Help HTC Incredible 4G - Laggy, should I get a refurbished?

[xuclarockerx]

I need a decent phone in time for a trip on Thursday. I recently did a factory reset on my Incredible 4G that I've had since August/September (less than 8 months). It was being laggy, not placing calls, etc. After the reset it has continued to show signs of this. I have extended warranty but all I could get is a refurbished model and the Verizon store guy said I'd likely face the same issues because of the "new updates." Is he full of shit? He was trying to sell me on Verizon's Edge promotion. (pay monthly for a new phone) I have no clue how my phone will be acting in a week, perhaps I should try a refurbished since they send them out pretty quick. Thoughts, similar experiences, or any other suggestions are appreciated. My contract's not up for over a year so it seems I'm stuck with this model unless I pay up the nose for the Edge promotion.

 

[Rukbat]

We need more information. How much free internal storage do you have? That's one of the most common causes for lag - stuffing the phone with too many apps.

How much do you have running in the background? Install an app that allows you to set which apps run on boot, and don't allow anything to run on boot unless you need it running when you start up (email, text, etc.)

What version of Android did the phone come with (4.0?) and what version is it running now. He could be right (or not). 4.3 would probably push it a bit.

 

[xuclarockerx]

Under Setting>Storage it says
Total space 8GB
Available 4.17GB
Internal Storage>Apps 612MB, Available 522MB
Phone Storage>Available 3.66GB
Storage card>Total space 14.83GB, Available 7.48GB

When I factory reset the phone I didn't re-install all the apps I had on before. I was using Clean Master before for cache-clearing purposes, etc. Can you recommend a boot-related app?

My phone was at the end of the Incredible 4G's production cycle - the day I bought it they had just stopped selling it on the floor. Under Settings>About>Software Information it says Android version 4.0.4, HTC Sense version 4.1. Thanks!

 

[SulkyAndroid17]

When I factory reset the phone I didn't re-install all the apps I had on before. I was using Clean Master before for cache-clearing purposes, etc. Can you recommend a boot-related app?

I doubt you have a reason to clear your cache. Unless you feel that an app's cache is consuming too much space or the data it holds is causing problems, there's no reason to clear it. Cache speeds you up. Not slows you down. By deleting it, apps must recreate the data. Which could cause noticeable lag.

The same goes for task killers. Don't be constantly clearing your RAM. It's meant to used. Let the system use as much as it can. Starting a program from RAM is a lot faster than starting that program from internal/external storage. Clearing that information causes the system to load it back. Which again, could create noticeable lag.

 

[xuclarockerx]

Alright thanks. I only really started doing that after noticing noticeable lag and by this I mean, say, a 10 second delay between pressing on messages and my text messages appearing...or worse, pressing on a contact to call them and waiting minutes for the phone to dial. At worst once it took ~10 minutes (before the factory reset) and after pressing the contact a few times it called them all at once resulting in "calls waiting" for the same number I was already on the line with, etc. Disastrous.

 

[nickdalzell]

if you got too many apps that are trying to fit into limited RAM on an older device, it will lag also because Android's own task management will be constantly killing tasks to make others fit, but there won't be enough to fit all of them at once, and they will just respawn and Android will just keep killing. Google's own apps are also big RAM hogs, making it harder for third party apps/games to fit in the memory.

If you simply have more apps than your device can handle (they will attempt to fit all or at least 80% of them in the RAM) a task killer won't help you. it will only make things worse.

 

[SulkyAndroid17]

if you got too many apps that are trying to fit into limited RAM on an older device, it will lag also because Android's own task management will be constantly killing tasks to make others fit, but there won't be enough to fit all of them at once, and they will just respawn and Android will just keep killing.

This doesn't feel quite right. Apps don't just "respawn" and Android won't just "keep killing." This is a bad explanation on how swap space works and its limitations.

Google's own apps are also big RAM hogs, making it harder for third party apps/games to fit in the memory.

Can you prove Google's apps have some kind of priority?

If you simply have more apps than your device can handle (they will attempt to fit all or at least 80% of them in the RAM) a task killer won't help you. it will only make things worse.

That's not true.

Nick run "free -m" in android terminal emulator and report back how much you have "free". I think you'll find that full RAM isn't necessarily a problem.

 

[nickdalzell]

i meant by 'respawn' that their services will just restart. it depends on how Android sets their priority level. i've had experience with lag and i get more and more of it if i used an older device and loaded it with a few hundred apps. when you look at the memory used in the apps list in settings, you'll find the biggest culprits, mostly Google's apps that seem intent on push syncing all the time, showing up off and on and saying 'restarting' beside them, vanishing from the list, showing up again, showing 'restarting' and so on. if you look at the free memory, more apps start 'restarting' when the memory reaches the full line, and they will continue to if there are more apps trying to run their services and too little RAM to fit them in.

