[nyplaya610]

This is a great article talking about the black clock of death, or as some might call it the hourglass. Im sure we all have experienced it.


The Dark Side of BlackBerry OS and Why it Had to Go

RIM�s BlackBerry 7 has been available for over a year now with many different models available. It�s clearly (and obviously) the best BlackBerry operating system that you can buy at the moment. Improving on the previous BlackBerry 6 operating system with hardware accelerated graphics and lots of other minor improvements to the user interface, it�s just a smoother BlackBerry experience. As far as hardware is concerned, there are improvements all over. The one we�re looking at is the the system memory, which has been boosted to a seemingly generous 768mb. However, despite giving 256 mb more than the previous Bold 9780, memory is consistently drained, and things slow down just like before. The famous BlackBerry security seems to comes at a price. Hence, N4BB investigates.
The Black Clock

I�m talking about the black clock of doom, hourglassing, black clocking, stalling, garbage collection, curse of the black clock, or whatever you want to call it. It renders your BlackBerry completely useless for a supposedly random amount of time. This has been haunting the BlackBerry operating system for as long as I can remember. Appearing as far back as OS 4 (or even farther), the black clock, whether (Research in Motion admits it or not), is one of the main reasons the original BlackBerry OS has to go. It�s one of the reasons why the RIM is in their rough situation today. Device after device, each successive BlackBerry was a �swing-and-a-miss�, further damaging the BlackBerry brand. This is all because the user experience is drastically affected when the memory leaks and the subsequent garbage collection takes place. RIM simply suggests that a battery pull or eventually a software reload can resolve the issue. However, I politely, but strongly disagree this will prevent the problem from happening again. This is not the type of experience BlackBerry users deserve.

As BlackBerry users, many of you are used to the good ol� �battery pull� to reset your BlackBerry when its suffering from the black clock. Some of you do this on a daily basis, which should be completely unacceptable. Yet we accept it. It is almost certain that the issue will return. Software update? Laughable. The issue hasn�t been solved at any time over the past 5 years. So why would it be fixed now? I�ve installed over 50 different operating system updates on 6 different devices, from hybrids to leaks to official releases. Never have I come across a single one that has resolved the issue. I believe this is a problem that is fundametal to the J2ME operating system and the hardware it is bound to. Nothing except BlackBerry 10 can solve it.

Some have never even encountered it, while others see it on a daily basis. My guess is that is depends on how you use your BlackBerry. If you�re more of an abuser, like I am, you�re much more likely to see it. My guess is that the browser is responsible for the memory leaks, leading to the black clock.

Memory leaks

First, let me make a few statements based on my years of BlackBerry experience:

1. Having more apps open technically does not affect the available free memory, since they are already installed on the memory.

2. The available memory steadily decreases over time until the next battery pull.

3. The browser can be the worst offender when it comes down to memory management.

I�ve been running an experiment over the past few weeks on the memory leaks and how this affect boot up time. I�ve been using TinyMeter to monitor my memory usage and free memory. Using 7.1.0.649 as my operating system, I also have a reasonable number of apps installed (~10). I do have 6 BBM Groups running and use the browser quite a lot, so I�d consider myself a heavy user.



Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I�ve waiting 21+ minutes for a reboot because my BlackBerry had pretty much ran out of memory. There is a distinct correlation between memory leaks, and reboot time. Error bars are pretty small, but this is more of a qualitative analysis. My old Storm 9530 even got down to 0.0 Kb one time. And this is all with no apps running! Having to wait so long for the phone to reboot because the operating system ran out of memory is inexcusable. I do, however, have a theory.

You see, BlackBerry OS runs its apps and OS from only 768 Mb of system memory and has no other RAM for the applications to run in, as on other smartphone platforms or computers. They run where they are installed. This can be beneficial for security reasons. Plus, you can run as many apps simultaneously as you have installed. Every app will just pop open, no matter how many apps are running. The device memory, on the other hand, is where you keep your files and other documents you�ve saved to your BlackBerry. This is in the gigabyte range on BlackBerry 7 phones, and isn�t something that affects the performance at all.

