Issue 171316 in chromium: Pages constantly reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Status: Unconfirmed
Owner: ----
Labels: Internals-Network Pri-2 Via-Wizard Type-Bug OS-Android

New issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload on Chrome
for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Example URL:
Any webpage, even static HTML

Steps to reproduce the problem:
1. Load up a handful of tabs.
2. Read one tab for a couple minutes, or let the screen turn off and then
go back to Chrome.
3. Go click on the other tabs.

What is the expected behavior?
Simply show the already loaded pages in the other tabs.

What went wrong?
The tab reloads all over again, killing 15-30 seconds per tab every time,
even for static pages.

Did this work before? N/A

Chrome version: 18.0.1025465 Channel: stable
OS Version: 4.2.1; Nexus 10 Build/JOP40D

I realize this may be part of the Android routine of putting processes in
the background to save memory, but I see no reason why the page can't be
cached and only reloaded if the Reload button is hit. I've used the
original native web browser on Android 2.2 and it didn't have this
problem. Unfortunately, this bug is still there in the Chrome 25 beta and
it's maddening, rendering Chrome all but unusable if you're switching
between multiple tabs, as you might do on the desktop.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: rds...@chromium.org pli...@chromium.org

Comment #1 on issue 171316 by cben...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

(No comment was entered for this change.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #2 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I'm precisely working on this currently :)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: gav...@chromium.org

Comment #4 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Quick update on this:

We do try to do history loads for the tab restore after kill/crash and
back/forward navigation cases (good news).
This works perfectly (i.e. the page is fully reloaded from cache) for some
web sites (e.g. gmail, amazon) but doesn't for some others (e.g. techcrunch
and theverge).
For the failing websites I tried we are falling back to reload (as opposed
to history load which we try first) after
RenderViewImpl::didFailProvionalLoad() is called which is why we are
loading from network.

I will keep investigating to see why we are calling
didFailProvisionalLoad() in these cases.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: dro...@chromium.org klo...@chromium.org yfri...@chromium.org

Comment #5 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: feli...@chromium.org joh...@chromium.org

Comment #6 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Issue 163340 has been merged into this issue.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: di...@chromium.org
Labels: Mstone-26

Comment #7 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

didFailProvisionalLoad() was called due to some resources not being loaded
from cache due to non-matching vary headers. This was triggering a cache
validation involving the network. I still need to understand why we end up
in this case (non-matching vary headers).

However the LOAD_PREFERRING_CACHE flag (which is the one we use for history
load) in net/base/load_flags_list.h has the following comment:
// This is a back/forward style navigation where the cached content should
// be preferred over any protocol specific cache validation.

bool HttpCache::Transaction::RequiresValidation() (in
net/http/http_cache_transaction.cc) is implemented as follows:
...
if (response_.vary_data.is_valid() &&
!response_.vary_data.MatchesRequest(*request_, *response_.headers)) {
vary_mismatch_ = true;
return true;
}

if (effective_load_flags_ & LOAD_PREFERRING_CACHE)
return false;

Note that we do the vary data check before we look at the load flags which
include LOAD_PREFERRING_CACHE in our case.

Should we look at the load flags first and return false early if
LOAD_PREFERRING_CACHE is set? This would match the comment mentioned above
unless I'm misunderstanding "any protocol specific cache validation".

Note that if I switch these two if statements I can do a history load for
theverge.com and techcrunch fully from cache (without connectivity).

I'm missing a few images on techcrunch though (since I'm doing these tests
with no connectivity). These images are probably no-store resources (I will
investigate this).

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Cc: rva...@chromium.org

Comment #8 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #10 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks Ricardo.

Do you have any example of user complains about breakages in case of
history navigation?

Currently switching to a tab that was evicted from memory (but still
displayed in the tab switcher) leads to a very frustrating experience on
mobile when the network connectivity is poor (easily >30s to load a page)
or nonexistent (error page). Same applies to back/forward navigation. In
the case of techcrunch and theverge, restoring both of them from history
without connectivity leads to an error page due to the vary data issue.

Given the non-reliable connectivity on mobile, in case of history
navigation (back/forward navigation and tab restore after it was killed due
to low memory), I think everything but no-store resources should be loaded
from cache without any sort of validation. If the page is slightly outdated
which shouldn't be an issue for the user since he wants to reload the page
exactly as it was last time he saw it, he can still do an explicit page
reload. To me this seems more desirable than an error page.

I understand that this aggressive behavior is not required on desktop due
to abundant RAM and good/reliable network connectivity but things are
different on mobile unfortunately :)

Ideally on mobile, history navigation should unconditionally load
everything but no-store resources from cache. We can't use
LOAD_ONLY_FROM_CACHE since we still need to fallback to network when needed
(hopefully very rarely).
If we had a reliable way to estimate the quality of the network
connectivity we could maybe adopt this new behavior only when the
connectivity is poor/nonexistent.

Would it be reasonable to make this change at least on mobile?

What do you think?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #12 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks Ricardo for the links. These are indeed relevant complains.

