random resets when using Messenger

Fizz

Well, it has been awhile, but i finally saw the crash again. I was having a conversation with a friend, and mid-sentence the screen went black, then the UT loading screen, black, UT loading screen, etc. And i had to do a hard reset to get it out of the mode. After the reset and my resuming the conversation, it happened a second time.

Unfortunately, i don't have any memory info to report. There is never any indication that a crash is about to occur. Maybe next time in a longer conversation i'll have to check memory regularly.

Is there any chance it could be related to my cell provider? I'm on Freedom Mobile here in Canada (previously i was on Virgin).

-Fizz

lduboeuf

@Fizz Wow that is very unfortunate and strange behavior.
I really have no idea what is going on, and especially the fact that your device is in clean state iirc ( not upgraded from 16.04 and without heavy sms history ). But your RAM hardware can be faulty or whatever hardware part otherwise others would have faced the same issue.

Znd no, i doubt your provider is doing nasty things. Because when you open messaging app to read a sms, the sms has been already processed

Fizz

@lduboeuf
When i first boot up, running top it tells me MiB Mem is 3593.7 total, 1521.1 free. Assuming MiB means mebibyte, that converts to 3.77 GB. And after accounting for memory allocation to hardware etc, this seems like it is all being recognized. (The Pixel 3a has 4 GB memory.)

Is there a way to test whether memory is faulty? I don't think the memory is bad, because as you say everything else is working fine, but i don't know what else to check. These blips seem to occur in groups. Last night's caused the reset, so i should have a "clean slate" upon reboot, but it happened again quickly after the reboot.

But it's been fine since that second reboot. I lasted the last two weeks nearly without a crash, and i've certainly been texting all that time. So... yeah i am baffled too.

-Fizz

multiprefi

How can i check memory usage? I too would be surprised if that were the issue, as i have no other apps running, and the Pixel3a should have plenty.

AppLee

Hi @multiprefi

You can use top ideally run in a terminal from a SSH connection to monitor your device while not in use as well as with the screen on, apps running, etc.

irnbru

My Pixel 3a has always done this. On Xenial, the screen would go off/black then back on showing whatever app was open until a hard reboot. On Focal it is exactly as the OP described with the ubuntu loading screen. This can happen any time, not just when using the messaging app, it even happens when the phone is sitting on my desk not being used. I always assumed this was some specific issue with my device. I ran 'top' after this mornings crash but i have no idea what I'm looking for.

kugiigi

My guess is that something crashes when this happens and probably not really related to out of memory issues. Perhaps Mir, Qtmir, or whatever

Sadly it seems to be really hard to replicate and investigate. I've observed similar issue on my FP4 and Xperia X.

Fizz

I have had it happen a few more times since my last post. It seems random. One time it crashed shortly after i had just opened Messaging, so it's not like "excessive use" of Messaging caused it.

It does seem to happen in waves... It was fine for almost a month, then i a couple instances inside of 4 days.

Once when i wasn't even using Messaging, or perhaps i had just closed it. So as though solving it wasn't hard enough already. Lol.

-Fizz

arubislander

@Fizz Do you haven to have a large amount of messages? Maybe the app is having trouble with that?

kugiigi

I also recently experienced this. I was typing then my FP4 just died and rebooted. After rebooting though, the OSK keeps on crashing similar to a known weird issues in the keyboard. So maybe sometimes when the OSK crashes, something else panics and crashes and causes a reboot.

Fizz

@arubislander
Sorry for my delayed reply- got distracted by another issue.

No, the total number of messages was not very high. I'm pretty good at clearing things for most of my contacts usually. At the time of latest crash, it was probably around 100 in my history for that particular contact.

Per another thread, i have a new sim card now (related to missed calls, messages and mixed up messages), but i'm curious if that will help with this issue as well.

-Fizz

Fizz

@arubislander

Well, the new sim didn't change anything in this regard. I got a crash yesterday shortly after opening Messenger- hadn't even had a chance to type anything. After a reset, it's behaved since then.

-Fizz