Odd Issue Android Phones

[DaveLembke]

My LG16C phone has had where I would be in the middle of doing something and it would bail out to the main screen.

Certain games will crash at the same point in them while FB Messenger will crash out randomly. Uninstalling apps and reinstalling give same result.

Pretty sure no virus's running on phones because I have an antivirus running.

So I thought well I have had this phone for a while I will get one of my spare phones that I never used, and download the apps and performed all updates and this phone is acting the same way. So now I know its not my phone.

The phones are Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A7 1.2Ghz processors and have 512MB of RAM and 2GB Internal storage with a 8GB MicroSD Card added so that I can play MP3s thru it etc.

Was wondering if anyone knows if Google verifies that devices meet the system requirements before allowing installation of apps from their store? To me its acting like maybe the 512MB of RAM may be the issue as for still plenty of free space. Not sure if there is a logging app out there that can record free memory amount during the operation of the apps to see if I in fact the phone is crashing because the apps are memory starved or if its something else.

In the back of my mind is the possibility that planned obsolescence is at play where apps that ran fine in older versions don't play well with older phones and so that puts pressure on people to buy new phones when the older ones don't play well with the newest version of an app. But its unfortunate that I haven't found a way to get older versions of some games that played correctly with my phone and shut off the updating of these games to keep them from breaking.

Last night I even performed a factory reset on my phone to just wipe it completely clean and start fresh and still end up with the same results after all updates and only additional apps added were 2 games and FB messenger.

Might be forced to get a new phone but it just bothers me that this phone works fine with exception to new apps crashing on it. The other oddity is that my camera app in my phone use to have the ability to record video and that feature was removed so it can only take pictures now. Changes like that is to me pressure tactics in the code that if you have a phone of a certain age or older disable the video recording feature so people are forced to buy new. 

I looked online to see if there are any system requirement details for apps and nothing found other than what version of Android your running which I am running Android 4.4.2 with kernel version 3.4.0+ and the apps are compatible with that OS version.

[soybean]

Well, with 512MB of RAM and 2GB Internal storage, you clearly have a phone with very limited space to install apps and the RAM and processor, in my opinion, also make it quite limited in what it can run.   You store you MP3s on the microSD card but can't install apps on it, so you're limited to the 2GB internal storage for apps, right?

I have an LG Tribute 2 (LS665) that is about 3 years old.  It has a quad-core processor and 4GB of internal storage.  And, about 1 year ago, I bought an LG Stylo 3 (LS777). It has an octa-core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.   

I believe FB Messenger is a burdensome app.  I a bit surprised you can even run it on your phone. 

Bottom line: I think you probably need to buy a new phone to do what you want to do.

[DaveLembke]

Hello Soybean ...Did you have any issues with your prior phone and apps lagging or not working right that pushed you into a newer phone or just wanted newer or newer features that the other didnt have?

I was poking around online and see no work around to running older editions of apps. The apps seem to be tightly controlled to running the latest version and no ability to version lock them other than to I suppose download them in their earlier form and then keep that device offline forever to block updates that way.

I bought a bunch of these dual-core phones for like $5 each on clearance about 18 months ago thinking I would be all set for years to come since I dont need the latest and greatest technology, and if a phone gets destroyed or lost just open up a package with another one and associate it with my account/phone number etc.

I think I broke even in doing that because my daughter dropped one of her phones into winter salty slush getting off the school bus and my wife accelerated and her phone fell back out of the cubby in the dash and landed into her strawberry coolata which I am not quite sure why the top was missing from that drink which would have prevented this drink bath to the phone. So the $50 spent to have these 10 phones at $5 a piece marked down on closeout from their normal prices of $50 each at the time was a wash since 2 phones were replaced with others due to taking a bath while powered on. 

Looked online and saw a bunch of quadcore arm processor phones in the $40 range and will upgrade to one of those, and if I like certain games as much as some games I played on my older phone, I might buy an extra and download the games to it and then shut it off and keep it offline to version lock app/games that I like that dont need to be online to operate.  As wellas if my phone gets lost or damaged I will have a spare ready to roll. 

[soybean]

At the low price you paid for those phones, I can understand why you bought them.

My first LG phone (mentioned above), which was actually my first smartphone, was effectively free since Boost Mobile provided a coupon for an amount which covered the cost of the phone.  As I recall, one reason I bought the newer model after two years was to get a better camera.  Another reason was to get a phone with longer battery life.  I may have had other reasons, but I don't recall them at the moment.  I guess, to be honest, the purchase of the 2nd phone seems a bit frivolous as I look back on it. Since I was contemplating cancellation of my landline at that time - and I did cancel it - I might have also have been thinking I would have a backup smartphone if the primary one got lost or damaged.   

[DaveLembke]

Cool. Responding here so you know I read your response.   

[BC_Programmer]

There are crashlogs recorded but accessing them is rather difficult for a non-developer- you need to enable USB debugging on the phone, and using the Android Platform Tools.

However from what I can find, even an OutOfMemoryException should be indicating that the App Crashed rather simply returning to the home screen.

I wonder if the apps in question are intentionally exiting when they find certain features unavailable?

[soybean]

The apps seem to be tightly controlled to running the latest version and no ability to version lock them other than to I suppose download them in their earlier form and then keep that device offline forever to block updates that way.

With my two phones, I can prevent apps from updating.   The technique is different for the two different versions of Android.   With the more recent version, on my newer phone, the method is described at https://www.maketecheasier.com/prevent-specific-android-apps-auto-updating/

[DaveLembke]

Thanks for sharing that. I found in Google Play the ability to shut off auto update. I was looking in the phone settings itself and nothing was there. But following the instructions from that link for Google Play untick auto update looks to be the solution.