Any one else switch from dalvik to ART?

MNB2012 · Oct 20, 2014

Anyone else with an N4 switch from dalvik to ART? I made the switch the other night. Took about 15 min to convert over everything. I had only used the phone a day so the difference were not very noticable since I was coming from an s4 and everything seems faster.

Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

Fuzzi99 · Oct 21, 2014

ART has some compatibility issues with KNOX and it breaks private mode

rushmore · Oct 21, 2014

If you have a lot of apps you will likely find problems due to compatibility. Also, ART needs lots of room to breath. Counting the extra floor ART needs in storage and the compression changes to apps, the total space loss is about 20%.

I am not a fan of ART and do not buy all the improvements Android touts verses storage loss and still think there is a long term motive to going to ART that is not really for the user. They already essentially lied as to the reason for killing card writes. Their rationale is flaky at best. Considering there are no cards on the Nexus (Apple envy) their excuses come across as disingenuous.

The big test for motives will be if Android L allows card writes for non stock apps. The ability is there in the test releases, but so it was in the early Kitkat tests.

MNB2012 · Oct 21, 2014

Thanks for the tips, I started noticing some lagging and freezing issues throughout the day today. Swapped back over this evening

JimKnuckles · Oct 25, 2014

I switched over to ART today to check it out. If you're interested in trying that and dont know how, head over to settings,then About Device. Tap the Build Number option until it tells you that it has opened up Developer Options. From there, you can go into Developer options and change it from Dalvik to ART. It takes maybe 25 minutes for the phone to update the apps from Dalvik to ART, so make sure you have the time to do it. Also, make sure you have ample battery life. The phone is going to get very, very hot during the process and it will chew up battery life.

My ART experience was very brief. I felt like the multitasking was MUCH snappier. Especially the multitasking button. The lag i was experiencing before was all but gone. Which was very pleasing.

However I had an issue tho to where i had to switch back to Dalvik, and I'm wondering if anyone else had this issue. Anytime I rebooted my phone or swapped batteries, it went back to the "upgrading Android apps" and went on to upgrade 83 apps. This would take 10 or more every time. I'm not sure why it's doing that. Pretty disappointing. I switched back to Dalvik due to this.

bszaronos · Oct 25, 2014

I thought it was an issue when I did it also. Turns out that is what is suppose to happen. Android optimizes it every time you reboot. I set mine back also, but might give it a shot again.

JimKnuckles · Oct 25, 2014

bszaronos said:
I thought it was an issue when I did it also. Turns out that is what is suppose to happen. Android optimizes it every time you reboot. I set mine back also, but might give it a shot again.

Thats not supposed to happen everytime. Before switching to AT&T from sprint ,I was running CM 11 using ART. It should just do that for the first time and that's it

AnonGuy · Oct 26, 2014

Apps take a lot more space under ART. I did notice how it made devices heat up while upgrading. On the M8 it doesn't redo the app upgrades every reboot, but it is experimental in KK so I don't expect the 5.0 release to have that issue (and ART will be the only runtime in it).

smpross · Oct 28, 2014

I just switched my runtime under the developer options to ART and the phone is SOOO much faster. The phone will reboot and re-optimize all of the applications that you have installed. It takes about 15 minutes. But it is totally worth it. Since Lollipop will only have ART Runtime available, I thought I would offer this suggestion.

Scott

Risley · Oct 28, 2014

I won't mess with ART vs Dalvik. Reboots can take forever and phone runs considerably hotter. In Lollipop ART will be more refined and the default but in 4.4.4 its only in developer options and can mess a bunch of app loads up pretty badly.

smpross · Oct 28, 2014

I rarely reboot my phone and I have not had any issues so far with any apps. We just compared it to another NOTE 4 and the load time of the same app is about much faster.

I have not seen a temperature difference on my phone either as of yet.

potterdood · Nov 9, 2014

I switched mine over to ART the day I got it while playing through the settings and it made my phone so slow that I didn't even bother switching everything back over I did a factory reset and started fresh.

daddyd302 · Nov 12, 2014

I tried ART on my HTC One M8 and it didn't make any difference except for causing some of my apps to crash. I will wait til Samsung release 5.0 instead of trying it again on my 4.

Andrewtst · Nov 13, 2014

I switch to ART and frank speak not much different and S Health is not working.

Switch back to Dalvik after 15 mins try on it.

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN · Jun 18, 2015

I hope someone can help me. I have noone to ask and really nowhere to turn except the internet. How sad is that??

I have a Note 4 with KiktKat 4.4, no special OS root or anything. All stock except the launchers (TSF and GO Launxher Z).
I read ART can improve performance on my Note 4, but now have since learned otherwise. However, before realizing it was not 100% on the N4 w/KK4.4, last night at 1015p I switched RTL using the developer tools option, to ART from Dalvik. Well, it was going ok, then at around 1034p when it was at "Optimizing app 333 of 475" I went to the restroom. When I cameback at 1044p and it was on app 354, and it is now 2am and it is STILL on app 354!!

I know that the process can take a long time but THIS LONG??!! I did unplug it while it was "Upgrading", but it was already at 86% anyway. NOTE THAT I AM NOT UPGRADING TO 5.0 JUST SWITHCING RUNTIMES.

Has anyone had this happen? Is it because I have so many apps? Is it stuck on an incompatible or very large app? Is it safe to attempt a hardboot by pulling the battery?

Any answers will be appreciated, please. I still have my note 2 (wifi only) but left it at home thinking the N4 would he done by now. Now I'm using my great but slow Tab 2 10.1.

