is "memory leak" a solvable problem on WM6.X?

[Guest w.c.]

this is my first time to use a windows phone, my previous WM device is HP ipaq 4150 with WM2003SE

it seems that the memory leak problem is quite serious in WM6.5 but i never experience it on my 4150.

I have "googled" the problem and it seems that it has long been the issues on WM phone.

it is quite annoying to restart the device once a few days and the cleanram program seems doesn't help much on the issue.

is there any expert who can answer this question?

or

does the new rom solved the issue already?

[Guest vnthanh]

I'm not flashing rom recently but i can give you my solution cause IJ6 has the problem.

Use the option "Auto power up" in the wake up alarm. Then shutdown your phone and charge before going to bed. Pretty easy, huh ;)

[Guest alexaleks]

it seems that the memory leak problem is quite serious in WM6.5

Quoted part of your post is the very heart of the problem.

1. Nobody have yet proved that the problem is the problem of the very WM6.5.

Every user installs many third party programs and their interaction or one of the programs by itself could result in memory leak.

2. There are many posters with small experience that say "memory leak" in the case when they have normal temporary decrease of free RAM.

3. There are many posts where authors tried to look for memory usage and didn't discover any memory leak.

Memory leak by itself is on of the mistakes in software that is too complicated to be found immediately. Moreover, there is no action sequence to repeat in order to receive this hypothetical memory leak for I8000.

So, only in the case if memory leak exists indeed and it is dealt with the very WM6.5 and somebody will provide repeatable sequence of actions leading to memory leak we could require from software manufacturers immediately correct the error. In all the other cases we remain with waiting - may be, somebody will discover and then - and so on.

Edited December 12, 2009 by alexaleks

[Guest dwallersv]

Not really a "solution" to the memory leak problem (I don't consider rebooting a solution), but a very convenient and no-interaction way to deal with it, similar to the Auto Wakeup solution above, but with benefit, and fewer drawbacks: Use an automatic backup program to backup your phone every night in the early hours, and reboot when it's done.

You should be backing up anyway, and this doesn't leave your phone off so you can still recieve important calls in the middle of the night (if this is a concern).

You wake up with a fresh phone in the morning.

[Guest Montgommery]

and somebody will provide repeatable sequence of actions leading to memory leak we could require from software manufacturers immediately correct the error.

Just install "Jumba" game. Let the phone run 1/2 day without any actions (just with receiving some emails and calls) and try to start Jumba. You will run into out of memory error even if you still have 45MB free.

But Jumba minimum memory requirement is 12MB only.

[Guest columbo]

Just install "Jumba" game. Let the phone run 1/2 day without any actions (just with receiving some emails and calls) and try to start Jumba. You will run into out of memory error even if you still have 45MB free.

But Jumba minimum memory requirement is 12MB only.

I have a Toshiba TG01 with WM6.5 and this has a major memory leak problem too. Gwes.exe (part of the OS) starts up using about 14 or 15 mb, which jumps to about 20 mb when the built-in screen lock comes on for the first time. It then grows to the 22mb mark, where it stays unless I use more apps. Should it be this high? This happens with or without 3rd party apps. WM has a limit of 32mb per process, so it doesn't give me much confidence that it is leaving enough room.

[Guest w.c.]

I have a Toshiba TG01 with WM6.5 and this has a major memory leak problem too. Gwes.exe (part of the OS) starts up using about 14 or 15 mb, which jumps to about 20 mb when the built-in screen lock comes on for the first time. It then grows to the 22mb mark, where it stays unless I use more apps. Should it be this high? This happens with or without 3rd party apps. WM has a limit of 32mb per process, so it doesn't give me much confidence that it is leaving enough room.

i have also discovered the problem with the WM default screen lock, it seems that the issue did improve after i have disabled the lock. however, the problem still presents with no 3rd parties sw installed.

re alexaleks: i agree with your point that may be a software problem. one other point i noticed is the leak issue was not serious in WM 6.1. i believe that 6.5 is the build based on 6.1 plus some eye candy stuffs, so I would expect the memory management would be as good as the previous version. However, it is not the case. SO i would suggest that it might also be a unique problem of 6.5 itself.

[Guest nap_rz]

speaking of memory leak, is this what you guys called for x amount of RAM gone when the phone already used for sometime before soft reset? in my phone I get 60MB at startup, but after 1/2 a day it went to 45 max even when using freeupram program or such.

[Guest skoda60]

speaking of memory leak, is this what you guys called for x amount of RAM gone when the phone already used for sometime before soft reset? in my phone I get 60MB at startup, but after 1/2 a day it went to 45 max even when using freeupram program or such.