To be clear, history navigation (including loading a tab evicted from
memory) does "work". If the offending resources can't be fetched from cache
for any reason we do fetch them correctly from network.
The only thing is that this leads to long page load times when there is
poor connectivity and error pages obviously when there is no connectivity
at all.

I will see why vary data mismatches in the case of techcrunch. There might
be something that we could fix without changing the current behavior. It
also seems that vary data mismatches are not the only thing leading to
network requests (aside from obvious scenarios including no-store
resources). I will come back with more information.

We need to address this issue no matter which approach we choose. We
considered using MHTML at first to serialize/deserialize pages but using
the cache more aggressively instead seemed to be a reasonable first
approach. Using MHTML would incur more disk and CPU usage (also meaning
increased battery consumption) which would be a duplicate effort/waste of
resources since we already have most of the data in the cache. What MHTML
does with no-store resources is also not totally clear to me.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #13 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Original bug reporter here, I looked at the bugs that Ricardo linked and it
appears that they all deal with history navigation and how it responds to
the Vary headers. However, my original bug report only has to do with
loading a tab and then going back to look at it later, without any history
navigation, ie simply switching between foreground and background tabs.
Not sure what that has to do with Vary headers, as a page once loaded
shouldn't need to be loaded again.

I realize this has to do with Android aggressively backgrounding
or "killing" all the tabs that are not in the foreground, but perhaps this
is not necessary when the Android device has more memory? My Nexus 10
tablet has 2 GBs of memory- the same as my x86 desktop that I used till
this summer, on which I'd run Chromium with a dozen or more tabs without a
problem- yet this aggressive caching on Android combined with whatever tab
recovery problems it's hitting, makes using Chrome on Android with even 5
tabs a pain.

I read one tab for two minutes, then if I click on the other four tabs with
previously loaded pages, they immediately start reloading all over again.
Whether the reload is just updating a few resources or the entire page is
unclear but immaterial, as I cannot access the whole page till it's done,
ie the entire page is blank till the reload process is done.

With this in mind, perhaps either of these two options can be undertaken:

1. Have Chrome work differently on devices with more memory, such as my
tablet with 2 GBs, ie stop aggressively backgrounding tabs so much. I
don't know how feasible this is, since it might also be a power drain on
mobile devices.

2. If you have to background or "kill" the process of hidden tabs so
aggressively, at least be able to quickly recover the exact same state they
had when I switch back to that tab later.

One of the attractions of the Nexus 10 tablet is to be able to load up and
read multiple tabs in Chrome, just like you might on the desktop, and flip
between them whenever you want. This use case is broken right now, so it
should be fixed first. Perhaps the more general case of fixing
back/forward history behavior, even though it may be similarly implemented
and so the two are lumped together here, could wait till later, when the
Vary headers mess is worked out.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #14 on issue 171316 by rva...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Issue 175716 has been merged into this issue.

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[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #15 on issue 171316 by pli...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Issue 169432 has been merged into this issue.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #16 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This is a long-standing issue at the Android bug tracker, people have been
complaining about it since August, on the Nexus 7:

https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=36872

I've been told that this bug is blocking on work for offline mode in
Chromium, bug 2204, which currently appears to be in limbo again. I wish
there were some way to downgrade back to the original native browser for
Android, which for all its problems, didn't seem to have this bug.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #18 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks for reporting the issue and the remarks above, joakim. You are
correct that history navigation is not what ideally should take place when
we switch to another tab.

The reason this is discussed here is that the history reload is what we
currently do to reload a tab that was evicted from memory. To improve the
situation we investigate both improving the history reload itself and
possible ways of avoiding such reload altogether.

I agree that the latter would be definitely preferable.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #19 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Ricardo, regarding the vary headers discussion, I believe it should be
possible to make everyone happy on that.

The core problem is that we store only one cache entry per each url, while
the semantic of vary header is to let us know, that the specific url points
to a number of different resources.

If we could identify cache entries not by urls, but by a hash of the url
and vary content, we would be able to serve resources from cache without
vary validation and we would not break the content negotiation. I think it
was already suggested somewhere in crbug - did you guys consider that
option?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #20 on issue 171316 by rva...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Yes, considering request headers part of the key would allow us to keep
multiple versions of the same URL, but apps should not be multiplexing
unrelated resources into the same URL, and that adds considerable
complexity to the cache.

On other news, Vary headers is just tangentially related to this report
(IMO)... I have just been answering about specific details that were not
clear.

Automatically killing tabs to preserve memory is not really the same use
case as session restore, nor page reload. As I said before,
LOAD_ONLY_FROM_CACHE ignores all Http rules, as long as the entry was
cached.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #21 on issue 171316 by rds...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Ricardo: Just confirming that LOAD_ONLY_FROM_CACHE will only solve the
cases where web pages aren't multiplexing unrelated resources into the same
URL? If they are, we'll get the most recent resource pulled from that URL,
which will often (?) be the secondary, confusing resource. If we
considered Vary request headers part of the key, we could support those
cases as well (as hopefully both resources would be in the cache, and the
javascript on the web page would create the total web page successfully).
Do we have UMA as to how many pages do the multiplexing?

(I think all of these issues apply to Offline mode as well as tab restore,
is why I'm asking.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Labels: -M-26 M-X MovedFrom-26

Comment #24 on issue 171316 by vino...@google.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

(No comment was entered for this change.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #25 on issue 171316 by srika...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Issue 175210 has been merged into this issue.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #26 on issue 171316 by jbti...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Would it not be possible to separate the issue of history navigation from
the issue of reloading a page when it's made active?
When I switch to a tab what was previously loaded or back to Chrome after
using another app I don't want a page to be refreshed.
If it has been unloaded from memory I'd expect that page content is saved
to disk same way as I can save any page for offline viewing and reloaded
from disk as it was. Desktop browsers can save complete web pages, why
mobile browsers couldn't to the same?
I have plenty of free space (25GB on my phone and 40GB on my tablet) so
please don't be shy using it for saving few megabytes of website data. Or
ask me if not sure, let there be a setting where I can select to use N% of
disk space or N GB for cache.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #27 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I dusted off my old Android phone running Froyo 2.2.2 and it turns out I
was wrong: the native browser on Android behaved this way too. I didn't
notice this before because it is harder to trigger: one reason is because
the native browser wouldn't let me open more than 4 tabs, a limitation
which for some reason I hadn't noticed before. But if I opened multiple
apps and used as much RAM as possible, eventually the native browser would
be vacated from memory and all the tabs would reload when I opened the
native browser again. So it looks like this is a long-standing issue on
Android, predating Chrome being ported over.

I know this is a new and difficult issue, because of the variety of low and
high memory environments on which Android now runs, but a tablet with 2 GBs
of memory should be able to handle a lot more than 5 tabs, often it isn't
able to handle even that.

If I understand Ricardo right, this tab restore issue should be handled by
simply loading from cache: can we at least get that implemented for now?
I'm not sure how this works on the iPad, but I highly doubt it constantly
reloads tabs. Android is unusable on a tablet for web browsing until this
is fixed, unless you always have an extremely high-speed internet
connection, which does minimize this issue.

Philippe, any update on a fix? It has been two months since it was
assigned.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #28 on issue 171316 by ste...@den-engelsman.eu: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I just read this thread and would like to see this bug fixed as well (it
really is a bug in my opinion).
I understand pages might need to be reloaded on a mobile, but I also use
Chrome on my brand new Asus TF700 tablet. It's horrible to use more than 1
tab, every time you switch it reloads.
That also means that any typed messages (but not sent) on for example
Facebook disappear if you just change tabs for a minute.
Not acceptable at all in my opinion and I really hope there will be a
solution soon.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Issue 171316: Pages constantly reload on Chrome for Android, for no
apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This issue is now blocking issue chromium:218507.
See http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=218507

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[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #30 on issue 171316 by ereyes.e...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I have this issue (tabs automatically updating after switching between
them) on my nexus 10 since the last chrome update. he browser was working
well before that. I hope the solution is on the way.

--

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #31 on issue 171316 by shorti...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Agree. It is very annoying especially if the page you requested was
particularly long as you have to scroll down through the page again to
continue reading.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #32 on issue 171316 by tyler.uebele: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This is also a problem if the page:
- has changed since last load, such as on active blogs, or time-sensitive
reports,
- takes a long time to generate (server side, such as reports, again),
- require an authenticated session which has expired since the tab was
backgrounded.
These three use cases are why I searched for this issue. I hope these
examples provide insights or test conditions that prove useful as you work
this out. I appreciate your collective efforts.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #34 on issue 171316 by lukeve...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Definitely one of the biggest frustrations with Chrome mobile. It makes the
entire browsing experience slow and painful. I really hope for big things
at Google IO.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #35 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

It does seem that a few major websites are unaffected by this issue - Cnet
and The Verge, for example. So it definitely does seem to be a caching
incompatibility with the browser and the web page.

Maybe this is one of the reasons for switching to the new, WebKit derived
Blink engine. It might have been a restriction from working on WebKit
openly.

Any hopes of fixing or even bandaging this issue? I just want my tabs to
stay CACHED.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #36 on issue 171316 by jay.tuc...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

No, it can't be related to the switch to blink, from webkit. Other webkit
browsers work fine with page caching.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #37 on issue 171316 by dang...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

It happens with cnet and the verge too. In my experience it happens with
all web sites. It's a bug in Chrome for Android, nothing to do with web
developers. That's why the desktop version and all other Android browsers
work as expected.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #38 on issue 171316 by danpr...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Also, if I have multiple tabs open, then close one tab, then press the home
button to close Chrome, then reopen Chrome from the recently closed list,
Chrome will reopen the last closed tab and the reload the page as well as
reloading all the others!

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #39 on issue 171316 by Eckel.R...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

With enough tabs open this behavior is seen when switching between the
active tab and one previously loaded. What's the point of the cache being
more than double the app footprint if its considered invalid/stale and
ignored?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #40 on issue 171316 by toiansim...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Reviewing the contributions above, it seems to me that there are two
(probably more) interrelated issues : on Android platforms, the inability
to clear Chrome's cache reliably and the persistence of the phone's memory,
and a possible interaction between the two issues.

