System UI crash

[hrym]

I have an elderly Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 with 8gb of storage and 1gb of RAM.   It gets by as long as I regularly clear recent apps and RAM (there's a widget for the latter).

On Saturday, touching the recent apps button produced a black screen and the message "System UI has stopped".   Everything came back to normal after a moment.   Repeated attempts produced the same problem.

All the advice is the clear the system cache, which can be done from Settings|Storage.   I did that, but it made no difference.   I also figured a factory reset wouldn't hurt, so did that as well.   I now have about 500mb more storage than I did and the device is considerably more sprightly, but the crash issue persists.

I've also tried booting into Recovery Mode and clearing the system cache from there, but doing that produces an error (the message is, unhelpfully, "Error!").   Doing it from Settings doesn't produce that.

The device still works, but the problem persists.   Does anyone have any ideas?   The thing is out of warranty and I'm not going to spend money on having it fixed.

[Nabs]

Factory reset fix anything?

[hrym]

---

@Nabs wrote:

Factory reset fix anything?

---

Thanks all.

I can't remember how long I've had it, but I reckon at least 4 years.   I updated it to Android 4.2.2 *(and reset it afterwards) a good while back and there have been no updates since.   It's worked OK, apart from getting very slow due to limited resources and this issue is new and out of the blue.   Googling it says that clearing the system cache (from Settings is fine) and rebooting it will fix it, but it hasn't.

The factory reset has, as I said, made it more sprightly, but the UI crash persists.   To clarify: I haven't used any 3rd party app killers, just the system tools (the Recent Apps button and the Samsung memory management widget).

A corrupted system cache seems the most likely culprit, but the disparity between Settings (works) and Recovery Mode (fails) is odd.

I may get round to the Kies option (thanks, @thesoupdragon), but it sounds like a lot of faff for a device that's as arthritic as I am.   Since, apart form this, it's working fine, I'm inclined to leave well alone and eke it out for another year or so.   8gb isn't enough storage these days (though it's amazing how many budget devices still have it) and I'm looking at 16gb ones when I have some spare cash.

[hrym]

A bit more Googling suggests that this might be an app update - possibly even Google Search itself.   It certainly isn't a new app as I haven't added anything for ages.

Other suggestions for a fix include resetting app preferences, though I guess the factory reset covered that.

I shall give it a bit and see what happens.

[hrym]

Update to this: following a conversation with @thesoupdragon, I tried the Google Now launcher.   It has a very low footprint and has given the device a new lease of life, but has also fixed the UI crash problem.  I can now close recent apps.

I'd assumed there was some corruption at a system level, but it's looking more like a resource issue, possibly caused by updates and the demands of TouchWiz.

[Nabs]

@hrym I'd guess that the system was maybe out of memory so was inadvertently closing down some background service that TouchWiz was relying on.

As you rightly mention the Google Now launcher is much lighter so shouldn't be using anywhere near as much memory. I use it on my tablet for the same reason 😉

[hrym]

Indeed, @Nabs.  Samsung have a widget that allows you to clear memory and I use that a lot.   Google Now has increased the pool by about 50mb, but I'm still often running at about 90% usage.   Clearing it drops it to 50 or 60 and everything speeds up.   When it's really stretched, Recent Apps will come up blank, but a clearout restores the list.

It's been like this for a long time, but the crash was new and, as I said, I suspect that an app update simply pushed it over the edge.

I need to pension the device off really, but I only use it occasionally and it does most of what I want.

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @hrym

How long have you owned the device ?

Sometimes the Os itself is the culprit as it can be too much for the phone. 

Somethings I'd personally consider is flashing it to put on a clean version of the rom / Os. Not a network bloated version if the phone will let you. 

1Gb of Ram used to be ample. iPhones still worked well with 1Gb but that's because they make their own iOS and its optimised to death. Lol. Android isn't the same imo. 

[Nabs]

@BandOfBrothers a little research would have shown that the device is around 6 years old and is in fact a tablet not a phone so will not run a "network bloated version" of Android

[BandOfBrothers]

---

@Nabs wrote:

@BandOfBrothers a little research would have shown that the device is around 6 years old and is in fact a tablet not a phone so will not run a "network bloated version" of Android

---

Well smack me with a kipper.

Whoops. :smileyembarrassed: