Programs Auto-Closing!

[Guest daskalos]

Can you check with something like Remote Process Viewer or dotFred (FDC) Task Manager exactly how many actual processes are running (not "applications" per se) ? If by apps you mean things from the start menu visible in 'normal' task managers, there are also around 8 or so system processes running at all times. That would make a total of 32.

Note that WM6.x is based on CE5, which has a 32 task limit. System settings are generally DLLs loaded into one of the system's existing processes, and are thus not affected by this limit.

If this is the case, it is a bug, though not in the way you might have thought - it means AutoClosePatch also prevents the system from shutting down apps when the process limit is reached.

Checked it and found 15 running processes (16 with task manager). So I may have opened 16-18 apps that may added to 15 and the total exceeded to the 32 limit...

So it's not really a bug in RAM consumption :( It's just that you can't really open more than 32 processes... Thanks for clarifying it to me :(

[Guest surenz]

Chainfire, you made the impossible !!!

The patch is working like a charm. I've opened 10 programs incl Opera 10 beta3 with 3 tabs and Google Maps. And everything is working very flawlessly and smoothly. There's no lockups when I change among the programs. You may be sorted out the most annoying flaw in this phone. Congratulations !!!

The only drawback is that as someone mentioned when the free memory reaches the end there's no possibility even to open a taskmanager.

And another thing is that the message "...A critical component is either missing or cannot start because program memory is unavailable..." is shown for me at 38 MB free even if I installed the Ultra setting cab. But I made so many "memory enhancements" that some of them may be interact with your patcher.

[Guest dwallersv]

Interesting thought and I had indeed thought of making it this way, however it is a LOT of extra work I'm not sure I'll have time to do anytime soon.

In essence I would probably have to completely disable WM's internal auto-close system, and roll my own. The problem with this is that there are still a few parts of the system I have not properly reverse engineered yet, and if I don't know and understand exactly how it works, it's going to be hard to duplicate correctly.

I understand. Still, I think the simple implmentation approach in just adding these sorts of checks to your algorithm so IT obeys some rules would be very useful. After all, if your patch heads-off TaskMon and WM most of the time, it certainly would be very good to be able to tell it which apps to hit first.

Unless I'm missing something in my own hacker-thinking about this, it shouldn't be a lot of work to implement it. Heck, I'd be willing to contribute the engineering if you wanted to share the effort.

Regardless, the patch as-is is wonderful!

[Guest junalmeida]

another thing is that the message "...A critical component is either missing or cannot start because program memory is unavailable..." is shown for me at 38 MB free

surenz, I'm using the 1.1 patch and i'm not facing this message. This used to be shown when you open an app that depends on a missing dll, or when you have a moviNand problem. I wish that you have a missing dll!

My old htc diamond device have this moviNand problem and htc does not want to repair.

I hope SO MUCH that samsung devices does not have this problem.

[Guest dwallersv]

Okay, I've tested a bit, and like others, the patch is doing it's thing. Very good, Chainfire!

One posible bug, but I need to play and test more to confirm: My "hangup button" functionality for getting back to the shell from any open app went away. Didn't test to see if the phone hangup function is gone too -- will test that.

It's weird. It was working for a while, and then after opening 6-7 apps, getting mem down to about 25MB, it just stopped working. This made it a bit of a pain to get back to the shell to open more apps.

After closing everything, the button was still not working. Reboot, and it came back. I'm trying now to see if I can reproduce the problem again.

[Guest surenz]

surenz, I'm using the 1.1 patch and i'm not facing this message. This used to be shown when you open an app that depends on a missing dll, or when you have a moviNand problem. I wish that you have a missing dll!

My old htc diamond device have this moviNand problem and htc does not want to repair.

I hope SO MUCH that samsung devices does not have this problem.

The first time that I saw this message was after the patcher have been installed. So I suppose that is related to it.

Also it is giving me that message for any program that I want to start. If I close some program it's giving me chance to start another one. Seems that is related to the free memory and somehow on my device (as I see I'm not alone) it is not showing the right amount of free memory.

Edited February 24, 2010 by surenz

[Guest Chainfire]

The only drawback is that as someone mentioned when the free memory reaches the end there's no possibility even to open a taskmanager.

And another thing is that the message "...A critical component is either missing or cannot start because program memory is unavailable..." is shown for me at 38 MB free even if I installed the Ultra setting cab. But I made so many "memory enhancements" that some of them may be interact with your patcher.

I have actually had that message once or twice during testing, but around 10mb (which is why I previously stated going lower gave me trouble). I've never seen it happen on 1.1, though. There is probably somewhere the system still checks available memory when starting an EXE, I'll have a look if I can find where this happens so I can patch it.

[Guest Chainfire]

I understand. Still, I think the simple implmentation approach in just adding these sorts of checks to your algorithm so IT obeys some rules would be very useful. After all, if your patch heads-off TaskMon and WM most of the time, it certainly would be very good to be able to tell it which apps to hit first.

