WM 6.1 memory management "feature"

taxilian said:

So, ever since I upgraded to windows mobile 6.1, there is one "feature" that is driving me nuts... I haven't seen any reference to it in the forums (though it's possible I just didn't read enough of the 20+ page threads), but I'm wondering if anyone knows how to disable it.

It seems that windows mobile automatically starts closing programs when I start running low on memory. Particularly Messaging and Internet Explorer are prone to suddenly not be there anymore, but other programs do it as well.

For example, I'm reading a text message, switch to contacts to update someone's information, and then I try to switch back to the text message to verify the data and it's no longer running. I start up text messaging, and contacts has closed.

Very frustrating. I'm fairly certain it does it only when memory is very low, but I much preferred the warning "yo, idiot, you're out of memory, shut stuff down" messages to this "I'm going to close this program with no consideration to what you're doing and w/out asking" approach.

Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I'm missing something obvious?

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WoW. You must be running a memory HOG program in the background to run out of memory with text messaging and the contacts program.

I have bluetooth to use with my Stereo Bluetooth head phones when I listen to Windows Media and Have the Threaded Text Messaging Software in the background running ( I text alot and I need it running in the background to initiate it faster ) all with HTC Home Plugin and I dont get any memory problems. Nothing closes out.

Do you have the X-Button program installed? The one that closes things out completely when you press the X. If so this can be the problem.

Honestly I use an Alt-Tab program to switch between programs. This helps alot.

I know exactly what you mean as far as the memory management closing applications. for example i used to be able to have tomtom running, and also audio manager playing music, however if memory is low, the management always closes audio manager. Rather annoying, i've had it do it during other programs also ie. messaging, internet explorer.

That's weird.... Possibly sending hibernate signal to programs to see if some will shut down?

I haven't noticed any apps getting closed automatically but I never try to have more than a few open at a time.

Well other then recommending that you review your installations and see if there are any memory HOG programs to remove, I also recommend using Oxios Hibernate.

Check out this website for more details.
http://www.oxios.com/memory/

taxilian said:

I have some today plugins (like SBP diary) that may be taking part of the memory. I have to blame the memory leak for the rest... on a fresh boot I have 18 meg free, by the time I start having real problems with things shutting down left and right I only have 5 free. I use QuickMenu, which has a program similar to X-Button so that I can explicitly close programs, but I can also use it to switch tasks. In WM6 it worked fine. However, unless I reboot frequently, I end up with this problem. Some things always exhibit this problem, even right after a soft reset reset. For example, if I use PIE to view a site such as youtube and I play a video clip, PIE closes in the background while the video is playing, which is very annoying.

I know that there are things to do to try to free memory... I have hibernate, I have the task manager connected to quickmenu, but I still have this problem.

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What ROM are you using? I have DCD 2.2.0 core with others mixed in and I get about 23 to 24 MB on soft boot. That is with all of my apps installed.

It might be that the page pool on your ROM is high. If it is high it tends to speed up your device but you sacrifice memory. Are you using one of DCD's new ROM's? Because I believe his new ROM's have a higher page pool then before to cope with WM6.1.

taxilian said:

So, ever since I upgraded to windows mobile 6.1, there is one "feature" that is driving me nuts... I haven't seen any reference to it in the forums (though it's possible I just didn't read enough of the 20+ page threads), but I'm wondering if anyone knows how to disable it.

It seems that windows mobile automatically starts closing programs when I start running low on memory. Particularly Messaging and Internet Explorer are prone to suddenly not be there anymore, but other programs do it as well.

For example, I'm reading a text message, switch to contacts to update someone's information, and then I try to switch back to the text message to verify the data and it's no longer running. I start up text messaging, and contacts has closed.

Very frustrating. I'm fairly certain it does it only when memory is very low, but I much preferred the warning "yo, idiot, you're out of memory, shut stuff down" messages to this "I'm going to close this program with no consideration to what you're doing and w/out asking" approach.

Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

i've heard of oxios causing this phenomena, something in the way of how it alters things when you run it. I use oxios exclusively to manage my ram, and have done so for a long time. the newer dcd roms are a lot better at this, some 6.1 roms though have a terrible memory leak.
Honestly though, you really shouldnt ever have that many apps open at one time. i start to freak out when i get down to 15mb free

try to use something where you can monitor your ram on the today screen, like batterystatus today plugin along with mbutton to see the open apps in the taskbar, and oxiosw memory apps to keep it all tidy.

I'm having the same issue, but not sure it has to do with low memory. I have dcd 2.1.0 rom with Spb pocket plus 4.0, mobile shell and oxios. If I'm going from say IE to any other program and go back fairly quickly to IE it would is still active but If I'm on another program for more than a minute it closes down on its own

Strangly having same issue here. Bus most annoying for internet sharing, and Messenger Live, can't be memory issue, nothing else is running! It just closes stuff as it feels like it.
Using Task Manager 2.0 here, no X-Button.

Mine is doing the same thing and I am running DCD 3.1 ROM. Sometimes I can have only 2 apps open and it will close the one that I am not in. Just 5 secs ago I had opera mini running and spb wallet. I had opera mini running and minimized it with the ok button and then opened SPB wallet from the start menu to get a password and when I went to go back to opera mini it was gone. This seems to be happening to me when I get ~8M of RAM left. This is very annoying. I am running quite a few programs in the background though.
SPB mobile shell 1067kb
S2u2 613kb
tmail 125kb
Wisbar Lite 65kb
Mortscript 16kb
AEB 13k
Ftouchsl 5k

I have had all these programs running before on a WM6 rom and never had this issue. and I never map the ok key to close.

Guys, sooner or later you're going to have to come to terms that the Titan only has 64 mb of ram, with over 50% of it being used by the system. This means you only get about 23-26 mb of free ram with a CLEAN rom. Taking a look at some of the applications you use, I can see why the system is auto closing stuff. WM 6.1 does this so your freakin os won't crash due to no memory. I use a LOT of software and I still end up with 22 mb free at boot. This is because I choose not to use certain programs that eat ram. If you absolutely need to use all that bloat, go back to WM 6.0 until a device with more ram comes out.

Nothing I'm using should be going above 22MB (which is free at startup)
Here's what I use and how much ram they eat up:
Garmin Mobile 5-7
Opera same
Navizon 2.7
GPS Viewer 1
other stuff (no more than 4 at most) less than 1MB
But I use Garmin Mobile in the car and not Opera becuase I don't have a data plan. And If i'm using Opera I wouldn't have garmin on as I would be at a house or mall or something like that.

But with JUST garmin Navizon and GPS viewer (with free ram mind you) garmin will close everything else (sometimes)when I activate it. However, with all three open and garmin in he back it won't close....

Ha..first off..Navizon has to be the BIGGEST pile of bloat I've ever used on my ppc. I had it installed for about 5 minutes before I trashed it.

WM 6.1 doesn't close programs when you run out of ram. It automatically senses when certain programs are eating ram, and when it gets low it closes programs to ensure you don't run out of ram.

If it's closing programs it means something you're running is causing your ram to drop tremendously. I've never had WM 6.1 close any of my programs.

Hello, i had the same problem on my Hermes. But i solved it. Just changed this two registry Keys.
Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
Enable Autokill change from 1 to 0

Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
MemoryThreshold change from 9437184 to 943718

Now it works perfect. No more closing Tasks automatically.
Greets

ckraus000 said:

Hello, i had the same problem on my Hermes. But i solved it. Just changed this two registry Keys.
Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
Enable Autokill change from 1 to 0

Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
MemoryThreshold change from 9437184 to 943718

Now it works perfect. No more closing Tasks automatically.
Greets

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I am running a stock rom and it doesn't seem to have those keys. Could you post the exact spelling for the values (for example, is the value "Enable Autokill" or is it "EnableAutokill")

A clip for the registry itself would be even better.

