iPad Pro is this iPad OS RAM Issue ?

[augustya]

I am on iPad OS 13.3.1 I noticed one thing today I had several tabs open in Safari and when I went back to my first and second table which were Webpage for some products they refreshed on their own again !! This is not supposed to happen right ? It should not refresh the webpage on its own right guys ? Why is it happening ? is it again a iPad OS RAM issue which has not been resolved ?is this happening with everyone ? Can anyone please confirm ? Or is this only happening with my device !

 

[chrono1081]

Pages can absolutely refresh on their own.

 

[augustya]

Pages can absolutely refresh on their own.

I don’t think that’s the case, this was exactly the problem that was fixed, a bug that was fixed in iPad OS 13.3 isn’t it ?

 

[ericwn]

That has nothing to do with being a bug. Pages can refresh themselves but that’s more for news tickers and the like. iOS has always on occasion reloaded websites when the system needed the RAM elsewhere. This of course was always in iOS and can only be fixed with more RAM.

 

[augustya]

That has nothing to do with being a bug. Pages can refresh themselves but that’s more for news tickers and the like. iOS has always on occasion reloaded websites when the system needed the RAM elsewhere. This of course was always in iOS and can only be fixed with more RAM.

Was this bug not fixed in the last to last release that happened where Tabs and Websites and APPS were refreshing on its own, and it had created quite a discontent amongst the iPad community and everyone was talking about it. Was this issue not fixed then ?

 

[augustya]

And by the way it just did nit happen with Safari, once or twice it happened with YouTube aswell also right now. When I was watching a YouTube video I paused it, got in to safari did some surfing and when I came back to the YouTube that video was gone !! The YouTube app also refreshed on its own, automatically !

 

[AutomaticApple]

Was this bug not fixed in the last to last release that happened where Tabs and Websites and APPS were refreshing on its own, and it had created quite a discontent amongst the iPad community and everyone was talking about it. Was this issue not fixed then ?

It isn't a bug...

 

[augustya]

It isn't a bug...

What about YouTube APP also refreshing?

 

[bapegg]

I don't think it's a bug in IPAD OS. My iPad mini 4 has always done that. Some webpages just refresh no matter what browser you use. I haven't noticed any changes in how web pages refresh between IOS 12 and IPAD OS. I have used Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.

 

[augustya]

It has now happened with me on two occasions also with the YouTube APP what about that ? Even that refreshed.

 

[macintoshmac]

Things happen.. No software is perfect, no hardware is perfect, Apple included. You restart your device, you check (and if need be, moderate) your use, close down apps not in use, etc. Are you looking for a solution?

Yes, there was this nasty bug in iOS and iPadOS 13 and since you are on 13.3.1 that bug's been fixed for you. However, if you are suddenly facing issues again, it might be something related to your usage or like I said, the device might just need a restart. You might be having a heavy game in the background. Safari tabs might be using enough memory to cause YouTube to reset.

If you want to do this, you need to account for a lot of variables here, the number of tabs, the websites themselves, number of apps in the background and which ones, etc.

 

[rui no onna]

It has now happened with me on two occasions also with the YouTube APP what about that ? Even that refreshed.

Yeah, that's normal. Pages and apps will reload. The only difference is when. Media heavy pages will reload quicker than plain text ones. On iOS 11, reloads were happening way too often. iOS 12 reduced the frequency but it didn't eliminate it entirely. I've found iOS 13 to run more or less similar to iOS 12.

As mentioned, there's no fix for this other than adding more RAM and/or using storage backed virtual memory (e.g. pagefile on Windows, swap on *nix).

Heck, I don't do anything particularly extreme on my Windows desktop with 16GB RAM and even that has managed to hit the pagefile every now and then. I used to have the pagefile on 1GB fixed and I've had to increase that twice, first to 2GB then to 4GB after Windows complained it's out of memory.

 

[augustya]

Things happen.. No software is perfect, no hardware is perfect, Apple included. You restart your device, you check (and if need be, moderate) your use, close down apps not in use, etc. Are you looking for a solution?

Yes, there was this nasty bug in iOS and iPadOS 13 and since you are on 13.3.1 that bug's been fixed for you. However, if you are suddenly facing issues again, it might be something related to your usage or like I said, the device might just need a restart. You might be having a heavy game in the background. Safari tabs might be using enough memory to cause YouTube to reset.

