Simple question about Advanced Task Killer

[Upright]

Hey guys,

Myself and a friend are both wondering why apps that we never open are sometimes found running in the Advance Task Killer? As an example- I will clear all tasks only to find later that apps like VoiceMail, Navi, and others are showing up. If anyone can shed a little light on the matter that would be great.

thanks

 

[m165]

I was going to ask this question too. I have noticed that apps I have never opened up start running without me even opening them up. I could go to sleep at night with 170mb of free memory, and wake up with about 40-60mb free!

I'm using the HTC Desire if that helps with the situation.

 

[Lukehluke]

I am not 100% but maybe there is a bug with the task killer and maybe it doesn't "kill" them all properly.

 

[Upright]

I am not 100% but maybe there is a bug with the task killer and maybe it doesn't "kill" them all properly.

Not killing them all is one thing(which I haven't had a problem with) but launching apps you never even opened is a whole different ballgame. Not sure what the problem is. Thanks for the reply guys,...hopefully we will get to the bottom of this.

 

[Starfleet Captain]

I am having the same problem. I believe though, that HTC Sense is opening these apps back up, so as to have quick access to them when needed, The good this is that they take up NO CPU resources so, it doesn't slow down the performance of the device.

I'm no expert, I have had my android phone for a solid 2 days. Thats just my 2 cents.

 

[Szadzik]

Applications running in the background have nothing to do with ATK. They just launch on their own, for whatever reason.

I just put an ATK widget on my homescreen and use it from time to time.

 

[Hangdog42]

I could go to sleep at night with 170mb of free memory, and wake up with about 40-60mb free!

Um, is that a bad thing? Linux (and Android is a flavor of Linux) uses a very different RAM use model than you see in the Windows world. Linux tries to use all the available RAM because it is faster and more efficient than going to disk. So unless your phone is running slowly, forget about free memory and let Android worry about it. Task killers are really only useful for stopping programs that are behaving badly. Everything else is under control.

 

[Vincent Law]

Um, is that a bad thing? Linux (and Android is a flavor of Linux) uses a very different RAM use model than you see in the Windows world. Linux tries to use all the available RAM because it is faster and more efficient than going to disk. So unless your phone is running slowly, forget about free memory and let Android worry about it. Task killers are really only useful for stopping programs that are behaving badly. Everything else is under control.

This, people. This.

Unless your phone is absolutely dragging with lag, and you're getting errors from low memory, you should never need to kill background apps. Android is attempting to cache these apps to make them much faster to open, which is an intelligent thing to do. That RAM goes to waste otherwise.

Android also keeps programs you opened previously in RAM until it can't manage it any longer. This somewhat emulates how the iPhone works, except that Android also supports background tasks/services to make sure they are not killed.

 

[RiverOfIce]

I do not know. I have the evo, if I do not use task killer, my battery life is like 4 hours, with task killer it is 12.

 

[Hangdog42]

You should investigate what is chewing up the battery because that sounds more like a misbehaving application than anything else.

 

[m165]

Um, is that a bad thing? Linux (and Android is a flavor of Linux) uses a very different RAM use model than you see in the Windows world. Linux tries to use all the available RAM because it is faster and more efficient than going to disk. So unless your phone is running slowly, forget about free memory and let Android worry about it. Task killers are really only useful for stopping programs that are behaving badly. Everything else is under control.

I'm no Android or Linux expert, but I do agree it's not bad thing. Whether I have 170MB free or 40MB free, there is no speed difference at all (or noticeable anyway!). My point was just to prove that apps open up by themselves for some reason, hence their being less memory over a period of time. I get a days worth of battery so I can live with it.

Just to note, I'm not using ATK either, so that is not the problem.

 

[Upright]

Applications running in the background have nothing to do with ATK. They just launch on their own, for whatever reason.

I just put an ATK widget on my homescreen and use it from time to time.

I agree. I kill all tasks and reopen ATK a few times, at about the third time opening ATK apps like Handcent start showing up as running. For these apps that reopen there has to be a way to disable that. Maybe it has something to do with individual app settings.

 

[Szadzik]

I agree. I kill all tasks and reopen ATK a few times, at about the third time opening ATK apps like Handcent start showing up as running. For these apps that reopen there has to be a way to disable that. Maybe it has something to do with individual app settings.

These apps need to run for you to be able to receive texts etc. Leave them alone. Add them to exclusion list and hide excluded items in ATK and you will not see them. You will not have to worry about them running

 

[Upright]

These apps need to run for you to be able to receive texts etc. Leave them alone. Add them to exclusion list and hide excluded items in ATK and you will not see them. You will not have to worry about them running

Ah,....thank you kind sir. Now do I set up an "exclusion list" in ATK menu screen?

 

[m165]

I get more than just the messaging app opening. For instance, I see Shop Shavvy open, a fake SMS app (ssf it is in my menu), a Notes app, a calendar widget (which is not active on any home screen), google mail which is unused and set not to sync, plus some others, which were previously not open before, and I haven't opened them! Last.fm has opened itself before too.

