[pantlesspenguin]

I want to preface this by saying I understand what memory leak is, & this is NOT what I'm experiencing. I've posted about this specific problem in the 9700 forum & haven't received much help, so I'll post it here to see if I can get some more feedback from users of other blackberries.

Whenever I download 3rd party apps, use them for awhile, decide they don't do me much good, & delete them, I rarely ever reclaim that memory. Also, I could delete an app that says it takes 633 kb, but then when I install it, 2mb have been zapped away.

When it comes to upgrades, I've upgraded my BBM 3 times, & instead of just overwriting the same 3mb it gobbles up another 3mb for each upgrade!

These are the apps I currently have:

Google Mobile
Google Maps
Poynt
jm-ircm
BeWeather
BeBuzz
UberTwitter
Facebook
Calorie Counter
Drive safe.ly (full version)
BAQ Tracker Mobile
Texts from last night
Bolt
Blackberry App World
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

So, that's 14 apps. I've had maybe 10 others that I've installed & discarded. On my 9700, I'm down to 74mb of memory left. Aside from wiping my phone & reinstalling everything, is there any possible way to reclaim the gobbled memory?

Any insight would be helpful.

[jetman1287]

Yeah I notice over time, even when I delete calendar appointments, messages, and apps it rarely helps.

Whenever I install the OS I have a great amount of free memory, but every subsequent reboot ends up being smaller and smaller, regardless of what I delete.

Just something you have to get used to on the crappy BB OS, I guess.

[john_v]

As far as BBM, have you gone through desktop manager, used the Add/Remove programs to see if there are multiple versions of BBM on your phone? I think it may be as simple unchecking the boxes of those programs to completely uninstall them (although you would think deleting them from the BB itself would free that memory back up).

That's my only thought...I used the DM to remove BBM and several useless games that came preinstalled.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[pantlesspenguin]

As far as BBM, have you gone through desktop manager, used the Add/Remove programs to see if there are multiple versions of BBM on your phone? I think it may be as simple unchecking the boxes of those programs to completely uninstall them (although you would think deleting them from the BB itself would free that memory back up).

That's my only thought...I used the DM to remove BBM and several useless games that came preinstalled.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

No, I haven't done this! This is a great idea. I haven't really played around w/ my desktop manager except for routine backups. I'll try this tonight, thanks!

[ml001277]

I hope to see some more thoughts about this as I've experienced this as well. There are times that I reboot and end up with less memory than before I rebooted. I'm using OS .405 on the 9700. Not sure if this is an OS issue or something else.

Thanks!

[Reed McLay]

At the heart of every BlackBerry is Sun Java VM, the real multitasking OS. When you delete an application, Java includes an automatic garbage collection. In due course, typically when it has been idle for a while, garbage collection is run to recover the memory.

On my 9700, I'm down to 74mb of memory left. Aside from wiping my phone & reinstalling everything, is there any possible way to reclaim the gobbled memory?

For perspective, our first generation Pearl and Curves were built with 64 Mb, total. Once the core software was installed, we were thrilled to see 20+ Mb, before apps.

John V makes a good point, BlackBerry Desktop Manager is the best way to maintain your BlackBerry. Backup and Restore can be life savers if things go wrong.

Applications Loader gives you full control over the software installed.

[c5karl]

Try this: Go to Options > Security Options > Memory Cleaning and activate either Clean When Holstered (which also seem to apply to the keyboard lock) or Clean When Idle (or both).

I have found this has helped a lot to keep free app memory from acutely dwindling between reboots.

However, I'm using a Bold 9000 with half the application memory of your phone, so I'd be in heaven if I could have 74 MB free. After a reboot, I have about 24 MB free. I haven't noticed any ill effects on my phone of low application memory until I get under 4 or 5 MB (which then causes me to get a lot of hourglasses, presumably due to some memory swapping).

[Synergie]

There are several reasons why an app that is 633k on its own might take up much more than that once installed:

1. Certain apps need to cache information - Google Maps does for one - as do RSS readers, Weather apps etc. Most of these types of apps do not allow you to specify where the cached information is stored, and as such the info is stored in main memory.