Well, this would be fine in theory, however the amount of free memory does not last long. To check for any misbehaving apps, BlackBerry 7 does come with some application management function in the Options menu, and it lets you know how much memory an app is using. I�ve seen the browser use over 230 Mb of memory when its closed. It�s also one of the apps that stays in the multitasking screen no matter what, leading you to believe its never really closed. Either way, it�s definitely an issue. There is even a new �Application Resource Monitor� that closes applications using too many resources, and I have yet to see it actually prevent memory leaks.

The take-home message here is that the old BlackBerry OS we�ve come to know has its limits. These limits arise due to the way the operating system shares its memory with applications that never really close, and the memory that is somehow lost between reboots. The new BlackBerry 10 platform works nothing like this, and will definitely not suffer from the same memory woes as BlackBerry OS.

App Development

When it comes to app development for BlackBerry OS vs. BlackBerry 10, the difference is like night-time on Pluto and daytime on Mercury. The BlackBerry OS platform was limited to Java and HTML5. While not actually more difficult to develop for, creating a genuinely good app experience on a BlackBerry OS app was much harder. The user interface tools were ugly. The hardware was lacking. The main app size was limited and assets had to be deferred to the device memory if you wanted a large app. Apps consumed precious system memory. It was just a bad situation. The poor development environment forced developers to put in the extra work to get the experience they wanted out of their app.

With BlackBerry 10 allowing a high-quality native development environment, leading HTML5 capabilities, Android app compatibility, and C/C++ for games, RIM has really cleaned up its act in this department.

In summary, the BlackBerry OS has reached its limits. It was apps, a modern browser and all these modern additions to the operating system that caused these limitations to surface and the dark side of BlackBerry OS to come out. To move forward, RIM had to start from scratch. Despite this, I believe RIM has made fantastic efforts towards the development of the new BlackBerry 10 platform. The new operating system has shed the baggage of the old platform, while preserving the BlackBerry philosophy and spirit of its predecessor. The app development platform is now top-notch, the QNX operating system is rock solid, the flow is seamless and the quality of the experience is commendable. While RIM might never admit it, the old BlackBerry OS platform was doomed as first iPhone came out. What people expected from a mobile operating system changed, and with that, so must the operating system.


The Dark Side of BlackBerry OS and Why it Had to Go - N4BB

[amjass12]

Cannot wait for bb10 , a refreshed bb experience

[thecsman]

Good article talking one of the main reasons you can find a lot of 'hate my blackberry' Twitter messages these days.

BB10 here we go! (will it support many many apps open?)

[BlackBerry Guy]

"You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig"

RIM needs BB10 sooner rather than later to reboot both the devices and the brand image. I'll be happy the day I have one of those in my hand.

[mikeo007]

Thanks. If I were to believe some folks here, my 9900 and 9700 only get hourglasses because I'm using them wrong.

[nyplaya610]

Thanks. If I were to believe some folks here, my 9900 and 9700 only get hourglasses because I'm using them wrong.

I used to get the same response from everyone. Until I stopped talking about it. Hourglass never goes away. I battery pull every single day. Can't wait for BB10 experience.

[fanatical]

How is this a great article ?? It's nothing more then a page filler, and I can't believe you wasted your time posting it here tbh.....
The author sums it up about a third of the way down in two sentences.

" I believe this is a problem that is fundametal to the J2ME operating system and the hardware it is bound to. Nothing except BlackBerry 10 can solve it."

YES BBOS is DEAD.. it was a great OS, but RIM has pushed it to it's absolute limit ! BB10 is coming....... two years too late, but it is coming. so really what is so great about this article ?

[Raestloz]

How is this a great article ??

It explains "why" instead of just shouting the same thing. Not so technical only programmers can read, not so layman people won't know what exactly he's talking about. A good article. I didn't know that BlackBerry apps are installed directly in the RAM, I thought they have dedicated memory for apps data and separate, dedicated memory for RAM

[sleepngbear]

Thanks. If I were to believe some folks here, my 9900 and 9700 only get hourglasses because I'm using them wrong.

I used to get the same response from everyone. Until I stopped talking about it. Hourglass never goes away. I battery pull every single day. Can't wait for BB10 experience.

OK, I know at least one of you has tons of active BBM groups, which are known to be a huge resource drain on the phone. If i open 50 apps on my desktop computer, it will run like crap, too. Nothing says I can't, so I'm obviously not using it incorrectly, but it's still going to run like crap. Point is, you can push any computer device to its limits. Easily. The ONLY time I get the clock on my 9900 is when I'm downloading and installing/upgrading apps. During the week my battery is shot after 12-14 hours, so it's not like I don't use the damn thing. And I seldom need to reboot more than once every couple of weeks. What I'd like to know is, exactly what are you people doing with these things that you're constantly getting the clock and needing battery pulls? How do you know you wouldn't get degraded performance doing the same types of activities on any other platform (assuming they can even be done on another platform)? And if it turns out that you can't run everything and the kitchen sink at the same time on BB10, do we get to look forward to you all running back to CB declaring the whole thing a failure and RIM doomed (again)? Because that's pretty much what I'm expecting when everybody finds out that it doesn't do everything they think it should.

I mean really, the snark around here is becoming a bit intolerable.

[southlander]

Like Sleepingbear I only see a spinning clock on app installs on my Bold and my Torch 9850. That said I usually do a restart using restart me about once every three days just for the heck of it. I do this with all my devices and even PCs. Just to clean the running environment. Though my PCs I only reboot about once every 2-3 weeks.

My wife uses a 9930 and she does not pull her battery without asking me since she is concerned about hurting something. Point being she hardly ever asks. She has some issues with her phone here and there when doing app updates. But she does not mention it freezing up, etc. She'd say something.

My mother uses a Curve 3G, OS5. She is a very light user making only phone calls and getting quite a few emails and a few BBMs. No web browsing and no 3rd party apps. She does not know how to remove the battery. She tells me any time she has any little issue with the phone. Like a setting, etc. Point is her device never gets restarted unless I do so. I only reset her phone about once a month.

So that's 3 of us out of the 3 BB users I know closely that have no real issues.

Just my experience. Maybe that's a pattern. Maybe some of us RIM supporters just do not run into so many issues for whatever reasons?

I know after being a network and sysadmin for 17 years I have less issues in general with PCs, devices, etc than folks I read about online. I think maybe some are more abusive to their tech or extremely heavy users. Not sure.

All that said, I have had my BlackBerrys need wipe and reloads from bad app installs. Of course then I would see the spinning clock. But that's obviously a corrupted device.

I will also add that the latest official Verizon OS builds for the 9930 and 9850 are phenomenal for me. Smooth and the battery life is superb. The first OS7 releases were crap. I admit.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

[Saiga]

I kinda wonder what people on OS7 are doing to get the hour glass also. I am far from a BlackBerry fanboy, I think they need to improve on a lot of things. I've even been called a troll on these forums before. But I simply don't get the hourglass on my 99 unless I am downloading a app. It just doesn't happen.

Right now according to the QuickLaunch device info function, my 99 has been on for 11 hours and 43 minutes. I have 238.52mb of free memory and 36% battery life left. Myver= 9930/7.1.0.714 - it is a Hybrid

I never plug my phone in. I have 3 external battery chargers and 3 spare batteries (thanks for the swag you know who). When a battery gets low, I pull it out and replace with a fully charged battery. So my phone gets rebooted a couple times each day. Maybe that helps.

Another thing I do, is I shrink the beejeebus out of my OS. I don't care if it is official, hybrid or a self built OS, I shrink everything I don't use out. I've been doing that since the 9530 days.

I can honestly say my 99 is less laggy than my BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha on must days. So hopefully things improve with the new OS or someone comes up with bbhybrid tools for BlackBerry 10 lol.

