• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Root Memory Leak Issue

Needsdecaf

Android Expert
Nov 6, 2009
1,005
41
Northern VA
Here's the story:

I've been rooted and running roms for a while, starting when Pete was just coming out with his first Bugless Beauties. I've been through a bunch of ROMS, and installed them pretty much all the ways you can.

Lately I've been on DroidMod 1.0. I had originally installed it without flashing /data. However, I noticed that my memory was getting pretty low...down to about 90 MB according to mini info widget.

So I re-flashed, but this time I allowed it to wipe /data. Wow, what a difference. Immediately, I was up to almost 180M of memory!

But it's been dropping steadily since then. I'm down to about 145M and that's with not loading very many new programs. I'm very conscientious about deleting cache, etc.

Any idea as to what could be causing this?

Thanks all.
 
It's just how Linux/Android works. Basically any RAM not in use is of no use to you. So the OS will store old apps in ram in case it needs them but if a new app requests ram the OS releases it.

Windows 7 also works this way. You'll notice most Win7 PCs will happily eat up to 4GB of RAM even with no apps open (as long as you previously had apps open).

But the Droid is like any system (macs/window/linux/playmobile/legos/tonka trucks/mud wrestling women), it's not perfect so the occasionally reboot can sometimes clear out the riff raff. I reboot maybe once a week.
 
Upvote 0
It's just how Linux/Android works. Basically any RAM not in use is of no use to you. So the OS will store old apps in ram in case it needs them but if a new app requests ram the OS releases it.

Windows 7 also works this way. You'll notice most Win7 PCs will happily eat up to 4GB of RAM even with no apps open (as long as you previously had apps open).

But the Droid is like any system (macs/window/linux/playmobile/legos/tonka trucks/mud wrestling women), it's not perfect so the occasionally reboot can sometimes clear out the riff raff. I reboot maybe once a week.

30 megs worth?
 
Upvote 0
You'd be making use of a SWAP file if necessary. Keeping things in RAM is much more efficient than offloading (for lack of a better word - paging is what I mean but not all understand what I mean by that) programs from RAM to SDCard / disk (in terms of your computer). RAM is so much more faster than even Flash memory at this stage that you're better off not worrying about the RAM unless i tcontinues to drop. If you start with 180 free and without installing other apps get down below 10 MB free, then I'd be worried.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones