How can I fix my Android phone from hanging until it is rebooted?

[anorlunda]

Just curious about this.

My Android phone gets stuck on many web sites (including PF). When stuck, the progress bar always says 98% or more done. Waiting 10 minutes does nothing. Being in strong or weak signal areas, does not seem to matter.

But after restart, the phone loads the same URL in 2-3 seconds.

I can restart often as a remedy, but I'm curious about why it is hanging.
What am I cleaning out of the cache that causes it to hang?

 

[DaveC426913]

Mine does this occasionally, but it always seemed tied to weak signal.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

What am I cleaning out of the cache that causes it to hang?

I have seen people complain about this on other forums (like Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange). And I have first-hand experience of this issue. It happens especially in the phones with comparatively low internal storage (≤ 16 GB) and low RAM, or which have been used for a long time (say three years or more). It's irritating because the device will abruptly freeze and then reboot while one is using it, which often results in loss of data as the apps do not get the opportunity to save changes to persistent storage as they are just killed suddenly, and no time is given for clean-up.

I have visited the Samsung repair shop more than once with this issue. Their remedy is to first do a factory reset, and if that doesn't help, they change the motherboard (with the internal storage and RAM).

I have never been able to trace the root cause of this issue. The cause may be subtle and related to the Android OS itself.

 

[pbuk]

What browser are you using? I recommend Firefox or Chrome over e.g Samsung Internet.

 

[anorlunda]

What browser are you using?

I use Opera and sometimes Chrome.

 

[berkeman]

Waiting 10 minutes does nothing. Being in strong or weak signal areas, does not seem to matter.

Do you see the same problem whether you are on your home WiFi router versus just over-the-air with the cell towers?

What version of Android OS is on your phone currently? How old is the phone? My 8 y/o Android started progressively having more problems over the last year, and the OS was old enough that new app updates were not supporting it. I just got a new Pixel 6 to fix all of those aggrevations.

 

[anorlunda]

Do you see the same problem whether you are on your home WiFi router versus just over-the-air with the cell towers?

Yes, in fact the hang that motivated me to start this thread was on my home WIFI.

What version of Android OS is on your phone currently?

The phone is only 1 year old. It updates Android automatically. 2GB RAM.

 

[berkeman]

Wow, okay. Nevermind!

 

[berkeman]

Okay, different idea. If you go to the following URL when things are working well and when you seem to be having trouble, do you see a difference?

https://fast.com/

 

[anorlunda]

The theory that memory leaks gobble up the free RAM would seem to fit the symptoms pretty well. Restart clears the heap.

So which OS or app to blame? That's the hard part.

8GB of RAM rather than 2GB might make it less noticeable.

Software that could log free RAM might help me to diagnose. Is there an equivalent to Task Manager on Android?

 

[Tom.G]

Here is a possible investigative approach:
https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/memory

(above and many more found with:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=android+free+memory+app)

Cheers,
Tom