If you want to do this, you need to account for a lot of variables here, the number of tabs, the websites themselves, number of apps in the background and which ones, etc.

Man you gave me the Mantra for living a happy life. lol ! That is not what I was looking out for. Nevertheless yes the first thing I did was I restarted the device not have been to check again will have to check how is it performing now. So but YouTube app should not refresh right ? As safari is expected to refresh ?

 

[fgengineer]

You haven’t mentioned what iPad you have. Apps and websites refreshing when RAM is low has always happened on iOS. Sometimes a bug can make it worse.

I used to get it a lot on my iPhone 6 Plus and my iPad mini 2 once it got old. On my iPad mini 5 it happens a lot more than I would expect for a 3 GB RAM device.

I remember reading something about app refreshing being worse on the new iPad OS. Whether it is a bug on some apps,a bug on iPad OS, just iPad OS bloat, or a combination of all the above, I don’t know.

I do know it used to drive me nuts on my iPhone 6 plus.

 

[augustya]

Yeah, that's normal. Pages and apps will reload. The only difference is when. Media heavy pages will reload quicker than plain text ones. On iOS 11, reloads were happening way too often. iOS 12 reduced the frequency but it didn't eliminate it entirely. I've found iOS 13 to run more or less similar to iOS 12.

As mentioned, there's no fix for this other than adding more RAM and/or using storage backed virtual memory (e.g. pagefile on Windows, swap on *nix).

Heck, I don't do anything particularly extreme on my Windows desktop with 16GB RAM and even that has managed to hit the pagefile every now and then. I used to have the pagefile on 1GB fixed and I've had to increase that twice, first to 2GB then to 4GB after Windows complained it's out of memory.

Can you give an example of storage backed virtual memory ? And how can it help in this case ?
[automerge]1582123795[/automerge]

You haven’t mentioned what iPad you have.

11" iPad Pro !

 

[macintoshmac]

Man you gave me the Mantra for living a happy life. lol ! That is not what I was looking out for. Nevertheless yes the first thing I did was I restarted the device not have been to check again will have to check how is it performing now. So but YouTube app should not refresh right ? As safari is expected to refresh ?

I think whichever app is in focus will take priority and the next heaviest RAM-eater will take the brunt.

I had this exact thing when this issue popped up. Safari would constantly refresh even if it were the only app and minimised for a while. A YouTube tab would refresh if I checked another tab. It was resolved in 13.3 or 13.3.1.

 

[augustya]

A YouTube tab would refresh if I checked another tab. It was resolved in 13.3 or 13.3.1.

isn’t that contradictory that you are saying? YouTube will also refresh but at the same time you are saying it is resolved in 13.3.1 ? Whereas it is not !!

 

[macintoshmac]

isn’t that contradictory that you are saying? YouTube will also refresh but at the same time you are saying it is resolved in 13.3.1 ? Whereas it is not !!

Ah, I speak for myself. It is not contradictory for me. I was as annoyed as everyone else until 13.3 or 13.3.1 when the RAM management was tuned up and I have not had any issues since.

You may do a reinstall to see if it resolves things. Or, if you are daring, try 13.4 beta 1.

 

[rui no onna]

Can you give an example of storage backed virtual memory ? And how can it help in this case ?

Desktop OSes usually have this enabled by default. These articles explain it better than I could. Basically, it's why you don't get reloads on Windows and Mac unlike on iOS.

Why You Shouldn't Turn Off Virtual Memory on Your Mac

Your Mac comes with a set amount of physical memory applications can use.

www.howtogeek.com

Mac Virtual Memory – What it is, the Swap Location, and How to Disable Swap in Mac OS X

I was asked recently about the Mac OS X swapfile, specifically how to disable Mac OS X swapping entirely. I decided I will take this opportunity to talk a bit about Mac virtual memory (swap), it&#8…

osxdaily.com

 

[VineRider]

Desktop OSes usually have this enabled by default. These articles explain it better than I could. Basically, it's why you don't get reloads on Windows and Mac unlike on iOS.

Why You Shouldn't Turn Off Virtual Memory on Your Mac

Your Mac comes with a set amount of physical memory applications can use.

www.howtogeek.com

Mac Virtual Memory – What it is, the Swap Location, and How to Disable Swap in Mac OS X

I was asked recently about the Mac OS X swapfile, specifically how to disable Mac OS X swapping entirely. I decided I will take this opportunity to talk a bit about Mac virtual memory (swap), it&#8…

osxdaily.com

Essentially, Windows and MacOS use a virtual memory management system. This method uses disk space as an extension of system memory.