[Taigatrommel]

While I have yet to see this hourglass of death on my BB, I really understand what he is saying. Just for the record, my 9900 is mostly running flawless since I bought it back in april, some hadrware related issues aside. The only time I see the hourglass for a bit would be application installation.

Besides that, I haven't seen it often. However I don't have too many applications installed here, so that might be one of the reasons. However it really sucks the phones gets virtually unusable if you download and install/update something from App World. I have experienced only on Symbian before, which acted the same or even worse. More modern OS are able to install and update silently in the background, without slowing fown the phone too much.

So yes, it is good BB10 is finally on its way, though I agree it should've been already there and introduced instead of OS7.

[shemaree09]

That annoying hourglass is pretty rare now with the release of the latest OS7.1 update. The only time I see it now is when installing an app. Im using .580 on Verizon. Its the most stable OS to date.

[mikeo007]

What I'd like to know is, exactly what are you people doing with these things that you're constantly getting the clock and needing battery pulls? How do you know you wouldn't get degraded performance doing the same types of activities on any other platform (assuming they can even be done on another platform)? And if it turns out that you can't run everything and the kitchen sink at the same time on BB10, do we get to look forward to you all running back to CB declaring the whole thing a failure and RIM doomed (again)? Because that's pretty much what I'm expecting when everybody finds out that it doesn't do everything they think it should.

I mean really, the snark around here is becoming a bit intolerable.

For the record, I have zero BBM contacts and the following apps installed:
Score mobile
Weather eye
Facebook
Rogers my account
Blackberry bridge

I get multiple spinning clocks literally every time I use the browser and quite often in score mobile. I guess I'll just stop using the browser since that must not be intended usage.

Ya, the snark is too much. From all sides of the camp. Everyone complaining is simply using it wrong, I understand.

[DaedalusIcarusHelios]

The black clock issue has been such a pain over the years. My Torch 9850 with the current 7.1 build I have now has been really good, although lately something has required some battery pulls due to freezing up (no black clock, just doesn't respond).

[belfastdispatcher]

People still pull batteries?

Alt+right Caps+ Del works for me every time.

A preemptive one every few days goes a long way.

[adamschuetze]

try Bejoose from app world....sbould get rid of your spinning clock and reduce the need to pull battery.

What does Bejoose actually do? Technically, nitty gritty details, please.

[sleepngbear]

For the record, I have zero BBM contacts and the following apps installed:
Score mobile
Weather eye
Facebook
Rogers my account
Blackberry bridge

I get multiple spinning clocks literally every time I use the browser and quite often in score mobile. I guess I'll just stop using the browser since that must not be intended usage.

Ya, the snark is too much. From all sides of the camp. Everyone complaining is simply using it wrong, I understand.

And with comments like this, I shouldn't bother trying to respond to you seriously. But I will just for giggles.

I also have ScoreMobile, Facebook, the bridge, plus BeWeather and My AT&T. All online apps, all dependent on a decent carrier signal to function properly, yes? Sometimes a LOT of data. I would suggest to you that the lagging. You're blaming on the device is quite possibly due to a crappy wireless signal. I see performance fluctuations all day long running the same apps from the same location. I KNOW that when things start dragging, it's because I don't have a good data connection, because sometimes just minutes later things get snappy again for no other reason than the tower I happen to be connected to becomes uncongested.

Just something to think about before condemning a whole brand.

[njblackberry]

Haven't had a Black Clock (never heard it called that) since March.
Which is when I switched devices. Use what works for you. If the spinning clock bothers you, you CAN do something about it.

Just something to think about before settling for something that doesn't work for oyu.

[mikeo007]

And with comments like this, I shouldn't bother trying to respond to you seriously. But I will just for giggles.

I also have ScoreMobile, Facebook, the bridge, plus BeWeather and My AT&T. All online apps, all dependent on a decent carrier signal to function properly, yes? Sometimes a LOT of data. I would suggest to you that the lagging. You're blaming on the device is quite possibly due to a crappy wireless signal. I see performance fluctuations all day long running the same apps from the same location. I KNOW that when things start dragging, it's because I don't have a good data connection, because sometimes just minutes later things get snappy again for no other reason than the tower I happen to be connected to becomes uncongested.