Which are we discussing?

My experience is that sometimes I can duplicate the aberrant behaviour
(failure to clear cache or phone memory or both)in different browsers on
the same Android phone. And occasionally on iOS (Safari of course).

In which case Chrome may be off the hook.

Could someone help me..... in relation to this set of problems, what action
is going to be taken by whom and by when. Or do we all '...move on...'?

I am very grateful for all the effort put in by many on this project.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #41 on issue 171316 by Eckel.R...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This is not a cache issue. The issue is the cache is being ignored and
pages are reloading in persistent tabs. My comment about cache size was
rhetorical.

Nothing is being done.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #42 on issue 171316 by ger...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Chrome for android feels super slow because of the reloading behaviour.
Every time I tap on the chrome icon I have to wait for a page reload,
before I can even type in a new URL in the address bar. I would expect no
reload at all, unless I tap the reload button

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #43 on issue 171316 by messere....@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

The same behavior on Firefox! Perhaps this isn't a bug of chrome but of
androids cache/ram management. Sucks big time...

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #44 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Developers!

Where ARE you? Chrome is giving Android a bad rap because of issues like
these.

Not to sound underappreciative of your work, but FIX IT! This should be a
priority!
Thanks,


Walkop

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #47 on issue 171316 by karimn...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

What's also very frustrating is that sometimes I would switch tabs and the
page content is right there, but then Chrome starts to reload it making me
wait when I could have just used what was right there!

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #49 on issue 171316 by shack.sh...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I have had this issue for what seems like forever. If I'm reading an
article and switch tabs for more than ten seconds, the tab I switch back to
the article reloads and starts at the top instead of where I last was
reading... Can be quite annoying.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #50 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

It's been more than four months since I reported this issue and there
hasn't been any progress, no Chromium commits in this thread. This is now
the sixth-most starred Android issue that has been assigned, and it is far
more important than whether Android ever gets extensions or WebGL, as it is
a matter of basic usability. Is anything going to be done?

Now that Chromium has some offline support, if only behind a flag, perhaps
that code can be repurposed to cache background tabs, even if behind a
flag. Add a "Cache on Android" flag and let us try it out.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #51 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks for all of the reports here - please be assured that this specific
issue is being addressed with priority.

We have been tuning the tab management mechanism to make such reloads occur
less often and first improvements have been put in place for Chrome on
Android 28 Beta - could you guys give it a try and let me know if your
perceived experience is better?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #52 on issue 171316 by si...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

@joakim Of course, we are working on this. Unfortunately, this is a very
hard problem and the cache is not going to help us very much since tab
restores _already_ go through the cache. The problem is that there are
several resources which are no-store. Second, rendering the page itself,
even from cache takes a non-trivial amount of time on mobile devices.

The offline support that you mention is mostly useful on the desktop.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #53 on issue 171316 by dang...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

The rendering isn't problem -- especially modern dual/quad core devices --
it's Chrome downloading the data again, or worse, trying to download when
there's no connection and thus blanking the page.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #54 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I can conclusively state that page caching performs much better with Chrome
28. I noticed that before I actually came back to this page. It definitely
still needs work, but sites cache more frequently without needing a reload.
However, I just tried to load a page from cache and the layout was restored
quite badly. Pictures are attached.

Sent from Chrome 28—Nexus 10

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #55 on issue 171316 by ec...@google.com: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I guess you forgot to add the pictures ;-)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #56 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

That... Is really weird! I attached the files. :p Oh well, haha, attaching
again.

Attachments:
Screenshot_2013-05-31-18-16-09.png 741 KB
Screenshot_2013-05-31-18-14-17.png 406 KB

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #57 on issue 171316 by dang...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

For what it's worth, all browsers suffer from this to some degree on my One
X. Firefox is the same, if not worse, than Chrome. Opera is significantly
better but can still be provoked into doing after loading around ten tabs.

The difference in UIs is notable. Firefox's is just terrible. Opera is
innovative but is rather complex. Chrome is by far the best, "getting out
of the way" of actual browsing much more than the others, and with better
private tab and cut/paste/search UIs.

I'm looking forward to these changes going into the stable release. Thank
you!

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #58 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Philippe and sidv, thanks for the update. I have been using the Chrome beta
exclusively from the beginning of the year and I do not notice any
difference in 28. In fact, I commented here again because it seemed as bad
as ever, making using my Nexus 10 for web browsing a frustrating experience.

I had assumed that my flaky and sometimes slow internet connection was
making this problem worse, by slowing down the constant page reloads, but I
now see I was wrong about that. I just tested with a 4 KB static web page
on my server and the page was only downloaded once, according to my web
server logs. When I go back to this tab after it has been backgrounded, it
shows the loading animation for a second or two and doesn't show the web
page right away, which I thought meant it was downloading again, when it
appears only to be rendering from cache again, as sidv says.