In very simplistic terms, what happens is this:
When an app requires memory, data that is least used in memory is paged out to disk (a swap file or paging file). Then that memory is allocated to the requesting app for use.

When another app comes along and needs memory, contents of least used memory is paged to disk and that memory space is reallocated to the new app. This is called a virtual memory management system and was implemented by IBM back in the 360/370 mainframe days back in the 1960's.

All mainframe (IBM) and supermini systems (Wang VS, DEC VAX, DataPoint etc.) used this management system. Windows and Mac use this method as well.

Your processor can address more memory than is physically installed in your computer, so the virtual memory management system extends addressable memory to the disk via paging and swap files.

Now, having said all that, I am not an expert on iOS, but i would suspect it uses some variation of this memory management scheme.

EDIT -
Both OS X and iOS include a fully-integrated virtual memory system that you cannot turn off; it is always on. Both systems also provide up to 4 gigabytes of addressable space per 32-bit process. In addition, OS X provides approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes. Even for computers that have 4 or more gigabytes of RAM available, the system rarely dedicates this much RAM to a single process.

About the Virtual Memory System

Guidelines for improving the performance of memory-related code.

developer.apple.com

 

[rui no onna]

Now, having said all that, I am not an expert on iOS, but i would suspect it uses some variation of this memory management scheme.

EDIT -
Both OS X and iOS include a fully-integrated virtual memory system that you cannot turn off; it is always on. Both systems also provide up to 4 gigabytes of addressable space per 32-bit process. In addition, OS X provides approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes. Even for computers that have 4 or more gigabytes of RAM available, the system rarely dedicates this much RAM to a single process.

About the Virtual Memory System

Guidelines for improving the performance of memory-related code.

developer.apple.com

Important difference between OS X/macOS and iOS: Stuff that gets paged out on macOS gets stored on disk so it can be retrieved later. On iOS, they just go poof hence the reloads.

 

[VineRider]

Important difference between OS X/macOS and iOS: Stuff that gets paged out on macOS gets stored on disk so it can be retrieved later. On iOS, they just go poof hence the reloads.

Yes, I think you are right. That would explain the reloads. I hadn't thought of that aspect on iOS. However, with gigabytes of storage, seems like it would be possible to extend memory mapping virtually and have swap files on iOS. But again, I am not super familiar with iOS internals so there is probably some good reason its done the way it is.

Stimulating conversation though - makes me remember some of my early days in the industry....

 

[sosumi99]

Important difference between OS X/macOS and iOS: Stuff that gets paged out on macOS gets stored on disk so it can be retrieved later. On iOS, they just go poof hence the reloads.

The link below probably goes into more detail than the original poster is looking for, but it’s a decent summary (the link contains more links to Apple developer documentation, which is good but long to read). As rui no onna mentioned, iOS is different from most other modern OSs in not having a page file, and it does odd things with memory mapping. The design leads to behavior like this, which makes sense if you remember iOS’s origins as a mobile OS where information was intended to be consumed in quick, small bursts, meaning occasional reloads when running out of memory was no big deal. The design probably no longer makes sense for iPad OS, where the usage is very similar to desktop. But that would require significant reengineering to “fix.”

What is the limit on virtual memory for iOS?

Is there a cap on virtual memory usage on iOS? Figure there must be but haven't been able to track it down.

stackoverflow.com

 

[rui no onna]

Yes, I think you are right. That would explain the reloads. I hadn't thought of that aspect on iOS. However, with gigabytes of storage, seems like it would be possible to extend memory mapping virtually and have swap files on iOS. But again, I am not super familiar with iOS internals so there is probably some good reason its done the way it is.

Stimulating conversation though - makes me remember some of my early days in the industry....

There's performance penalty swapping to disk. There's also NAND P/E cycles to consider particularly for devices with only 16GB eMMC storage (iirc, Air 2 and iPad mini 4).

Iirc, the A9 chipset is when Apple switched to PCI Express for NAND and when 32GB became base (on iPad at least). It would be interesting if Apple does something on that front after they drop the Air 2 and mini 4 from iOS/iPad OS updates.

 

[augustya]

Ok People ! So I restarted the device and now the YouTube APP is not refreshing. I hope it stays this way.