Frustration with Nexus 7 tablet and Lollipop

[LabRat66]

Only issues I have had is with Facebook, It unexpectedly shuts down. Other than that everything else seems to be running smooth.

 

[funkylogik]

If you really don't want to do a factory reset and your device isn't already encrypted there is another option - You can encrypt your device. This will force your whole flash drive to be safely rewritten without losing anything, and as a side effect this should restore the responsiveness of your tablet, just like a factory reset would.

I was in exactly the same position as you, after it's Lollipop upgrade my Nexus 7 was completely unusable. 10-30 seconds to go to the home screen. Ditto to bring up the task switcher or a keyboard and it frequently rebooted for no reason. Browsing the Web was like swimming through treacle.

Running benchmarks suggested that that it was slow, but not crippled. On a hunch, knowing that a factory reset wipes the storage, I thought that if wiping the storage works, what about rewriting it all? This afternoon I encrypted my tablet and the difference was night and day. Home screen, keyboard, the fancy new Lollipop task switcher all complete within a few seconds. It even displays complex web pages such as the ingress intel map in a reasonable time.

Of course it isn't all good news. Encryption takes a hit on performance too on an old tablet like the N7 without encryption acceleration. Sequential read is down from 24.71MB/s to 2.45MB/s (Androbench), while random read is down from 5.22MB/s to 2.12MB/s. Sequential and random writes suffer similar drops, but while the measured storage performance has gone down, the actual tablet is much faster. I have traded an unpredictable and crippling loss of performance for a quantifiable, consistent loss of prformance, and for me that's a good deal.

When I feel I can face a factory reset I will re-install my nexus from scratch without encryption and I will get back both the performance I lost over time and the performance lots to encryption, but for now I'm happy having my old tablet back, but with a fresh new, bang up to date face. I now can't wait for my Moto G 4G to get it's Lollipop upgrade.

That's a great idea mate. I've never heard of that trick.
Can't you just unencrypt it now though?

 

[Zsolesz]

I did a Factory data reset, restored my apps and now it's pretty much the same as before. I noticed very little improvement, apps are still crashing and the interface is very slow overall. Wanted to buy a Windows 8 tablet anyway...

 

[rhonin]

Been playing with a friends N7 2012 where they had a serious number of issues. Tried the factory reset (post GW cache clean) and while there was some small improvement, it wasn't much.
Found that if I installed Nova Launcher things picked up dramatically. I still am seeing a number of select/pause/wait/launched issues with the occasional app crash, but overall it is far far better. Facebook and Outlook are the two pita's at the moment.

fyi - a roll back to 4.4 is a last resort at the moment.

 

[Gimcrack3]

My Nexus 7 is now almost a brick thanks Google. Switch off almost all syncing, clean all cache, stop using Chrome and say use say Maxthon and things improve a bit but come on Google this needs a fix

All my Google Nexus does now is juggle coloured balls around. Made a fantastic tablet into a doorstop.

 

[ryanms3030]

I bought a used Nexus 7 2012 a month ago off ebay. Came with 5.0 installed. Just got the ota to 5.0.2 and still it has been more or less useless since I got it. The main reason I got it was for web browsing and it basically runs at dial up speeds loading pages. I recently installed some game emulators and that was a complete joke.

Long story short, I just finally did a clean install of 4.4.4. Seems much snappier so far but I'll play with it for a few days before I say that fixed things.

 

[cybermattgsm]

I was able to fix my nexus 7 2012 lagging problem after the lollipop update and now it is as fast as before. I posted a video on how I did it and there is no downgrade or rooting required. Here is the link www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH2iYdr91DE

 

[Mr. Lucky]

I was able to fix my nexus 7 2012 lagging problem after the lollipop update and now it is as fast as before. I posted a video on how I did it and there is no downgrade or rooting required.

Interesting, but it made no difference on my 2012 N7 (which has already had FDR since the original Lollipop "upgrade"). The other thing that concerns me is that I have not yet received the 5.0.2 update. I got the 5.0 OTA the first day it became available, yet 5.0.2 has been available since December 19th, and still nothing.

 

[MeatLoafT]

I just got the 5.0.2 update today. My tablet is no longer a paperweight! Solved a lot of the lag problems! I tried the FDR after 5.0 and it only helped a little bit...

 

[Mr. Lucky]

Same here- I got 5.0.2 today and it resolved all performance issues. Are you seeing weird line wraps in System Settings menus though? For example, in the Wi-Fi menu,when you tap the SSID name of the AP you are connected to.

