sharpness/contrast/saturation settings yet). Sure, I'd lose a kickstand, better screen (more accurate colors and resolution), Sense (I've gotten quite accustomed to it), and HTC's build quality (Though scratched by sand?)...
What to do?
Last edited by fattank; June 7th, 2012 at 04:08 PM.
Please let us know if/when you come up with something that works. I am still waiting on my LTE, but discussions of its camera ("all marketing, it's a blur-fest with grotesquely over-sharpened edges") and multitasking ("there's only 600MB ram free due to gfx mapping, and sense takes 500 of that") leave me absolutely horrified. Since I got mine secondhand and am still waiting for it to arrive, I don't think I can return it. I was so excited for this phone... is it really that bad compared to the SGS3?
Looks like Samsung is more than hype this time. The RAM makes the multitasking issues disappear, and the camera samples look incredible compared to the LTE, both zoomed out and zoomed all the way in (though I haven't seen comparisons with turned down HTC's ridiculous sharpness/contrast/saturation settings yet). Sure, I'd lose a kickstand, better screen (more accurate colors and resolution), Sense (I've gotten quite accustomed to it), and HTC's build quality (Though scratched by sand?)...
What to do?
Nah, the camera is really great, you may want to dial back saturation under settings (depending on the lighting, etc). Check out the images thread here, nothing blurry there (except maybe my quick and dirty drive by snap, lol), and Sense does not take 500 MB of the 680 available.
I will going with the Chameleon rom, to get my buttons my way, and then applying any of viper's mods by hand, then debloating.
I was fully prepared to return this to go with the SGS3 if I was in any way unhappy, but the unhappies I have are too minor and too easily addressed.
The screen is simply amazing. Calls are crystal clear. Impromptu snaps of the family are absolutely fabulous.
The multitasking woes can be dealt with.
And all screens will scratch easily with the right sand - the active ingredient in sandpaper and sandblasters, very little can stand against sand.
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Please let us know if/when you come up with something that works. I am still waiting on my LTE, but discussions of its camera ("all marketing, it's a blur-fest with grotesquely over-sharpened edges") and multitasking ("there's only 600MB ram free due to gfx mapping, and sense takes 500 of that") leave me absolutely horrified. Since I got mine secondhand and am still waiting for it to arrive, I don't think I can return it. I was so excited for this phone... is it really that bad compared to the SGS3?
Looks like Samsung is more than hype this time. The RAM makes the multitasking issues disappear, and the camera samples look incredible compared to the LTE, both zoomed out and zoomed all the way in (though I haven't seen comparisons with turned down HTC's ridiculous sharpness/contrast/saturation settings yet). Sure, I'd lose a kickstand, better screen (more accurate colors and resolution), Sense (I've gotten quite accustomed to it), and HTC's build quality (Though scratched by sand?)...
I've tested a few games and have found no lag.
I do get that pesky Menu button on the screen though.
But this is the app dev's problem and will probably show up on other ICS phones too. I didn't see it playing Temple Run.
View attached
After browsing with like 6 tabs opened on the default browser with "View Desktop Site" enabled, I do sometimes get Sense to reload. Web browsing consuming a good amount of RAM is to be expected (even on the PC).
The LTEvo is an excellent phone with great build quality and camera. I am a Sense fan. Don't let all the opinions and gripes of the phone get you down. I dislike TouchWiz but like the 2 GB of RAM on the SG3. But when I fiddle with my LTEvo, I can't help but fall in love with it again.
Well I'm not sure where I am going wrong here. I read that HTC multi-tasking link that says not to keep too many apps open. However, I can't keep a single task open.
That's odd.
You aren't using a task killer, are you?
Can you - reboot your phone with fastboot off (settings, power), open a text message, tap home, then open your messaging app again, let us know what happens?
Nah, the camera is really great, you may want to dial back saturation under settings (depending on the lighting, etc). Check out the images thread here, nothing blurry there (except maybe my quick and dirty drive by snap, lol), and Sense does not take 500 MB of the 680 available.
I will going with the Chameleon rom, to get my buttons my way, and then applying any of viper's mods by hand, then debloating.
I was fully prepared to return this to go with the SGS3 if I was in any way unhappy, but the unhappies I have are too minor and too easily addressed.
The screen is simply amazing. Calls are crystal clear. Impromptu snaps of the family are absolutely fabulous.
The multitasking woes can be dealt with.
And all screens will scratch easily with the right sand - the active ingredient in sandpaper and sandblasters, very little can stand against sand.
Thanks for the wonderfully encouraging response! With a custom ROM, debloat, memfree tweaked defaults, and eventually zram-enabled kernels -- especially with multitasking increasingly looking like a conditional bug in some handsets under certain conditions -- I'm quite heartened.
On further inspection, it seems all of the LTE's shortcomings can be fixed in software (save for battery replacement, which is a non-issue for me; in fact, I can't count the number of times I dropped a phone mid-call just to have the battery pop out, sometimes corrupting data). Even the internal storage 'shortcoming' can be mitigated with my 32 (and soon, 64/128GB) microSD[H/X]C card.
Samsung's shortcomings compared to the LTE (flimsier plastic design, gimmicky TouchWiz UI, lack of kickstand or shutter button, hideous PenTile + blue tint + 300%LCD power white pixels) aren't nearly so easily overcome, however. When you get down to it, a phone is made up of its hardware and software, and in both respects the LTE wins hands-down (save for the Sense multitasking glitch which I'm confident will be fixed/worked around soon enough).
In sum, to compensate for the few GS3 specs it falls short of, the LTE simply needs software tweak(s) and an SD card. However, to compete with the LTE where the GS3 falls short, the Sammy would need a whole new screen technology devoid of PenTile, inaccurate blue-tinted colors, or black-creep; an entirely new metallic/solid outer chassis; a glue-on kickstand (or one integrated in some bulky case); a hardwired camera button glued onto the side; and a driver-level UI overhaul (either Sense or "senseless," anything not taking a "touch-whizz" on the user experience). See, it's harder for the SGS3 to live up to its pitfalls with respect to the LTE than vice versa.
At the end of the day, the LTE as a multimedia phone seems the better (and sturdier) choice with a more accurate screen -- both in terms of color and effective resolution, where its 1050x590 effective dimensions take 300% of LCD's power to render white regions of equivalent size and relative luminance (that's organic diode tech for ya) -- white remains the vast majority of the internet, by the way, especially for mobile sites.
The SGS3, thanks to PenTile, has an effective pixel density nearly identical to last generation's Evo 3D (259 vs 256ppi). This is not cool, especially since I can make out the 3D's pixels easily enough when zoomed out. Compare that to the LTE's screen with an incredible 312ppi. That's close to retina display (326ppi) level, folks, spread out over 4.7 inches, with accurate colors to boot.
Coupled with Samsung's shoddy history with GPS and radios (despite great whitepaper tech specs in the chipset) and patchy customer service (repairs, pushing updates, etc) since the Galaxy S (1)...not a Rosie picture. True, neither of these points are yet substantiated in regards to the S3, but history just may be worth more than a grain of salt. HTC certainly isn't flawless in either arena itself, but at the very least this isn't a point in Sammy's favor.
Last edited by fattank; June 8th, 2012 at 10:01 PM.
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The HTC EVO 4G LTE is Sprint's version of the HTC One X. It comes with all the same specs, except for the processor, internal storage and radios (includes LTE). And aesthetics are also significantly different.
While many users have complaine... Read More
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Issues multitasking (white/black screen, etc) on the HTC EVO 4G LTE
