Help Soo... Is Google ever going to fix the Nexus 7?

After poking around try to find a potential answer to the problem the OP explained I came across something interesting.

It would seem that apps, which are improperly coded or coded for a lower SDK Revision than a user is running on their device, can reach a point where it can't complete communication properly. When this happens, Android handles this by sending a message to the core of the OS to crash it to clear the mess.

This seems to be a flaw in Android considering that it could be handled by merely shutting down the app and not the entire system. I'm not a dev so I'm not saying I can fix this flaw.

However, this does mean that the OP is probably experiencing trouble with a poorly coded app or two.

Best I got!

jmar

My N7 works very well. There was a period of time when I noticed a few random reboots but enough for me to take notice. Also, because it seemed to have appear out of the blue I was curious. Turned out for that period of time to be HD Widgets. Whenever the app updated itself the N7 would reboot.

So it became clear to me that it wasn't a random event. The app was on auto update. HD Widget did some updates to fix this. Initially, it didn't work. But after about 3 updates I stopped having the random reboots.

I think its good practice to routinely purge things you haven't used because not every app you own was well written or written well for your device.

well I too have had many android phones since the g1, i've had a few problems with some; however, this dang nexus takes the cake. this is my 2nd that now sits here unusable- not charging, won't turn on after it rebooted itself. And googles way of replacing them is ticking me off more! uuuuugggggH!

val88 said:

My N7 works very well. There was a period of time when I noticed a few random reboots but enough for me to take notice. Also, because it seemed to have appear out of the blue I was curious. Turned out for that period of time to be HD Widgets. Whenever the app updated itself the N7 would reboot.

So it became clear to me that it wasn't a random event. The app was on auto update. HD Widget did some updates to fix this. Initially, it didn't work. But after about 3 updates I stopped having the random reboots.

I think its good practice to routinely purge things you haven't used because not every app you own was well written or written well for your device.

Click to expand...

Beautiful Widgets does the same. I'd be reading a book or browsing and bang, reboot with no warning. After it rebooted I checked the pulldown and there it was, a message about an update. IIRC it even rebooted halfway through updating something else so I put all of my apps on the equivalent of the Windows "tell me you have an update to download" and did them all manually until I found which I could put on auto an which had to stay on manual...

I keep everything on manual I'm of the school I want to know what is updating and why.

I have the same problem as the OP.

Random reboots 2-3 times a week (when browsing the internet with Chrome, playing a game, watching a movie or simply updating an app in Play Store...)

I still haven't tried a factory reset, I simply don't want to reinstall the almost 200 apps and set up the device again. But I will try to uninstall or freeze apps one after another to possibly identify the culprit. I definitely think it's some app that does something in the background what the OS can't handle. But I'm no programmer so I just guess. Ah, my OS is the latest stock 4.2.2 (rooted) and the problem persisted also with the previous version.
Or maybe I just bought a faulty Nexus back then right after the release last summer, though I don't really think since in the beginning I haven't encountered the problem and the are no overheating issues either.

I am more shocked about the OPs attitude when someone posts that he / she doesn't experience these problems. Anyway, I didn't want to jump in as I'd be clearly called a lier by the OP, but I also have no issues whatsoever. I just downloaded an uptime app from the appstore and my last reboot was 78 days ago.

Gomjaba said:

I am more shocked about the OPs attitude when someone posts that he / she doesn't experience these problems. Anyway, I didn't want to jump in as I'd be clearly called a lier by the OP, but I also have no issues whatsoever. I just downloaded an uptime app from the appstore and my last reboot was 78 days ago.

Click to expand...

Well I'm in the unlucky minority then...
Last time it happened yesterday when I played a game. I had to do a hard reset, even the sound locked up when the device froze.

jmartino5920 said:

After poking around try to find a potential answer to the problem the OP explained I came across something interesting.

It would seem that apps, which are improperly coded or coded for a lower SDK Revision than a user is running on their device, can reach a point where it can't complete communication properly. When this happens, Android handles this by sending a message to the core of the OS to crash it to clear the mess.

This seems to be a flaw in Android considering that it could be handled by merely shutting down the app and not the entire system. I'm not a dev so I'm not saying I can fix this flaw.

However, this does mean that the OP is probably experiencing trouble with a poorly coded app or two.

Best I got!

jmar

Click to expand...

Hey there,

I'm quoting this post because I wanted to add something.

First of all, I am really sorry you all are having issues with your N7. First one I had I returned because I had screen lift. This one that I am typing this post with has been brilliant. However, in my experience with Android devices I have had my fair share of headaches. So I really do feel your pain.

So here is what I'd like to add to the post I quoted.

Back when I had the Droid Incredible I had a similar problem. Random reboots. So I asked around for help. I believe one of our staff members advised me do a factory reset and start installing apps one at a time. Run the device one app install at a time for a good couple hours, using the app for that period of time if possible (games are easy to run for extended periods of time). This tedious process really sucked...however it worked. I had two apps running haywire, one was a game that I played every so often and the other was a root utility that I used rarely to wipe cache.

The moral here: in that experience, I was dealing with an app issue. I can't say definitively that this is what you are experiencing but it is a possibility. If you are willing to do some troubleshooting you may find that you need a hardware replacement, at worst. At best, you uninstall some poorly coded apps and your N7 kicks some serious butt!