This seems to happen the most on an older device with less than a gig of RAM. i've also ran logcats, and i'll see 'low memory--no more background processes' showing up when the above starts to happen, and worse case scenario the entry E: OOM panic occurred, restarting shows up and the device auto-reboots itself.

I never said 'full RAM' is a problem. i said that too many apps trying to fit within too LOW RAM is a problem. if you got 10 apps simultaneously trying to run their syncs, services, background processes on a device with only the RAM to fit 6, there is going to be lag.

 

[SulkyAndroid17]

if you got 10 apps simultaneously trying to run their syncs, services, background processes on a device with only the RAM to fit 6, there is going to be lag.

I agree with this, but it is not what you said before. Android won't just load things because it arbitrarily can. 10 apps or 1000, the system will load what it's asked to load.

 

[nickdalzell]

that was what i said, but it appears you took it in a different way. either way, this is a good reason to pay attention to app permissions, and if an app is misbehaving or setting itself at a higher priority than it should, it's better to simply uninstall it.

 

[Davdi]

Or you could root the phone, format a (32GB) card as follows:
Partition 1 - 4GB EXT4
Partition 2 - 26GB - FAT32
Partition 3 - Linux Swap 2GB
and use Int2Ext4+ which makes the 4GB first partition look like internal memory.

I did this on a Wildfire S and it cured memory problems and lagging, even with AOKP 4.2.2 JB.

 

[nickdalzell]

in my experience swap memory is often slower than having a better phone with more memory. if you must use SD card for an external ext partition (which also would give you more internal storage) i recommend at least a class 10. anything less is slower and will lag just to launch and interact with an app.

 

[xuclarockerx]

Would the Incredible 4G (and one purchased last August/September, just when they were discontinued) be considered an 'older model'?

I certainly don't have a "few hundred apps." Right now I have 55; before the factory reset it wasn't much more (under 70, likely).

Under hardware information it says 1GB memory.

Not really interested in rooting the phone. Knowing me I'd just screw it up worse.

If I'm going to call Verizon back for a refurbished I'll need to do it today. The problem's really sporadic and they said I can always send the refurbished back if I decide I don't need it or it's actually worse than my current model. I just want a reasonably working phone, particularly for this coming weekend at a music festival where there will be lots of people & usage.

 

[nickdalzell]

1GB is a bit low these days, but usually ok enough, but that many apps might still pose a problem depending on the permissions they got. the more apps you got that have permissions such as 'prevent phone from going to sleep' or 'run in background' might end up trying to remain in memory doing things. the more apps that load in memory and the lower the memory gets, the more likely Android will call up the task killer built into Android and start shutting things down so there's enough for everything. the lag happens often when multiple kill calls are being done, and when those particular apps attempt to restart shortly after. in reality it's not Android that's at fault, it's the app's developer who set the priority so high that it's 'never close/kill' or is placed on the list of apps that Android kills last, so they end up being RAM hogs.

Many apps will in fact shut down for the most part if you use the 'back' button or softkey to get out of them, but if you hit the home button/softkey, it will often run in a minimized state, using memory when it shouldn't or when it's not efficient, awaiting you to resume it and have it load faster. the more apps you got 'minimized' the more the device might slow down as things get filled up.

You should be able to get a logcat viewer in the Play Store, it will be an app you load up and a live-updating maintenance log similar to Airbus maintenence messages will scroll as things happen. pay special attention to alerts in red 'with an E: designator meaning ERROR' or in yellow with a 'W:' designator for WARNING. the latter often shows messages like 'low memory--no more background processes' and if you see that, there's something wrong. if it displays the app's name or service, i'd go through and uninstall that app and/or any heavier apps to see what happens. for the most part, logcats are nonsensical, but those entries are ways of pointing to where the problem might be. if the device suddenly reboots itself, it's often followed by a short 'E: OOM Panic occurred, restarting'. Android usually will restart when it officially runs out of available memory and the kernel crashes, or panics. but you'll only see that message for a split second before it reboots, which will often clear the log.

 

[xuclarockerx]

Well I went ahead and ordered a refurbished model. Should be here tomorrow. Hopefully there's improvement...if it's worse I'm sending it right back but I don't expect so. I feel the Verizon employee was mainly focused on pushing me to buy a new phone, hence his disdainful comments toward refurbished.

 

[nickdalzell]

have you at least tried a factory reset?

 

[MoodyBlues]

Well I went ahead and ordered a refurbished model. Should be here tomorrow. Hopefully there's improvement...

Let us know how it works out, okay?

I've moved this thread to the Droid Incredible 4G board.