I'm not sure why an Exynos 5 Dual Cortex-A15 needs that long to render a
simple static web page, when it can decode 1080p video just fine, but this
does go some way to explaining why more complex web pages take even longer
to reload after they've been backgrounded. I hope something can be done
about this hard problem, and that this thread can be used to lay out what
technical solutions are being planned, so that we, the users stuck with
this frustrating user experience, know something is being done.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #59 on issue 171316 by pa...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

> I just tested with a 4 KB static web page on my server and the page was
> only
> downloaded once, according to my web server logs. When I go back to this
> tab
> after it has been backgrounded, it shows the loading animation for a
> second or
> two

That's an interesting observation. Can you attach contents of your
about:histograms shortly after it happens next time?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #60 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Joakim, nice investigative work. I too have a Nexus 10, and page
backgrounding; the reload times; they are slightly frustrating compared to
my desktop PC. I hope that the developers can come to a solution that
works, considering the depth of this problem. The main issue I had was
communication—this thread would not have been updated unless you took the
initiative to ask yet again. I would like to request the developers here
give us some brief updates, just once in a while. Even once a week, if
possible. That would placate me.

I too am confused why such a powerful device takes so long to process a
simple web page, although I'm fairly sure it has something to do with the
fact that the GPU doesn't really get involved in the majority of
heavy-lifting. Developers, is there anything that can be done (even
long-term) to significantly reduce that wait time?

Thanks. We certainly appreciate your hard work.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #61 on issue 171316 by messere....@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Would be nicer to have a cached screenshot rather than a blanked page.
Perhaps add a small wating animation when re-rendering. Then everybody knew
what happens -> less frustration?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #62 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks for all of the remarks!

Let me elaborate a bit on the technical aspects involved here.

In certain circumstances, certain tabs are being dropped from memory and
need to be reloaded when we switch back to them. There are two main reasons
for that:
- Memory pressure signal delivered by the OS (we drop some tabs to
accommodate the memory needs of the rest of Chrome and the system itself)
- Chrome is being silently killed by the OS after a period of inactivity -
this problem is not Chrome-specific, all backgrounded apps were created
equal in that matter

Between M27 and M28 we did significant work on tuning the behavior in the
memory pressure scenario in order to preserve more tabs while still abiding
the memory good citizenship rules (and I am happy to hear that you see the
improvement, cwalkop), but we may still be losing tabs when Chrome stays in
the background for a prolonged period of time.

As to the reload itself, the observations made by joakim match my
understanding of Chrome policies - we are *not* reloading the resources
from the network if we have them in http cache.

Unfortunately, load from cache is not necessarily fast, as we can clearly
notice, but we may hope to improve on that as well, see
http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/network-stack/disk-cache/very-simple-backend .

Could you give us more details about your use scenario, joakim? Do you
notice tabs being reloaded while you actively switch between them in one
session, or just after bringing Chrome back to foreground?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #63 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks for the explanation. That helps a lot. I can't go into an in depth
discussion ATM, I have to work soon. However, I will complement whatever
Joakim has to say with this: suffice it to say that I can never trust
Chrome to keep more than two tabs actively cached in memory WITH the
browser open, even on my Nexus 10.

Also, I'm very interested in that new caching system. Any idea on a
timeframe for that? Chrome 29, perhaps?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #64 on issue 171316 by LarsenAn...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I can confirm that the Nexus 7/10 acts the way that post #63 mentions, it
truly annoys me to no end.
Considering this also happens on a newly rebooted Nexus 10, I doubt there
is a shortage of memory that causes this.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #65 on issue 171316 by erik...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Oddly enough, my gf's nexus 4 does not exhibit the same tab-reloading
behavior as my HTC One. Both phones with multiple tabs open, sitting idle
for about 10 mins. You open up chrome on the n4, and the tab looks exactly
the same. On my HTC One, the tab instantly reloads.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #66 on issue 171316 by jbti...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

@58
Sometimes the page is definitely reloaded from server because I'm promted
to log in again.

@62
Very often it happens that I have only 2 tabs open, switch from A to B then
from B to A in less than 20 seconds and A is reloaded.

I have plenty of RAM available.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Owner: p...@chromium.org

Comment #67 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thanks for the reports!

LarsenAndroid, erikiksaz, jbtibor - could you check what version of chrome
(available in chrome://version) are you on? If this is 27 or earlier, you
guys could try the newest Chrome Beta (
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chrome.beta ).

At least for the tabs that are in active use in one browsing session, the
experience should be better.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #68 on issue 171316 by jbti...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I have 27.0.1453.90 and Beta 28.0.1500.37
I don't feelt there is a relevant difference between the two regarding this
issue. It might be in code but it doesn't feel so.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #69 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Philippe, like many others, I was seeing constant page reloads while
actively switching between tabs in one session, not to mention bringing
Chrome back to the foreground. However, I think I've stumbled across one
reason for this, at least on the Nexus 10.

There appears to be a long-standing memory leak with Android 4.2.2 on the
Nexus 10, where the Mali T604 driver leaks memory over time and eventually
takes up 4-500 MBs, making the Nexus 10 unstable. This appears to show up
as SurfaceFlinger, the Android window manager/compositor, taking a bunch of
memory. I just checked and the SurfaceFlinger process was up to more than
400 MBs RSS, according to ps from a terminal, after 7 days of uptime.