Memory leak was part of the big problem on all other platform too. But Omnia2 on both wm6.x suffer when the RAM reached 50mb below will not stable. So you need many free RAM untill this problem solved. My temperately solution:1) Used wm6.1 instead. 2) no more spb mobile shell,s2u2 etc. Disabled widgetplus. Just the naked old wm environment. If you really need a less weight menu system, then skmenu.My system was wm6.1:PDA: I8000XXIH5CSC: I8000XSOIH1PHONE: I8000XXIJ4In fact the PDA was IH9 but the Traditional Chinese. So I done a language change to English and it became IH5.I still have 99mb free ram after installed 20+ program. It was very stable.During the posting I was listeng to my story, 3 taps was openned in the browser. Run mDict to find the spelling and back to answering this post and memory still have 70mb. It can never happen in wm6.5 IJ9, IK5 and IL2.

[Guest nap_rz]

wtf? you get 99MB free RAM using that ROM? I've been using Rodrigo's ULTRA LITE version, yet without SPB Shell I could only get 70MB at startup.

[Guest scegli1nick2]

To resolve this issue I've installed an h5 Rom with Wm6.1. Now O2 it's a really fast smartphone.. average of 90 Mb free Ram, that can decrease at 80.. no more jerks on 'Helicopters' video (maybe wm 6.5 had not optimized video driver), I've disabled skin samsung for sms and email and installed 'Arcsoft mms composer 5.0' that works great to send and recieve MMS. After tried a lot of 6.5 roms now I know that the best solution for O2 is WM 6.1..

I'm seriously thinking that Symbian 5edt is better than Wm.. It natively supports FPU, 24 bit colors, and also advanced memory page out in external memory so you can really have a multitasking without careing about of how much free memory you have..

Edited December 13, 2009 by scegli1nick2

[Guest dothan]

To resolve this issue I've installed an h5 Rom with Wm6.1. Now O2 it's a really fast smartphone.. average of 90 Mb free Ram, that can decrease at 80.. no more jerks on 'Helicopters' video (maybe wm 6.5 had not optimized video driver), I've disabled skin samsung for sms and email and installed 'Arcsoft mms composer 5.0' that works great to send and recieve MMS. After tried a lot of 6.5 roms now I know that the best solution for O2 is WM 6.1..

I'm seriously thinking that Symbian 5edt is better than Wm.. It natively supports FPU, 24 bit colors, and also advanced memory page out in external memory so you can really have a multitasking without careing about of how much free memory you have..

Wait till you install > 20 apps on external memory and you will see how sluggish it is the S60 platforms. Not to say the flexibility and freedom of hacking to your own flavour. WinMo is more opened platform comparing to S60.

[Guest dothan]

Memory leak was part of the big problem on all other platform too. But Omnia2 on both wm6.x suffer when the RAM reached 50mb below will not stable. So you need many free RAM untill this problem solved. My temperately solution:1) Used wm6.1 instead. 2) no more spb mobile shell,s2u2 etc. Disabled widgetplus. Just the naked old wm environment. If you really need a less weight menu system, then skmenu.My system was wm6.1:PDA: I8000XXIH5CSC: I8000XSOIH1PHONE: I8000XXIJ4In fact the PDA was IH9 but the Traditional Chinese. So I done a language change to English and it became IH5.I still have 99mb free ram after installed 20+ program. It was very stable.During the posting I was listeng to my story, 3 taps was openned in the browser. Run mDict to find the spelling and back to answering this post and memory still have 70mb. It can never happen in wm6.5 IJ9, IK5 and IL2.

I believe IL2 has solved the shutting down idle apps when RAM hit below 50MB. At 30MB, I still could run 2 apps at the same time (neglecting the slower response of the phone). You are totally right on WinMo 6.1, it performs way better than WinMo 6.5 just san the fancy titanium UI on today and the lock screen. WinMo 6.5 is just a Vista which hogging on resources. I still prefer Samsung's original press-to-unlock lock screen. I will go back to IH5 this weekend hopefully and stick it till Samsung reduces the pre-reserved RAM (120MB in total) which I think not possible.

[Guest rodrigofd]

I believe IL2 has solved the shutting down idle apps when RAM hit below 50MB. At 30MB, I still could run 2 apps at the same time (neglecting the slower response of the phone). You are totally right on WinMo 6.1, it performs way better than WinMo 6.5 just san the fancy titanium UI on today and the lock screen. WinMo 6.5 is just a Vista which hogging on resources. I still prefer Samsung's original press-to-unlock lock screen. I will go back to IH5 this weekend hopefully and stick it till Samsung reduces the pre-reserved RAM (120MB in total) which I think not possible.

