Can someone explain the memory leak problem to me
 

I dont' understand the memory leak problem. When I reboot my 6800 I start out with 20 megs...after running a couple programs, closing them completely (I know because I have Task Manager showing nothing running), maybe a phone call or two, I suddenly have 16 megs. I do see 3 instances of my phone running...which I can't close.

This is a HUGE HUGE HUGE issue!

Why does this happen?
Is it just the titan?
Is anyone else seeing this?
Is there a solution?

Well, it would be a problem if it actually existed.

There are two things at work here. The NORMAL behavior of any/every operating system is that, right after bootup, the OS has yet to allocate and load up all the various buffers it uses, nor has it started every service that is needed for normal functioning.

So, you USE it a bit, the rest of the services are started up, buffers are allocated, and then you check your memory free. 16MB. That's lower then mine (ballpark of 19-20mb for me) but, assuming once it reaches that point it *says* there, then that's your normal memory free for whatever stuff you have installed on your today screen, background process, etc.

The other thing at work is a very slow memory leak. I see it in PIE, but I still think its actually in the OS or possibly in the CDMA driver, but over many DAYS of use, I will slowly lose a mb or so of the free memory after I've made sure everything has exited. This continues, dropping a meg every few days, until I notice it and reset :) - the lowest mine got was about 11mb free, and PIE was pretty sluggish.

Windows Mobile 5 did not really suffer from this, or the larger amount of free program memory in WM5 hid the leak better.

Anyway, its not a HUGE HUGE HUGE issue - it's running as designed (the drop to 16mb) - it's the drop from 16 down to 10-11 that will happen in 3-6 days that's a problem. Just soft reset it every night, or morning, or every now and then. Ugly but effective.

Free memory is wasted memory, so long as the machine run fast I don't need to see "30MB free" - the problem with WM is it starts to get sluggish when memory gets low. I'd rather they fix that (someday!)

Thank you for the explanation. You are obviously very knowledgeable.

Can you give just another moment of your brain?

Is it a problem to see 3 instances of the Phone at running? is that robbing memory?
I've heard of people disabling services. Do you know what I might try? and how do do it?

Thank in advance,
Matt

I have had up to five instances of the phone running at one time. If you download CELETASK you can stop them. I dont know what causes them eather.

schettj,

very very well said. I could care less about my "meg count" as long as my phone is functioning correctly. If it does slow down, what will happen? will i die? lol no i just soft reset it....BIG WOW! Ill happily deal with the issues becasue when it comes down to it i have a device in my pocket that can emulate other OS's and log into a PC remotely, and act as a wifi access point, and then on top of that stream my music over my bluetooth headphones and provide a semi high speed connection for my laptop. Not to mention GPS is coming!

One other thing u may want to remember clearing out PIE's cached pages/files, this frees up a few megs of program memory, if you use PIE alot.
This can be done by opening PIE, >menu >tools> options > memory tab> and delete files.

ok i've got one vote for Celetask here, does anyone know of anyother task managers that can kill these types of processes? Most of the task managers i know of only kill running programs, they dont let you kill individual processes that are running in the background. TIA - Naut

i dunno of another task manager on earth besides celetask (which i just knew of reading this thread now), but i'll be up to try it as well.

3-5??? Well lets see, (1). 1x connection (2). EVDO (3). WIFI (4). Bluetooth (5). infrared, yep makes sense to me. i always have 2 copys running but then again i dont use the BT infrared or wifi. but then again i dont have the problems of the memory leak. When I turn it on I have 19 mg of mem at the end of the day still 19 mg. the only thing I do is I have HTC X Button to close the apps

"One other thing u may want to remember clearing out PIE's cached pages/files, this frees up a few megs of program memory, if you use PIE alot.
This can be done by opening PIE, >menu >tools> options > memory tab> and delete files."

Or you could just use Clear Temp and set it to auto clean upon soft reset works like a charm, cache gets full just soft reset and viola

This is a popular topic, particularly amongst mogul owners. It seems like a lot folks are obsessed w/available program memory, but don't actually experience problems.

To echo the thoughts already posted..as long as you're using some type of task manager and are willing to soft reset your phone daily/every other, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

BTW- It may seem redundant but I use both Oxios and the task manager in the QuickMenu program (both of which are free & can be found on this site) to reclaim my lost RAM. Search for 'em and check 'em out.

Available memory is an issue if you are exceeding your available memory by opening up apps.

In other words some people manage memory better than others to get around this, i.e. finding 3rd party apps that use less memory and/or manage their system resources.

So yeah it can be an issue because a lot of WM apps can be very memory heavy.

Yep... for example, I just cannot give up s2u2, so I accept the 2mb memory load (hey, at least its not 5mb like it used to be!)

But in trade, I don't use HTC home (or HTC HOG as I call it) :D

I use InClose to make the x actually close apps, and I mapped the email button to vjOkbutt so I have an "ok" button that really closes apps too. HTC Task Manager seems to want more memory, and actually does not work as well (for me, at least...)

I can run multiple apps at the same time, and sometimes do (rss reader+pie+email not uncommon) but when I am done with an app, I close it. I did this with WM5, which was slower to load apps and had way more memory available, and it sure doesn't hurt with WM6 on the mogul. Frankly app load speeds are so much better, I would rather wait 1-2 seconds now and then, instead of having the thing get all wonky because it ran out of memory.

Or SPB Hog. Their apps look nice but they are so ridiculously massive (granted I'm now a bit of a minimalist thanks to Palm OS).

Wow, i just leared something painful while looking into this. I'm noticing that even after hibernating and reclaiming mem, once i press the Startmenu (either onscreen or hardkey) it instantly sapps 4MB consistenly!!! Ouch!! I too use both Oxios and Quickmenu, both of which are Must Have apps on my phone for me. On my todayscreen i have my Quickmenu battery meter to show the battery percentage, and Program Memory usage. I dont know how i never noticed this before. This means that by the time i finish browsing the web, I hover around 11MB avail prog mem...

I'm sure everyone is aware, this constant battle of what programs that we can afford to install and run comfortably has more to do with the overall lack of available RAM as opposed to the memory leak as the OP stated.

Regardless, lots of productivity, time, and enjoyment are lost to the Titan's minimal RAM more so than memory leak. I have a B.S. in RAM management.

Everyone who used the custom kitchens for the 6700 knows this one:
http://www.dotfred.net/TaskMgr.htm
DotFred's Task Manager is a great little tool.

There is no such thing as a memory "leak" ... poorly written programs leave pieces behind in program RAM. Task Managers close programs, they do not re-allocate RAM. Obviously, truly closing programs is the first basic step to better memory management. But the BEST way to keep RAM free after extensive use is the simplest: a 60 second soft reset.

I run between 12-19 mb ram free most of the day with heavy use, if my device seems slow I spare 60 seconds or so to soft reset. NO BIG DEAL AND PROBLEM SOLVED

Well, I think frequent "required" soft resets is a big deal, but maybe that's just me...

When I drive home I use:
Live Search (traffic) - 3mg
Audio Manager (music) - 10 mg
internet explorer (surface street traffic) - 5-10mg

Then calls, texting.....it just doesn't add up....I don't want to give up anything...I've already given up VoiceCommand for this very reason....

I LOVE HTC HOG! I don't want to have to give it up.....But...

This is not an issue when the memory is being used for cache, as the OS silently drops cache to make memory available for the program. The only time this is an issue is when all the RAM is allocated for program use.

I run S2U2, some SPB stuff, and thats about it. I can go for weeks without a soft reset, in fact the past 3 resets have been due to the battery dying while I was in low coverage with low battery.