Unless I'm missing something in my own hacker-thinking about this, it shouldn't be a lot of work to implement it. Heck, I'd be willing to contribute the engineering if you wanted to share the effort.

Regardless, the patch as-is is wonderful!

It would require completely changing how the patch works internally to work right. I can't just implement in the current patch, because the patched functions may be called often (several times a second if memory is relatively low) and it this checking prioritizing actually does require quite a bit of CPU, so you don't want to do it that way.

Then again, if only implementing a do-NOT-close list, that could be done without much impact (especially if changes require a reboot), but prioritizing aside from that is tricky.

Edited February 25, 2010 by Chainfire

[Guest dwallersv]

Okay, I've tested a bit, and like others, the patch is doing it's thing. Very good, Chainfire!

One posible bug, but I need to play and test more to confirm: My "hangup button" functionality for getting back to the shell from any open app went away. Didn't test to see if the phone hangup function is gone too -- will test that.

It's weird. It was working for a while, and then after opening 6-7 apps, getting mem down to about 25MB, it just stopped working. This made it a bit of a pain to get back to the shell to open more apps.

After closing everything, the button was still not working. Reboot, and it came back. I'm trying now to see if I can reproduce the problem again.

Okay, looks like this is a false alarm... Couldn't reproduce it.

Best guess is that stressing the system with the more agressive 10/15 settings mucked something up that interfered with processing the hangup button. Can't make it happen again.

So, besides that, good so far, Chainfire... working as advertised, no issues. Bravo, man!

You know, Samsung could gain tremendously by just hiring you to fix/patch all this garbage, at relatively little cost. Contract you, give you access to their source base, and have at it. Publish patches on their site asynchronously.

Gee, kind of like how software companies do things. SKKV Software is one of the shining examples of this in the PPC/phone market. Have you thought of contacting Samsung? Are you interested? You could certainly get overwhelming referrals from here, xda, etc. Don't even need to give up your day job. Just do what you're doing now, but with a bit more formality and polish.

[Guest dwallersv]

It would require completely changing how the patch works internally to work right. I can't just implement in the current patch, because the patched functions may be called often (several times a second if memory is relatively low) and it this checking prioritizing actually does require quite a bit of CPU, so you don't want to do it that way.

Then again, if only implementing a do-NOT-close list, that could be done without much impact (especially if changes require a reboot), but prioritizing aside from that is tricky.

Got it. I'm stumbling around in the dark, so not a surprise my guesses are not necessarily hitting the mark.

The "do not close" list thing would be 80% of the value, anyway. This alone is well worth the effort, IMO.

And, as I said, I'll work up the user-space front end GUI, unless you don't want me to. I've already got a prototype hacked up for acessing the close/stopclose reg values. I've included in it retention of history, some presets, favorites, and plan to put together a little included help. I'll post it up here today or tomorrow when I feel its ready for testing and feedback.

Adding management of a short list of critical apps not to close would be straightforward.

[Guest Chainfire]

You know, Samsung could gain tremendously by just hiring you to fix/patch all this garbage, at relatively little cost. Contract you, give you access to their source base, and have at it. Publish patches on their site asynchronously.

Gee, kind of like how software companies do things. SKKV Software is one of the shining examples of this in the PPC/phone market. Have you thought of contacting Samsung? Are you interested? You could certainly get overwhelming referrals from here, xda, etc. Don't even need to give up your day job. Just do what you're doing now, but with a bit more formality and polish.

Actually for my day job I am in regular contact with Samsung's various Windows Mobile divisions. Never the development division, though, unfortunately.

Does SKKV actually work for OEMs to fix stuff? I thought they just released apps and tools to consumers?

[Guest Chainfire]

The "do not close" list thing would be 80% of the value, anyway. This alone is well worth the effort, IMO.

And, as I said, I'll work up the user-space front end GUI, unless you don't want me to. I've already got a prototype hacked up for acessing the close/stopclose reg values. I've included in it retention of history, some presets, favorites, and plan to put together a little included help. I'll post it up here today or tomorrow when I feel its ready for testing and feedback.

Adding management of a short list of critical apps not to close would be straightforward.

I'm not sure about the GUI yet, perhaps I'll make it myself so I can throw it on Marketplace for $0.99 :( Far from sure about that, though.

I'll think about it some, and I'll see about at least implementing the do-not-close functionality next week.

[Guest dwallersv]

Actually for my day job I am in regular contact with Samsung's various Windows Mobile divisions. Never the development division, though, unfortunately.

Does SKKV actually work for OEMs to fix stuff? I thought they just released apps and tools to consumers?

No, sorry for being unclear.

I was simply complimenting their customer support practices. They roll out updates frequently, especially for the more popular products like SK Tools -- by my estimation something like six times a year.