Thanks for the tip!!!

ckraus000 said:

Hello, i had the same problem on my Hermes. But i solved it. Just changed this two registry Keys.
Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
Enable Autokill change from 1 to 0

Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
MemoryThreshold change from 9437184 to 943718

Now it works perfect. No more closing Tasks automatically.
Greets

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!! I'll try this out, if it works then one of my biggest gripes with this device will be addressed! I played with a friend's Tilt and the amount of available RAM blew me away but this will definitely help with the craptastic memory!

ckraus000 said:

Hello, i had the same problem on my Hermes. But i solved it. Just changed this two registry Keys.
Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
Enable Autokill change from 1 to 0

Hkey_Current_USER/Software/HTC/Taskmanager
MemoryThreshold change from 9437184 to 943718

Now it works perfect. No more closing Tasks automatically.
Greets

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

This appears to have solved my issue with this. I run no2chem 5069k with a 10mb Pagepool. I use Oxios and have ~24 mb of ram at boot. I normally encounter problems when trying to switch between apps. I use the LastFM app and prior to this fix I would OK out of the app and it would close 5-10 seconds after OKing out. Even with a fresh boot. With this fix implemented I have successfully had it running in the background for 10+ minutes while switching between using Google Maps, Live Search and IE. Note that none of the programs closed.

Keep in mind your mileage may vary from ROM to ROM and app to app. I'm guessing that it is exclusive to a certain version of HTC Task Manager. Also possibly maybe exclusive to some type of Memory Mangement App. All I know is that I have been fighting this closing issue since no2chem 5066 IIRC and this has apparently solved it. I've used the same app loadout since I've had my Mogul pretty much.

What I did:

I did not have these registry keys. I created the:

"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.

Radio: 3.39.10
PRL 60613
PRI.03_003

Current Mogul app load:
Oxios Memory
AC IMSelecter
Lonely Cat Games Slick
Unyverse Ltd Upvise
MS Hearts (yeah, yeah... I'm an addict)
Dashwire
Vicsoft Cleartemp
Youtube youtubeplay
WMwifirouter (.91 IIRC)
Singer's Creations Weather Watcher
HTC Diamond MP3 Trimmer
Google Maps
MS Live Search
PocketPicture
PocketCM Contacts .23
TP PPC-6800 Hacks
PocketToolman (ver, unknown
Total Commander
.net CF 2.0 (certain old programs can't use the ver 3.5)
ShoZu Mobile
GC Java Pack 1.1
TCPMP .72
Opera 9.5 Beta (build ???)
ELF Calc Skin
Someguy sMMS
vtable software lastcab
moBlog
Pocket CM Keyboard .14

EDIT: 20+ minutes and still no app closes, still browsing and switching between. I'm going to delete the keys, soft reset and test again just to make sure

ive found that 6.1 seems to establish a "baseline" of how much ram it wants to keep free, if i let it have 22-23mb free after a soft reset it will kill any apps in the background to get back up to 23mb, even if the app it kills is only using 500k or so

if i open a bunch of apps right after a soft reset, and get the ram down to about 10mb, i can run all day perfectly stable, and keep all those apps open, or close them and open others and be fine, but i let it free up more ram and 6.1 realizes it can have more ram it starts closing apps to reach the "new" baseline

Alright...

So...

That reg edit appears to do nothing. But. I think I may have stumbled onto something that may be causing the issue.

Reset 3 times and tried lastfm with removed reg keys. Nada - multitasked as previously mentioned with no issue. Had me confused. Then I realized I had never run Oxios Close/Hibernate since my last boot. Something I generally do at least once or twice a day, my phone usually doesn't get reset unless I'm installing something. Closed lastfm, ran Closeapps, launched lastfm and tried to multitask, closed out within 5-15 seconds. Something that Oxios (and most likely other tools like it) messes with WM memory management. I realize that even after a fresh boot I'll sometimes run Oxios (quick way to check ram). Either it loads something into memory or the function is sends is somehow looping or causing WM memory to close nonfocused apps.

So, essentially not any further along, but maybe mem management apps are more responsible than many have guessed before? Anyone else have some time to do some independent research?