 

[Mr. Lucky]

For anyone who's still "on the fence" regarding whether to update from 4.4.4, no need. I had a slew of problems with the 4.4.4 to 5.0 update, but 5.0.2 resolved almost everything. The only remaining issues are that some screen elements render overly-LARGE, and some system and app menus line-wrap at weird places. For example, in the connected Wifi screen:

Freq
uenc
y​

…even though there is ample room to fit the whole word on a single line.
These issues still exist with 5.0.2, but it's so seldom I encounter them, it's not a huge deal. Interestingly, my wife's N7 took the 5.0.2 update today (direct from 4.4.4) and everything is smooth as silk - no lag, no wifi disconnects, no huge font rendering or line-wrap issues… all without having to factory data reset or even wipe cache. "Plug 'n play" - as it should be!

 

[frosthax1]

Only issues I have had is with Facebook, It unexpectedly shuts down. Other than that everything else seems to be running smooth.

honestly thats every device nomatter the firmware.facebook doesnt know how to properly make apps.i get more errors in the messenger than anything.no other apps in google crash just facebook now and then.im on an htc one sv though but its also happened to my lg f6 too.

facebook just needs to stick to pcs.touch doesnt work well for them

 

[KE4NYV]

I got Lollipop this week on my N7. I HATE it. 90% of the time I'm fighting it to do anything. When I say anything, I mean slows down to a crawl for 10-15 minutes every time I wake it up to do something. Even after it starts acting right, a few minutes later it might go into a crawl again for 10-15 minutes. Usually at that point I power cycle, hoping it will act right after the cycle. It usually does the same thing. I went as far as to un-install every app that I don't absolutely need, just in case it was some kind of compatibility issue with 5.0. No change. We have two 2012 N7's in the house, they both got 5.0 within a couple of days of each other and they are both acting the same way.

I sure would like to have 4.x back, just to make the damn thing usable. I had a pretty well working tablet go to shit in a matter of the 30-45 minutes it took to flash 5.0. I've come pretty close to throwing it THROUGH the wall several times.

 

[Mr. Lucky]

How did you just get the 5.0 update? It was pulled for this device ~ 6wks ago. In any event, 5.0.2 should resolve most, if not all, your issues. But at this point, a factory data reset is probably required - either now or after the 5.0.2 update.
GL & 73!

 

[systemofadown]

KE4NYV Don't flash 5.0 or 5.0.1 only flash 5.0.2
If in fact you did flash 5.0.2 - did you clear your cashe? That might help your current situation.

 

[KE4NYV]

I should have been clearer, we got the 5.0.2 update and I'm having the results with it that I described in my first post. It's a paper weight!

 

[walpow]

I should have been clearer, we got the 5.0.2 update and I'm having the results with it that I described in my first post. It's a paper weight!

See if your system partition is full. I had similar results upon installing 5.0.2, and discovered that there was no room there. Deleted a couple of system apps I'll never use (and which can be downloaded from Play if necessary), cleared out just a little space, and things started to go smoothly.

 

[KE4NYV]

I don't think free space is an issue for me...

 

[chanchan05]

Have you tried resetting it?

 

[walpow]

I don't think free space is an issue for me...

Your image shows all of storage. I'm talking about the system partition, which is part of that olive-y colored area to the left. It's defined at a specific size (about 1.6 GB), and when I updated to 5.0.2 it was entirely filled with system stuff. As soon as I removed a few things (which requires rooting), performance took off. (I'm not sure if your tablet has to be rooted to even see how full the system partition is.)

 

[KE4NYV]

Have you tried resetting it?

Are you referring to a factory reset?

 

[chanchan05]

Are you referring to a factory reset?

Yep

 

[terrirers]

Some progress after 5.01 and 5.02 lollipop upgrade with snail slow Nexus 7 (data) !

While on charge, I was running Battery Doctor app and over 2-3 hrs it identified 259 app auto restarts that were slowing the Nexus and draining battery. The worst were Nero Kwik (95), Fongo (58), Picasa Tool (59), Evernote widget (31). I uninstalled the first 3, and also CNN (7 aut0 restarts), UC Browser (6), Free WiFi Spot (6), and Cracklle. Initial start-up still is slow, but most UI hangs and all process errors have disappeared

 

[lvt]

Don't upgrade to Lollipop or bad thing will happen. I have opted to upgrade to Lollipop and now I have an expensive paperweight on my table. I don't know what causes my N7 to quit working from time to time, I guess that 2Gb of RAM is a must for the Android 5.0 (my HTC M8 has the Lollipop and it was smooth).

Please don't pull the trigger until things go better for your old N7.

 

[Unforgiven]

Try doing a factory data reset. It made a world of difference for me on my 2012 N7 following the update.