 

[nuggetz]

i noticed weird behavior with advanced task killer. when compared to something like Taskpanel, there woukd be a difference in list of applications.some applications would show up in 1 program but not in the other

 

[haohaohaohtc]

I get more than just the messaging app opening. For instance, I see Shop Shavvy open, a fake SMS app (ssf it is in my menu), a Notes app, a calendar widget (which is not active on any home screen), google mail which is unused and set not to sync, plus some others, which were previously not open before, and I haven't opened them! Last.fm has opened itself before too.

This is what I want to know. I have HTC Legend. It automatically starts things like facebook, footprint, stock quotes, etc. I don't mind android optimize the memory for me, but is there a way to tell it leave some apps out of the auto-start list? Thanks.

 

[youlittlehorsie]

This, people. This.

Unless your phone is absolutely dragging with lag, and you're getting errors from low memory, you should never need to kill background apps. Android is attempting to cache these apps to make them much faster to open, which is an intelligent thing to do. That RAM goes to waste otherwise.

Android also keeps programs you opened previously in RAM until it can't manage it any longer. This somewhat emulates how the iPhone works, except that Android also supports background tasks/services to make sure they are not killed.

Weird. I actually created this profile to ask this very question the OP was asking. I was about to post and cry about how my Incredible does the same thing but after reading the post by Vincent Law, I decided to leave it be.

My phone is lighting fast even with a ton of things running in ATK.

Perhaps this is not as bad a thing as I thought?

 

[Kev13Dd]

This is what I want to know. I have HTC Legend. It automatically starts things like facebook, footprint, stock quotes, etc. I don't mind android optimize the memory for me, but is there a way to tell it leave some apps out of the auto-start list? Thanks.

Agreed

I don't have a Facebook, I don't use YouTube. And yet my Incredible will always open them and have them running in the background. I dislike this

K

 

[m165]

This is what I want to know. I have HTC Legend. It automatically starts things like facebook, footprint, stock quotes, etc. I don't mind android optimize the memory for me, but is there a way to tell it leave some apps out of the auto-start list? Thanks.

Those apps seem to be something to do with Sense. Facebook (for sense), Footprint, Stocks all open on mine too which I don't mind as they are backgrounded tasks which are taking up just about zero memory. Having them not sync means they shouldn't use battery either.

It's the 3rd party apps I've downloaded which I don't like opening randomly, those of which I stated in a previous post.

Saying that though, I never really experience any slow downs. Android seems to manage memory and juggle apps pretty damn well.

 

[dohmai]

What is the max memory available for the EVO?

After some use, my Avail memory runs down to 30-40.. again like everyone's said.. doesn't affect performance or really seem to make a big diff.. but I'm curious if 30-40mb free is a good chunk of the total available?

 

[Roze]

Not sure if this really explains what some of you are seeing. Some apps are set to auto-update/sync, so even if you kill the apps, they will open themselves up again. Open the app, go into its setting and turn off auto ______ options. If you have this option turned off for the app and you see it still running even after you kill the app, I think there's something wrong with it. Another thing to not is that widgets on your home screens will be constantly running as well. So killing them are pointless. Also, some apps are connected to other apps, so if you open one app, it'll automatically open another app so that it can run what's required oc it.

 

[tazziedevil]

I've noticed it too, but dont think too much about since I can't tell any slowdown on my Desire. I figure its just the system caching them or another program reading info from them.

 

[haohaohaohtc]

Not sure if this really explains what some of you are seeing. Some apps are set to auto-update/sync, so even if you kill the apps, they will open themselves up again. Open the app, go into its setting and turn off auto ______ options. If you have this option turned off for the app and you see it still running even after you kill the app, I think there's something wrong with it. Another thing to not is that widgets on your home screens will be constantly running as well. So killing them are pointless. Also, some apps are connected to other apps, so if you open one app, it'll automatically open another app so that it can run what's required oc it.

My legend has that function to turn update/sync off. When it is selected, some apps like whether update will be turned off, but not all of them. Some of them, even if I manually go there to stop update, it will still auto-start. Most of time is when it connected to a new wi-fi point, etc. The other point is that they cannot be uninstalled.

I hope they are working a patch or something.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the phone, except for battary life, which is 2 days max. Any tips on this?

Thanks.

 

[Roze]

My legend has that function to turn update/sync off. When it is selected, some apps like whether update will be turned off, but not all of them. Some of them, even if I manually go there to stop update, it will still auto-start. Most of time is when it connected to a new wi-fi point, etc. The other point is that they cannot be uninstalled.

Weird...I would think setting off the auto synch/update would stop the app from running. There has to be some kind of setting in it that starts the app if there's a wifi connection?

Well...you can uninstall the stock apps but only through rooting

I hope they are working a patch or something.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the phone, except for battary life, which is 2 days max. Any tips on this?

Thanks.

Dependds on how much you use the phone...is it on standby and you just get 2 days out of it max or 2 days with moderate use or average use? If you get 2 days from average use (couple hours of web surfing, an hour or two on the phone, couple of dozen texts/emails etc) then that's pretty good battery life.