Best of luck to you. Let us know if we can be of assistance down the line.

jmar

I'll also add that the perceived "flaw" of deliberately stopping ("crashing") the whole OS to clear an uncontrolled mess is one common to almost all OS, and probably no more prevalent in Android than any other considering its relative immaturity.

The dreaded "blue screen of death" is far less common (but still happens) on recent versions of Microsoft Windows but it's taken decades of development to make it that way. Android is not that far behind, considering its age.

My Nexus 7 reboots on occasion, and I'm sure it is an app misbehaving. HD Widgets was an issue, as posted earlier, but I liked the app enough to put up with the occasional reboots. Sometimes the app developers address the issue with updates that solve the problem. I also installed a cache cleaner that I run every few days, which I think has made the reboots occur less often. The reboots have never caused me to lose anything, so other than me dropping a few f bombs when they happen, no harm done. Reboots complete and I go back to what I was doing.

I've had my Nexus 7 for over 6 months and had none of these problems.

My advice (similar to many other posts in this thread) is to return it under warranty. Why continue to deal with a unit that clearly has issues?

Just sayin'...

I have my N7 for half a year now and can't complain, everything works as expected, great tablet so far.

The only problem is that the tablet might become sluggish sometimes when the memory is full of apps running, especially when you have more than one user account on the tabket, I installed a soft reboot app (it simply empty the memory) and the tablet is smooth again.

Works perfectly for me as well.

Granted, I'm not running the stock software, but that's to be expected with a nexus device

Gomjaba said:

...I also have no issues whatsoever. I just downloaded an uptime app from the appstore and my last reboot was 78 days ago.

Click to expand...

My 2012, 32GB Nexus 7 (running Android 4.4.2) unexpectedly reboots quite frequently -- sometimes when I'm not even using it! (I'll be involved in some other activity and just happen to notice the familiar boot animation.) The reboots are particularly disruptive when I'm using the device, obviously.

Sometimes the device will reboot a few hours after an earlier reboot but when I've not even used the device since the last reboot. I've not found any pattern to the reboots. One thing I *do* notice, however, is that immediately after the reboots occur, there is almost always one or more app updates pending. (I have Auto-update Apps disabled. I prefer to review updates before they get installed; it's more of a formality, though, as I always accept the updates.)

I'm convinced that the reboots are the fault of an ill-behaved app.
Page 2 of http://getpocket.com/a/read/297582030 recommends disabling background sync'ing of Google Currents; I've just now disabled that setting...and hope it resolves the issue.

IMO, asking users to troubleshoot apps, one by one, isn't practical. There are too many apps...and the reboots are too random. Waiting for the next reboot isn't practical, either, especially since (and the reason I quoted Gomjaba)...

In my case, the figure in Settings > About Tablet > Status > Up Time is deceptive; it displays a value of many days -- even immediately after an unexpected reboot! (The value *does* reset to 0 if I manually cycle the device's power.) This indicates to me that the reboots I'm observing are perhaps *only* "soft" reboots. So the device may reboot many times without me even realizing it!

Bottom line: The Android OS is still too fragile; it needs to be made more robust to prevent unexpected reboots. Its logging features are inadequate, too. In response to the poster's comment about Windows still 'blue screening': It's been many years since I last experienced an *application*-based reboot; Windows has been hardened to the point that just about the only thing that brings it down is a hardware failure or (more rarely) an errant driver.

With all the above said, I still love my Nexus 7! I just want the unexpected reboots to stop.

I only once had a problem with reboots and that was back in 2012 a month or two shortly after I bought it. It turned out to be a misbehaving App - I think that I removed Apps until the problem went away. My Nexus 7 behaved fine afterwards. I had some issues with KitKat (had to reset to factory and add all of my stuff back in), but it's running great now and I find myself using it quite a bit, especially in the gym.

mmoy said:

I only once had a problem with reboots and that was back in 2012 a month or two shortly after I bought it. It turned out to be a misbehaving App - I think that I removed Apps until the problem went away. My Nexus 7 behaved fine afterwards. I had some issues with KitKat (had to reset to factory and add all of my stuff back in), but it's running great now and I find myself using it quite a bit, especially in the gym.

Click to expand...

My Nexus 7 helped me lose ~40 pounds in two months with a handy diet/exercise app, and Netflix while on the elliptical.

Dedication didn't hurt either, but I digress... Couldn't have done it without my handy Androids.

I've lost about 75 pounds over the last three years. I mainly use the Nexus 7 for recording my workouts in the gym, providing me with a list (with pictures) of gym exercises, streaming music to my wireless headset and playback of exercise videos that I do at home. I use an iPod when running outside. I used to use my iPhone to do a lot of this stuff but it's easier to do the recording on the Nexus 7. Our office gym is moderately secure so I don't expect it to get stolen but I wouldn't leave my iPhone unattended there.

I use Livestrong MyPlate for nutrition tracking and their Apps generally stink. I enter the data in on a PC.

I use iCloud Notes to record my workouts. I had to install the Dolphin Browser to get iCloud working on the Nexus 7. I like it because it syncs with my other devices and is quiet about doing so. I tried Google Drive and Evernote but they're built for bigger documents and I found them to be a little slow in updating.

I don't think that watching a movie while running on a treadmill would work out. I run between 7-9.5 MPH and stuff would fall off the treadmill at the higher speeds.