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will ;) ... soon

[Guest zzzzzz54321]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will ;) ... soon

;)

great!

waiting for ur new rom tat reduce the amount of reserved ram.

[Guest tRAILeRZ]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will ;) ... soon

wow, that's sound good.

but till then, I too will be downgrading to WM6.1, the final straw came when my my O2 keep turning off the radio app when I'm running opera during my morning commute..

[Guest Calan Boo]

I'm not sure if its WM or some application I got installed (though I've kept it pretty clean) but my O2 is leaking memory like crazy. If I reboot it before going to bed it'll be at ~20mb when I wake up doing nothing. Right now its at 15mb free memory and all I've done is making some calls today.

Is this something that are solved in any of the custom ROMs? I'm currently running build 21856 that were installed when I got it.

Anyone else experiencing anything like this? Maybe I should just reset it again.

[Guest redzone321]

personally with my testing using my i8000L (more like observations) i note the following things in any custom or stock rom for 6.5

1. the lock screen eats memory slowly (not sure if it reserves it then never gives it back)

2. the Samsung Dialer eats memory slowly(not sure if it reserves it then never gives it back)

In case 1 and 2 using RAMclean software does not release this memory and would force me to reboot half way through the day.

Once these 2 are disabled i find i only loose ram when i open the close programs.

3. the majority of programs when opened then closed do not release all memory back. The biggest of these is Opera browser which in its own is a heavy program. I find i can loose upwards of 10 mb of ram after closing the app and never reclaim it untill soft boot.

There must be an error in the code somewhere related to releasing memory back.

Edited January 12, 2010 by redzone321

[Guest Uboy]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will :) ... soon

Will this fix require a flash? Or might there be a possibility of a patch that can be applied without?... B)

[Guest Oscar9]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will :) ... soon

HAHA! that is cool. Can't wait to see what you come up with... can't wait until some i920 users finally get a kitchen up and ready to cook!

[Guest fairi1]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will :) ... soon

Is it possible?

[Guest Calan Boo]

In case 1 and 2 using RAMclean software does not release this memory and would force me to reboot half way through the day. 

Yeah thats exactly how it is for me too, RAMclean or SKTools yields no result at all. Thanks for the hints about dialer and lockscreen, will disable and see if there's any improvement.

[Guest columbo]

Samsung certainly won't reduce 120 MB reserved ram .. but i will :) ... soon

I too would like to know if this will be a ROM or whether it will be available in a patch. I'm having the same problem on the TG01 which I think uses a similar build on WM and Toshiba have made it impossible to flash custom roms to our devices.

With regards to memory management in WM6.5 as compared to WM6.1, I am led to believe that there in fact is a difference. Have a look in post#2 in this thread over at xda-devs: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=544445

WinMo 6.5 improves on this by opening up Slots 60 and 61 to Modules - yielding an extra 64mb of potential Virtual Memory space. (the allocation order is now 1, 61, 60, 0 for modules, 60, 61, 0 for files) - In order for the Kernel to recognize these new Slots as being mappable for Modules, it must be updated to the 6.5 codebase. This is where the 6.5 nk.exe comes in, and why it's so important.

Profiling Virtual Memory is an important job for an OEM - the less available in Slot 0, the sooner a device will kick back out of memory errors (even if it's not truly out of memory) - and the worse the user experience will be. Some ROM's I have seen have less than 20MB available in slot 0 (and the user experience is as bad as you might imagine) - There are many more intricacies to the whole process - like balancing the load between services.exe and device.exe to best utilize the 32mb VM space available to each, and storing all resource-only dlls as modules so they can be allocated to Slot 63, etc.

To be honest, I don't know anthing about this, so I could be talking nonsense, but could anyone who does shed light on whether this could be an issue? Are Samsung and Toshiba just not very good OEMs?

[Guest Calan Boo]

Yeah thats exactly how it is for me too, RAMclean or SKTools yields no result at all. Thanks for the hints about dialer and lockscreen, will disable and see if there's any improvement.

Short update, disabling the dialer and lock screen has indeed worked very well so far with memory mostly ending up somewhere around 35-40 mb after a day's use. Again, thanks.

[Guest master1984]

Hi I want to buy omnia 2 but I read here that it has big problems with ram leak. So is this really big problem. How many app can i install until it restarts it self (runs out of ram).

I also considered buying Android hero instead omnia 2. What would you recommend.