Thanks in advance.

PaulJC

EarlyMon · Jun 18, 2015

Converting to ART can easily take upwards of a half hour but yours is definitely stuck.

Could have been caused by an incompatible app - or the fact that your KitKat is using a beta version of the ART compiler - or you ran out of storage space - or you had a bad RAM glitch at just the wrong time. Impossible to say at this point.

Go ahead and restart via a battery pull - leave it out for a good 60 seconds to clear silicon in case it was a RAM latchup - and the rebuild out to start again after booting up.

If it fails again and if possible, reboot into safe mode and turn it back to the Dalvik Virtual Machine.

If you can't get out of it by any means then I'm afraid that you're going to have to boot into recovery and do a factory data reset.

Turn your phone off or make sure it’s turned off.

Press and hold the Volume Up, Home and Power buttons simultaneously.

When the phone vibrates, release the Home and Power buttons, but keep pressing Volume Up button.

This will launch the Android Recovery System. You can release all buttons when this happens.

From here, you can use the Volume buttons to navigate and the Power button to make a selection.

Select “wipe data / factory reset”. Select “Yes — delete all user data”. The process will take place. When done, just select “Reboot system now” to restart your device.

Courtesy of http://www.androidauthority.com/qa/question/how-to-factory-reset-the-samsung-galaxy-note-4

Welcome to the forums!

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN · Jun 18, 2015

I HAD IT PLUGGED INTO THE CHARGER. BUT WHEN I NOTICED IT WOULD GET VERY HOT I WOULD UNPLUG IT AND PLACE IN THE FRIDGE FOR A FEW MINUTES TO COOL OFF. AFTER DOING THAT JUST NOW I DISCOVERED THE BATTREY HAD COMPLETETLY DRAINED TO ZERO PERCENT WHILST IT WAS OPTIMIZING AND SHUTDOWN. I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS DRAINING THE BATTERY THIS WHOLE TIME. Perhaps this is what caused it to hang. NOW I HAVE IT PLUGGED UP AGAIN.

Sorry for the caps, should I wait for it reach 100% and still attempt to turn it on?

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN · Jun 18, 2015

Oh and thank you for replying!

EarlyMon · Jun 18, 2015

Yes, charge it to 100% and give it another go.

Getting hot is normal because of the big work load.

Normal, but not highly desirable.

The fridge is sort of ok in a pinch but that's not your best friend. Fridges are damp inside - rapid cooling can cause water condensation inside your phone.

Water on live motherboards is not a good thing.

Got some frozen veggies or something?

Place them (in the package, you're still going to get to eat them lol) on a table, cover with a dish towel, place phone on top for gentler cooling.

Old trick.

KOLIO · Jun 18, 2015

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN said:
I HAD IT PLUGGED INTO THE CHARGER. BUT WHEN I NOTICED IT WOULD GET VERY HOT I WOULD UNPLUG IT AND PLACE IN THE FRIDGE FOR A FEW MINUTES TO COOL OFF.

EarlyMon said:
Yes, charge it to 100% and give it another go.
Getting hot is normal because of the big work load.
Normal, but not highly desirable.

The fridge is sort of ok in a pinch but that's not your best friend. Fridges are damp inside - rapid cooling can cause water condensation inside your phone.
Water on live motherboards is not a good thing.

Got some frozen veggies or something?
Place them (in the package, you're still going to get to eat them lol) on a table, cover with a dish towel, place phone on top for gentler cooling.

Old trick.

I bought this mini desktop fan specifically for cooling my phones while charging/long-time initializing (dalvik-to ART/etc..),but, any fan will do & you'll avoid the condensation issue EarlyMon mentioned.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/ChillOut-USB-Desk-Fan-Black/34891815

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN · Jun 18, 2015

I have since discovered that the battery drain was the cause of the hang up. I have recharged it to 100% and am now just going through the motions of allowing KK4.4 to optimize all the apps so I can use the phone so I can reset it back to the Dalvik RTL and stop trying to improve my already perfect Note 4. I just have to reboot it after it starts up, or else I'll be pressing OK or Close with all those "It has stopped" ANRs that pop up because app incompatibility, mostly Unified Daemon, xxx.authentication.dba and xxx.keyguard.xxx and Amazon Music keep popping up and make using the touch screen very difficult, that I power off and then it starts to optimize apps again. Every time it does this (three times now) it gets closer to being more responsive, but the keyguard and authentication apps that keeps me from getting to the settings to reset it back to Dalvik.

But its getting there....

I shall do more research in the future before doing this again or just stay out of the DevOps panel (I just went in to turn off animations).

Thanks guys. I'll check out the fan. I found an icepack at work and wrapped it in towel. thanks again.

EarlyMon · Jun 18, 2015

Fantastic - keep us posted!

PAUL JAMES CHATMAN · Jun 19, 2015

Done! And Done!
No more being adventurous for me. It took several Optimizations, but mostly the massive loss of space (System error warnings and resource warnings, etc) and the continuous ANR popups was enough to go back to Dalvik. Scariest 26 hrs I have ever had for my Note 4! Seriously, I was depressed

and thought I bricked my phone. Whew!

Thanks gents, have a virtual beer or whatever you drink, if you drink, on me!! :goofydroid:

EarlyMon · Jun 19, 2015

Lol I'll have TWO virtual beers to celebrate, but not until tomorrow lol.

Glad you got it sorted, kinda knew that you would.

Any one else switch from dalvik to ART?

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