2. Some apps might not cache information per say, but might need a certain amount of memory set aside to store information (ie: last place you were at in a game, user settings for apps etc.)

3. Some apps run in the background whether or not you want them to. They might not show up when you bring up the running apps list, but they always remain resident, and that requires a bit of extra memory to run whatever those apps are doing in the background (ie: again apps like meterberry which could alert for low battery or memory, BeBuzz, other apps that 'alert' the user of different things)

These types of apps all would require more memory than is occupied by the actual code of those apps - sometimes much more!


Other places you might be losing memory:

1. Installing a new version of an app, without deleting the old. Sometimes, the new version will overwrite the old modules, but not always. You can check by using desktop manager. If you have multiple incidences of an app, delete the older version!

2. Installing apps that are incompatible with your device... example: themes made for another device, will still install but not show in your themes list. The modules still take up space.



Anyone else think of anything I might have missed?? Oh, photos etc saved to your device memory instead of your memory card will also eat some of it up!

[MrObvious]

74 MB is not that bad at all. I wouldn't worry unless you got really low. Your phone probably came with a microSD so it's not like you will need the space.

[pantlesspenguin]

I realize in the grand scheme of things that 74mb isn't bad...but I just want to head it off in case it keeps getting worse!

Syn - thanks for your input!

[anon(19759)]

Just about every app is going to use more memory than it's base install size. User data, feeds, content all take space. Once you have deleted an app, navigate to the system folders and delete any folder associated with that app.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[andriakaye]

I have an app called memory booster that I got for a pretty low cost. before I got the app my memory was almost always nearly gone. This app has kept me at just barely over half used memory when i'm also maintaining my apps and deleting what i don't use. it recovers the wasted memory and it doesn't require a reboot in order to recover it. and in the app description it says it "improves the memory management of the BlackBerry Java Virtual Machine JVM which optimizes the device performance and stability." right now it's on sale in app world for $4.99, it's normally $9.99.

[jfrancis#WN]

I have a bold 9000, four apps, and about 15mb of memory... 74mb is only when I'm asleep and dreaming.

[pantlesspenguin]

Well, I tried to delete stuff via desktop manager, but I wasn't really sure what I was doing. When the process was over...I was DOWN to 40mb! I immediately did a battery pull, & put it back in a few minutes later. Now it's to 71mb. For a smartphone, this thing makes me feel pretty darn stupid .

[pantlesspenguin]

I ended up contacting T-Mobile via their Live Chat feature. The woman I "spoke" with was an *****. I explained my problem, that I'd download an application, use it for a bit, & delete it, but the memory would never come back. She said...and I quote as best as I remember...

"That's not a problem, that's normal. It doesn't come back because it's used. Don't overdose on the applications. I know they're cool and all, but they eat up your memory."

I was flabbergasted. First, I told her I wasn't a child downloading applications because they were "cool." Then I told her that I knew it was not normal because I searched on crackberry.com & I knew this wasn't a common problem. She said...

"crackberry.com is a third party site."

Well no sh!t! I told her that it was indeed a third party site...with thousands of seasoned blackberry users...who weren't experiencing this problem. I told her the only fix I knew of was to wipe the device & start clean. She said...

"I didn't think you wanted to lose your information."

Me...

"I wouldn't be LOSING my information, I do routine backups. And, you never gave me this option. I learned about it on crackberry.com."

Her...

"Is there anything else I could help you with today?"


So...I disconnected w/ her & called T-Mo blackberry support. I explained my situation & also told them what I had just been told over chat. This second girl was very apologetic. She was baffled as to why I wasn't getting my memory back after deleting applications. The best she could guess was that it was a bug w/ my OS. She confirmed that doing a wipe & reloading the OS would be my best bet. I expressed that I was hesitant to do this because it was my first blackberry & I didn't want to mess anything up. She reassured me that the procedure was pretty easy & she'd email me step by step instructions. I'm not going to do it until it really becomes a problem on my phone & funcitionality is hindered. But...it's nice to know that I'm not doing anything wrong .

I wish now that I would've written down chat lady's name & employee id. I definitely want to file a complaint, especially since T-Mobile is known for it's customer service. Insulting me & giving me false info is not cool @ all.