They're very responsive to support requests and bug reports. I've had conversations directly with engineers several times when i had a question, or found a bug.

Frankly, they offer the best support experience for PPC/smartphone software in my decade or so of dealing with this stuff. Unmatched. :(

SPB is the polar opposite of this. Take everything I said above, negate it, and you have SPB support :(

[Guest surenz]

To come back to the topic: at the launch of the app I was complaining that the patcher doesn't close the programs when they reach some level of free memory (and giving me error that I can't run a program because of missing component or free memory).

Now I tested again and the programs are killed at 10MB free (with the default Ultra settings). I can't realize yet in which manner the OS chooses to close a program.

In fact I run easily 10 programs (some of them real memory hogs) and even better my phone haven't never frozen since I installed the patcher. The multitasking is on another level now :(

Thanks, Chainfire.

Edited February 27, 2010 by surenz

[Guest buguy]

could someone pls tell me the old values for these keys? i just did the reg tweaks but forgot to back up.thanks!

* HKLM\System\GDI\GLYPHCACHE: Delete limit0 entry

* HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\LowMem: Set ProgramMem to 96

* HKLM\System\OOM: Set cbLow and cbVLow to 32768, cpLow and cpVLow to 16

* Disabled startup entries CHomeManager, LinkMgr, PlayerAutoUpdater and SendMTMSG (moved them from

Windows\Startup to a new Windows\Startup2 folder)

[Guest skoda60]

could someone pls tell me the old values for these keys? i just did the reg tweaks but forgot to back up.thanks!

* HKLM\System\GDI\GLYPHCACHE: Delete limit0 entry

* HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\LowMem: Set ProgramMem to 96

* HKLM\System\OOM: Set cbLow and cbVLow to 32768, cpLow and cpVLow to 16

* Disabled startup entries CHomeManager, LinkMgr, PlayerAutoUpdater and SendMTMSG (moved them from

Windows\Startup to a new Windows\Startup2 folder)

The below was on my JB1 registry:

* HKLM\System\GDI\GLYPHCACHE: limit 8192 limit0 73728

* HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Shell\LowMem: 17

* HKLM\System\OOM: Set cbLow and cbVLow was 32768, cpLow and cpVLow was 16, reserved 524288

[Guest Dr12]

I found this and it might help....

It seems that windows mobile automatically starts closing programs. This problem has been annoying in a lot of the newer 6.1 roms. Been looking for a answer for a while. And found the below info over in xda. Works great in Nuerom 2.2 Pre 8. I can finally open navizon, internet explorer, iguidance and xmradio in the same time once again. Without worrying one of them would autoclose on me.

"HKCU\Software\HTC\TaskManager" key

then created a binary-dword for "Autokill" with Decimal value "0"

then created a binary-dword for "MemoryThreshold" with Decimal value of "943718"

I have rebooted my phone several times and have not had any close issues.

This was originally found over at xda.

[Guest yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

HELP~! i duno WTF i ve done, now my media (touch player, coreplyer etc) STOPS playing music after about 4 minutes!!!! this is VERY VERY annoying!!!! this happens even i press "blank screen" in core player!!!! PLS HELP ME OR NOT I M GONNA SMASH MY PHONE!!!!

[Guest junalmeida]

HELP~! i duno WTF i ve done, now my media (touch player, coreplyer etc) STOPS playing music after about 4 minutes!!!! this is VERY VERY annoying!!!! this happens even i press "blank screen" in core player!!!! PLS HELP ME OR NOT I M GONNA SMASH MY PHONE!!!!

Do you have the "ettiquete" mode on? Try to turn it off.

[Guest msra6la2]

The problem is that the Omnia 2 is configured (by Samsung) to close applications when there is lots of memory free. I've literally had it where I opened the Task Switcher, saw 7 programs running. Closed out of it, went back in instantly after and there were 0 programs running, because it closed them all. This happens with 1, 2, 3, 7 programs running, it doesn't matter.

check the memory module, when RAM runs down to 30 or below, autoshut starts. So it doesn't matter whether you have 1 or 100 apps running at the same time, as soon as it touches 30mb mark, autoshut kicks in (of course running 1 programme at 30 or below mb wouldn;t shut down the programme, but opening up another programme automatically shuts the other one down, and after a few secs the 2nd programme will also shut itself down)

[Guest yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

Do you have the "ettiquete" mode on? Try to turn it off.

i ve already turn it OFF.

but

same thing happens =(

[Guest yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

i think i chg some registry to cause this.. anyone can tell me wat should i do? plss..

[Guest yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

anyone?

[Guest skoda60]

i think i chg some registry to cause this.. anyone can tell me wat should i do? plss..

Hard reset and install back your prrograms.

[Guest yoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

i duwan to do a hard reset.. any better choice?