There is little doubt that Android 5.0 (Lollipop) is one of the big talking points of this year. At first, all the talk revolved around what Lollipop would bring different to what we were getting on Android 4.4 (KitKat). Once Lollipop was let loose on the world, the talk then turned to when will it be available for my device. Now, for most of us this is where we are currently at. Still waiting for the illusive Lollipop to become available for our devices. However, for some of those lucky enough (mostly Nexus owners) to get early access to Lollipop, the talking point has somewhat changed slightly. For those users, the talk has turned to the number of bugs which seems to be popping up.
In fairness, this is a new operating system and in spite of extensive testing, it is to be expected that there would still be some bugs to iron out. That said, the list seems to be growing on an almost daily basis. We have already seen a number of bugs reported including a bug which was stopping some users from sending SMS messages and another bug which seems to affect the recents menu and how it displays cards. Well, the latest bug being touted is one which is probably a little more serious. Some users are reporting severe issues with apps force closing and restarting. According to the reports, this is largely happening with apps that are left open and running in the background. On Lollipop it would be assumed that app management would not be an issue. Most devices destined for Lollipop will be expected to have a decent level of RAM and should be able to multi-process the apps without issue. That said, the reports are coming in with no element of consistency of affected apps. It simply seems that apps in the background foreclose and restart far more often than they should.
This is not only being noted as a background app issue with other users reporting main running apps doing the same sort of thing. In particular a number of reports seem to be noting Play Music force closing while playing. At present, it is not clear if this is the result of memory management, memory leaking or simply a bug that’s forcing the app closures. Whats more is that the issue seems to get worse the longer the device is left on without a restart. Either way though, this is one bug we would hope Google fixes quickly. If it is a memory management issue then this could be a serious issue for the users. As with all bugs, not all users are reporting the issue and as such it again is rather hit-or-miss. If you have been experiencing the bug then leave a comment and let us know how badly it affects your system.