I rebooted my Nexus 10 and it was back down to 23 MB RSS and Chrome 28 beta
was working great again. No tab reloads, everything was instantaneous. I
will stress it some more with a bunch of tabs and let you know how it
responds when SurfaceFlinger hasn't leaked.

I recommend that everyone else experiencing this problem on the Nexus 10
with Android 4.2.2 try the following:

1. Install the free Android Terminal Emulator app from the Play Store. I
installed the one by Jack Palevich.
2. Open it and type in "uptime" followed by "ps su". These commands will
tell you how long your tablet has been running and how much memory
/system/bin/surfaceflinger is using.
3. Reboot your Nexus 10 and then check the same info, along with how the
Chrome Beta works after the reboot.

I found about this bug from the following xda thread and Android issues:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2292407
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=52579
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=54757

It appears that my problems with Chrome on the Nexus 10 are an interaction
between that memory leak and Chrome. That leak probably needs to be fixed
before looking at Chrome, but I'll stress Chrome when that leak hasn't
ballooned and see what I find. The commenters in those threads seem to
have tracked this leak down to the graphics driver, thanks to those devs
for the great detective work.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #70 on issue 171316 by LarsenAn...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

#69
That is one big memory leak, nice find.

But, I'm a little confused since I still have the problem on my newly
rebooted Nexus 7/10 with the latest stable and Chrome Beta.

I'll attempt to reflash it and see what happens over time.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #71 on issue 171316 by erik...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

In response to post #67, we are both running the most updated version of
chrome on the play store. But, before that, I was running chrome beta
version 28.0.1500.37 (1500037).

I've recently updated my 4.1 JB version to the leaked 4.2.2, and the issue
with reloading tabs has decreased a bit than compared to 4.1 But, it still
definitely does still reload tabs compared to the stock nexus 4.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #72 on issue 171316 by messere....@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I can confirm that after rebooting and without a seperate login of another
user account there is no tab reloading. At least i didn't experienced one
in several hours, even after bringing chrome back to front after an hour of
inactivity. I'm on Nexus 10 and have the latest chrome (non-beta).

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #73 on issue 171316 by ivan.ka...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I can disprove the claim in comment #72. While reloading is much less
frequent in recent versions of Chrome Beta, the problem still exists to
some extent on a freshly rebooted Nexus 10. The memory leak obviously makes
it much more likely for this issue to occur due to memory pressure, but I
have experienced tab reloading after rebooting my Nexus 10 and having a
surfaceflinger process of just ~30-40 MB RSS, with 600-800 MB of free RAM.
The problem is not reproducible using the stock AOSP browser.

Once again, I confirm that it is already much, much better in the most
recent version of Chrome Beta. Thanks for your efforts!

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #74 on issue 171316 by aaronb.0...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Does Verizon have an influence on this - Possibly a way to sneakily force
more data use.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #78 on issue 171316 by lukeve...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I downloaded the latest build of Chrome Beta for Android (Version
28.0.1500.54) this morning and it seems like the page refresh issue has
been resolved! I can't verify just yet as I'll need more testing but so far
so good.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #79 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Any Chrome developers out there willing to explain what the latest update
for Chrome did as regards tab management? I did not see anything in the
changelog, but Srika referenced Issue 218507 and stated that a dependency
was being fixed.

I infer from this that Issue 218507 (obviously) is directly related to this
issue, perhaps being a core cause? If so, what exactly is this issue? The
thread is vague. Is this a massive step in the right direction? Is it
aiming to improve the caching of tabs, the ability for tabs to remain in
active memory (so they don't need to be reloaded at ALL), or what,
specifically?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #80 on issue 171316 by joa...@yepmail.net: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

cwal, all that means is that this issue depends on issue 218507, which is
where all the tab management issues are tracked. Try clicking on one of
the issues linked there, for example, issue 249214, where they are
experimenting with increasing the number of Chrome processes on Android
from 3 to 10.

I didn't notice that they made those issues public on May 31st, as they
were private to Google before that, until the dependency was changed here a
couple days back. Now we have more visibility into the kinds of changes
that are being made to make Chromium tabs more responsive on Android. :)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #81 on issue 171316 by aalaap: Pages constantly reload on Chrome

for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I have encountered this issue on most mid/low-end Android phones, but even
the Galaxy Nexus with 1GB RAM can't hold up. Stock or CyanogenMod - Chrome
always reloads when I switch to it and it doesn't even stop loading when I
quickly hit the stop button. I don't have this issue on the Nexus 7 -
several tabs happily stay open even overnight. That device has 1GB too.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #82 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Again, I'm experiencing the same issue even on the Nexus 10 with the latest
Chrome Beta on Android 4.3. Chrome doesn't want to stay in memory for more
than a few minutes, and I can only trust the currently open tab to actually
stay in memory.