Just something to think about before condemning a whole brand.

Thanks. I didn't highlight the snark in your post, but if you could locate mine, you probably know where yours was as well. I appreciate you trying to troubleshoot the issue, but I've been there and done everything suggested quite a while ago. With no apps installed at all, running on wifi, I had the exact same issues. Maybe not quite as frequent in the OS, but the browser for sure was the same.

Also of note, I've never seen a spinning clock caused by poor data connection. I've seen apps display their individual "loading" symbols and the little flashing communication arrows, but the clock is an OS level thing.

Lastly, while I am condemning the current crop of devices, I'm not trashing the entire brand. My 9700 was an admirable device in its first year of service and I also have hopes that Bb10 will help RIM recover. But I've been stung a lot by their existing products, as have many others.

[PineappleUnderTheSea]

My 9800 (on OS6) will sometimes spin the clock when opening apps or using the browser, but it's not too bad. It's a work phone, so there are next to no apps installed on it. It almost seems random as to when it will do it. Doesn't bother me that much, I've come to expect it.

What it does do is freeze a lot, especially when waking it up. The touchscreen or touchpad is not responsive for about 2 minutes or so, and I can't do anything with the phone. I have days where I swear that I will never buy another BB because of this (the freezing always comes at a time where I really need to use the phone), but when I finally calm down I still look forward to BB10.

[southlander]

Ya, the snark is too much. From all sides of the camp. Everyone complaining is simply using it wrong, I understand.

Or perhaps some just have bad hardware. Faulty design of the OS for example would mean folks could reproduce each others' issues. Bad hardware, not so.

What are some sites you have trouble with the browser on? I will check them out. Just one or two.


Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

[mikeo007]

Or perhaps some just have bad hardware. Faulty design of the OS for example would mean folks could reproduce each others' issues. Bad hardware, not so.

What are some sites you have trouble with the browser on? I will check them out. Just one or two.


Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

No particular sites, the phone just starts to drag after using the browser for a few minutes. On a typical day I'd visit any number of tech blogs and forums.

I have to disagree with your assessment that faulty OS could be reproducible. A poorly coded OS could make these things very hard to reproduce even when repeating the exact same steps. I personally don't think it's a hardware problem, and I had work swap out my 9900 once already.

[nyplaya610]

OK, I know at least one of you has tons of active BBM groups, which are known to be a huge resource drain on the phone. If i open 50 apps on my desktop computer, it will run like crap, too. Nothing says I can't, so I'm obviously not using it incorrectly, but it's still going to run like crap. Point is, you can push any computer device to its limits. Easily. The ONLY time I get the clock on my 9900 is when I'm downloading and installing/upgrading apps. During the week my battery is shot after 12-14 hours, so it's not like I don't use the damn thing. And I seldom need to reboot more than once every couple of weeks. What I'd like to know is, exactly what are you people doing with these things that you're constantly getting the clock and needing battery pulls? How do you know you wouldn't get degraded performance doing the same types of activities on any other platform (assuming they can even be done on another platform)? And if it turns out that you can't run everything and the kitchen sink at the same time on BB10, do we get to look forward to you all running back to CB declaring the whole thing a failure and RIM doomed (again)? Because that's pretty much what I'm expecting when everybody finds out that it doesn't do everything they think it should.

I mean really, the snark around here is becoming a bit intolerable.

I have one BBM group with only 2 other people. I mostly use the browser, text, sometimes bbm, emails and twitter. I dont use FB on it. But today after getting the hourglass quiet often i started to realize that it shows up when im on twitter. I use the blackberry twitter. I uninstalled it and now will use Ubersocial. lets see if this helps

[southlander]

I have to disagree with your assessment that faulty OS could be reproducible. A poorly coded OS could make these things very hard to reproduce even when repeating the exact same steps.

Yes. But you are using very few add on apps as am I. You are running close to stock and I am not having issues. Should be fair to compare. Anyway, just an offer.