Help Sense crashes / restarts after using browser in GB

[swindelljd]

I have been running Gingerbread for a while now and am having a problem with Sense/browser. It seems that the use of the browser will periodically cause Sense to crash and when I hit the home button after being in the browser I see the white "HTC" screen and Sense re-loads.

I say periodically because after a full reboot it happens about 1 in 5 times but becomes more and more frequent as time goes on until I get frustrated and do a full reboot again.

I've basically removed all Sense widget except the clock because after each crash they all then have to reload their data which takes forever.

Yes I am rooted but only so I can monitor /data/data and manage that space to avoid out of space issues.

I am wondering if anyone else has seen this issue and has any suggestions for things I should check.

TIA.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

You are running out of ram, it's a glitch in the update that was pushed out. No real fix for it.

 

[swindelljd]

You are running out of ram, it's a glitch in the update that was pushed out. No real fix for it.

So I have been testing this theory and don't really see the evidence to support it. I monitor the ram with SuperManager and it never gets below 50MB or so no matter what I am doing. However the only thing that causes sense to crash seems to be the native browser, and not every time.

Also I know other people with Dinc's who have never seen this issue.

What have you seen that points to running out of ram?

 

[euph_22]

So I have been testing this theory and don't really see the evidence to support it. I monitor the ram with SuperManager and it never gets below 50MB or so no matter what I am doing. However the only thing that causes sense to crash seems to be the native browser, and not every time.

Also I know other people with Dinc's who have never seen this issue.

What have you seen that points to running out of ram?

The RAM isn't really running out, Android's Internal task management will shutdown background activities to keep some RAM free. So android is killing the sense launcher to KEEP from running out of space, hence why you never see it run out of space. That behavior (my phone does it frequently as well) is clearly SOMETHING stopping the sense launcher, and the only reason that would happen is if android is killing it to free up RAM.

I believe you could use some form of logcat to check the system logs after an episode, but I don't particularly know what specifically you'd be looking for.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

The RAM isn't really running out, Android's Internal task management will shutdown background activities to keep some RAM free. So android is killing the sense launcher to KEEP from running out of space, hence why you never see it run out of space. That behavior (my phone does it frequently as well) is clearly SOMETHING stopping the sense launcher, and the only reason that would happen is if android is killing it to free up RAM.

I believe you could use some form of logcat to check the system logs after an episode, but I don't particularly know what specifically you'd be looking for.

Thanks for explaining that euph, that'd be a lot to type on my phone.

 

[swindelljd]

I believe you could use some form of logcat to check the system logs after an episode, but I don't particularly know what specifically you'd be looking for.

I do remember with Froyo the available memory dropping much lower that it has with GB. So maybe GB is being overly aggressive with the memory management to reduce out of memory issues.

I spent some time last night triggering the issue and reviewing logcat. I can clearly see the launcher process getting (re)started but nothing yet points to what triggers it to be stopped. You'd think that the launcher would be give a higher priority and be nearly at the same level as system processes in term of being killed off.

In any case, I see that a 4.08.x.x patch is pushing out to 4.06.x.x devices so I guess I'll wait and grab that to see if it makes any difference.

 

[sdrawkcab25]

I do remember with Froyo the available memory dropping much lower that it has with GB. So maybe GB is being overly aggressive with the memory management to reduce out of memory issues.

I spent some time last night triggering the issue and reviewing logcat. I can clearly see the launcher process getting (re)started but nothing yet points to what triggers it to be stopped. You'd think that the launcher would be give a higher priority and be nearly at the same level as system processes in term of being killed off.

In any case, I see that a 4.08.x.x patch is pushing out to 4.06.x.x devices so I guess I'll wait and grab that to see if it makes any difference.

exactly, i *think* the HTC GB update has the launcher set to a lower priority for some reason, although HTC Sense restarting was an issue on Froyo (just seemed to effect less people). I've seen it happen quite a few times on my wife's phone and would happen to me every now and then when I was running stock.

 

[swindelljd]

Updated to 4.08 and so far so good. I checked the "nice" levels of the processes and it looks like pretty much everything including HTC Launcher gets a priority of 20 except for a very short list of processes. Though I'm not sure if android uses that priority or not to decide what processes to terminate.

 

[swindelljd]

After a day or so Sense started getting frequently shut down again.

I got some good info on XDA about a script called "V6 Supercharger" [Script][U9 RC4!] ALL WHEEL DRIVE -=V6 SuperCharger=- FIX RAM & Launchers, 3G & KAK! - xda-developers that promised to fix the issue.

After I ran it, Sense hasn't been shut down by the OS yet. Time will tell but I think this may have done the trick.

You'll need root, busybox <= 1.18.2 installed (with symlinks) and it's recommended to use ScriptManager to run V6 Supercharger.

 

[worldwithin]

I'm getting the same issues with my Sense UI rebooting after running certian programs.

@Swindelljd, I'm interested in how stable your phone has been over the past few weeks after the V6 install. I am contemplating doing the same thing, but am a little lost on the linked thread as it's over 500 pages long and I am not exactly sure how to config the program for my device. Any hints from what you did? In looking at the install instructions, that seems pretty straight forward, but not sure if there is a deeper config that needs to take place.

Thanks

 

[Jerethi]

I'm experiencing this as well on my stock Droid Incredible. I've decided to simply bypass the source of the problem and to try out a new launcher.

 

[Holydoc]

On my stock phone, I am continuously having the problem with HTC Sense having to reboot after a browser session or after running some apps. Is there a fix for this problem for an unrooted phone?