And this is with 1100MB of free system memory, after GPU allocations.
Seriously: its bad. Although no browser really seems to have nailed this
formula on mobile yet, sadly. :\

At least Chrome has gotten a lot smoother! That's a plus.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #83 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

(1100MB being the total system RAM, not necessarily "free" at the time.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #84 on issue 171316 by Brennan....@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I have this exact same problem on my Galaxy Nexus. If I load a page,
hit "home", and then select Chrome from recent apps, it will automatically
load the page again and force me to wait. The other really annoying thing
is that sometimes I just want to click on the address bar and type in a new
webpage address or search, but because the page is auto-loading, it will
refresh and delete everything I was typing in the search bar. So I have to
first wait 30 seconds for the page to fully reload after Chrome regains
focus, and THEN I can enter in my search and actually navigate to a new
page. This is so incredibly annoying that I'm considering ditching chrome
until the bug is fixed.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #85 on issue 171316 by Franklin...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Same problem on my Nexus 10, which is running 4.3 and latest Chrome. Super
frustrating when I type in a field and switch tabs to copy/paste then
return to original tab only to have it reload, taking all my typing with
it. Makes my Nexus 10 an expensive paper weight. Going to try Dolphin. Wish
I had never bought the Nexus 10; aside from not being able to use it in
summer due to the tremendous heat output, my 2005 Dell desktop is more
functional than my Nexus 10.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #86 on issue 171316 by jonho...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

The most frustrating problem with such an otherwise great browser. Makes
Chrome feel so slow.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #87 on issue 171316 by marcomsousa: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Galaxy Nexus 4.3 Stock
Chrome Beta 31.0.1650.11

I open two web pages, and when I change de tab it allways reload the web
page.
This happen every time, every version of Chrome for Android.

Don't happen in Firefox, Opera, Dolphin Browser, ...

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #88 on issue 171316 by marcomsousa: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

the web pages are: http://m.sapo.pt and http://xda-developers.com

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #89 on issue 171316 by shafin.p...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Same problem still. Makes Chrome Mobile very slow. Have to wait 10 secs to
type in a new web address, as it is trying to load the last visited page.
Had to switch to Opera Mini.

Chrome: using latest version available in play store

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #93 on issue 171316 by mylesmi...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

another annoyed user saying sort it out you lazy tards

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #94 on issue 171316 by shafin.p...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Is this ever going to get fixed? I've been following this since January...
It is now November.

I have been using Opera Mobile since, as Chrome mobile is just too slow.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #96 on issue 171316 by aidin.fo...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Is there a way to force a process to stay loaded? I specially have a
problem with a public transit website. I use it to find a route to my
destination then on the way if I want to check the path it reloads the page
and gives me an empty form.. or sometimes session lost related error..
it's not only the question of time, but I won't even get my back... the
website is sto.ca.

also, I was wondering if there is a way to force android to keep a
process.. in that case may be a "pin it" button or something like that
could help the user keep important pages explicitly .. like addresses,
contact info etc.. what I do currently is take a snapshot.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Updates:
Labels: -triage-te

Comment #97 on issue 171316 by satyavat...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

(No comment was entered for this change.)

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #101 on issue 171316 by yout...@pineight.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

It occurs on a first-generation (grouper) Nexus 7 running Chrome for
Android but not on a netbook with the same amount (1 GB) of RAM running
Chrome for Ubuntu. So either Android or Chrome for Android is doing
something inefficiently.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #107 on issue 171316 by Thyme.Cy...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

31.0.1650.59 on HTC One, happens on most websites.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #109 on issue 171316 by dini.par...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Chrome version 31.0.1650.59 on Lenovo S820, reload matter happens while I
write this. These is really take my time.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #111 on issue 171316 by darkenst...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Is this still being tracked and managed by Google? Still having this issue
on latest update of chrome 33 and android 4.4.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #113 on issue 171316 by rl...@ymail.com: Pages constantly reload on

Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This bug has been opened before KitKat even existed.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #114 on issue 171316 by darkenst...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Ta, sorry should have said I'm on 4.4.2

Sounds like Google still won't be fixing this any time soon then. Shame as
I had to move over to dolphin to fix this issue, but Im missing the link
between chrome mobile and desktop

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #115 on issue 171316 by mylesmi...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This problem is over a year old, some boff from Google must be able to sort
this out

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #116 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

This is absolutely ridiculous. What, the coders are so inexpertly trained
that they can't solve such a simple issue (simple in that it has *always*
performed perfectly on ChromeOS and Windows/Mac)?

I don't want to resort to such negative talk, but this is legitimately
dissapointing and shows a total lack of interest, care, and dedication on
behalf of all Chrome developers who have any ability regarding this issue.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #117 on issue 171316 by klo...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

If it is the system kill the process due to low memory, we don't have much
option. If this happens and you can take a bugreport, please do so and
attach in the bug. So that we can confirm whether the tab is gone because
low memory. If you can also describe briefly what you did right before you
take the bugreport, that will be helpful. We want to solve this problem.
But we need some data.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #118 on issue 171316 by jonho...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Whether a bug or not, if the process is killed because of low memory then
the option is to restore from cache surely?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #119 on issue 171316 by klo...@chromium.org: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Yes, that is what we are doing.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #120 on issue 171316 by jonho...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Are you unable to recreate the issue? (I sound sarcastic here but I'm not
being) I've followed the thread here the best I can, but maybe I'm missing
something. What can I supply you with that will help fix this issue?

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #122 on issue 171316 by p...@chromium.org: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Thank's for all the feedback. There's some confusion in this thread, let me
try to clarify.

- on Android the operating system is at liberty to kill any background
processes, including the renderers of background tabs
- when the OS kills a background renderer because of memory pressure, the
tab needs to be loaded again upon tab switch. While this may look
like "Chrome reloading a tab for no apparent reason", the tab is already
lost at this point
- when we load the tab that was lost in this way we *do* use the http cache
to avoid reloading resources from the network
- load from cache is not necessarily particularly fast, because retrieving
the resources rarely dominates the page load time

There's been a lot of work focused on addressing this issue on different
levels (switch to system-wide oom killing of renderers in order to avoid
unnecessary evictions, simple cache speeding up the restore load), but
ultimately the fact that we sometimes need to reload a tab upon a switch is
a manifestation of multi-process browser running in strictly limited
memory, not necessarily an accident / technical bug.

That being said, the problem is complex, affected by many external
(platform behavior, other apps holding too much memory in persistent
services) and internal factors, and we're constantly looking for things to
improve and should watch out for any regressions.

Thus, like Grace said, please provide precise feedback (device, OS version,
scenario, available memory as per Settings -> Apps -> Running) when you
feel that we're loosing more tabs that we should, but please note that some
tab reloads are to be expected for devices with limited memory (e.g. 1GB
RAM and apps with persistent services running).

On my side I will take a look at recent UMA to see if there are any red
flags.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #123 on issue 171316 by Thyme.Cy...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

When I had this issue (It doesn't seem to be happening anymore, but I'm now
on ViperOne for HTC One, based on 4.4.2 w/ Sense UI 5.5) I was running
Android 4.4 on HTC One Google Play Edition. It seldom had more than 1.2GB
of RAM used of the available 1.8GB, and even CPU usage stayed fairly low.

I'm not sure of the criteria but I was having text-only pages reloading
while full pages like EBay that weren't.

Unfortunately, since I'm on a different rom, I can't provide any more
details, but this particular rom I'm on now usually runs at 1.5G of 1.8G
used (I keep a lot of games running in the back, then complain about my
battery life, typical American) and I don't see this issue ever until I hit
around 16 tabs.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #124 on issue 171316 by cwal...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

In my situation, I have 1GB currently free. I have three tabs open that
were properly cached. Nexus 5, stock ROM unrooted; I haven't messed with
anything on the phone.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/02/19/visa-and-mastercard-announce-support-for-nfc-payments-with-host-card-emulation-in-kitkat/

http://www.jw.org/en/news/by-region/world/jehovahs-witnesses-release-large-size-bible/

http://m.wol.jw.org/en/wol/h/r1/lp-e

Those three stayed open properly.

However, this page didn't cache at all (it wouldn't load on Airplane
Mode):http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/the-future-of-mobile-operating-systems-is-adaptive/

And this one, the 5th tab back, had to reload from cache:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/03/18/skype-for-android-hits-version-4-7-brings-major-under-the-hood-redesign-that-results-in-substantial-battery-savings/

Then I have tabs from previous browsing sessions, but those obviously
wouldn't be in RAM still.

Sorry for my aggression earlier, but it seemed as if there was zero
developer activity on this thread and it was getting frustrating. It was a
little over the top. Chrome has gotten a LOT better in recent mobile
releases, especially with the touch latency drop in Chrome://flags for
desktop sites. That should DEFINITELY be made a default, as a side note.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #125 on issue 171316 by tcu...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

There is an easy solution for Android:
If an application includes a "service", it doesn't get killed by oom
priority consideration.

I got a version of opera mobile where a fake dummy service is included.
That version was created by a member of the opera forums, I wish I knew
how. His post is deleted know (opera didn't want any other than the
official versions), but I got the .apk and use it regularly because in fact
tabs get NEVER killed with that version. Contact me if you want that .apk,
too.

So for Chrome for Android it would be an option, to have a setting whether
a service is running which prevents Chrome from being killed by oom (out of
memeory) consideration, that would be great!

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #126 on issue 171316 by a.fell.n...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I'm trying to use a web-based IDE on my ASUS Transformer and this is
driving me up the wall sideways - I'd love a copy of that Opera .apk.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #128 on issue 171316 by mavent...@gmail.com: Pages constantly

reload on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

I also find this issue very irritating especially when memory space is
plenty available on the device.

[chro...@googlecode.com]

Comment #130 on issue 171316 by gfost...@gmail.com: Pages constantly reload

on Chrome for Android, for no apparent reason

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=171316

Totally unbelievable. My wife wanted to drop Android because of this
incomprehensible bug. I convinced here it was just a problem with Chrome
and switching to Dolphin fixed it.

Your failure to fix this boggles the mind. just add a setting to prevent
autoreload/rerender unless triggered by the user.