I received Lollipop update (Android version 5.0; now 5.0.1 on Nexus 4 and 5.0.2 on Nexus 7) on my Nexus 4 phone OTA (over the air) about a month ago and loved the new OS. I kept checking for OS updates on my Nexus 7 (2012) tablet, but it failed to show up OTA. Finally I decided to download the factory image from Google and update it manually.
This called for loading of JDK (Java Development Kit) and Android Studio on top of it on my Windows laptop. Thereafter certain components of SDK Manager had to be downloaded using Android Studio. Finally, as required, I added an environment variable JAVA_HOME with its value set to the directory holding JDK and added the SDK directory to system PATH. This was done using System Properties on the laptop. All this labor made available 'adb' and 'fastboot' commands in the 'cmd' window on the laptop for unlocking the bootloader and readying the device for flashing it from the image downloaded and unzipped by me earlier.
Doing all this took whole of a day. I was afraid that I might end up bricking my device but went ahead nonetheless. Finally I did it and felt great when my tablet booted with Lollipop 5.0.2 for the first time. However the feeling was soon gone as the browser started becoming unresponsive and crashing. This unresponsive attitude spread to other apps and the OS as well. Soon I was rebooting the device every few hours. Replacing the Chrome browser with Dolphin provided some relief to start with but that too started fading soon.
This called for more research. The research suggested that I wipe my cache partition using low level system commands. For this you have to get into the mode that you would for factory resetting your device - by powering it off and then on by pressing Power and Volume Dn keys together. At this level there is no touch screen and you navigate the menu using volume up and down buttons and select an option using the Power button. So you choose Recovery Mode and then press Volume Up and Power buttons to get the next menu. From this menu you choose the menu for wiping cache. Finally you reboot.
Cache wiped, the device did show a little more life. But alas, it faded pretty quickly. Finding myself back to square 1 I thought of killing the Lollipop and taking the retrograde step of loading the Kitkat image back on my device. However something at the back of my mind told me to check the sync settings. So I navigated to Settings->Accounts->Google. When I touched my displayed Google account a large number of apps and components appeared. All had a check in the box against them. Desperate as I was I unchecked all the boxes. Presto! The system was running fine and the lags, disappearing and freezing screens were all gone.
Becoming a little bold after my experiment, I checked a few boxes in my Google account sync settings back to on. These were Mail, Contacts and App Data. The system is still working fine and I hope with a certain level of confidence that it will continue that way. I have a suspicion that unchecking the box against Chrome alone would perhaps be enough to solve the problem. However, I have deferred the experiment for the time being.
So if Lollipop is making you desperate, head straight to sync settings for your Google account on the device. The solution lies there and not in the cache partition.
Wish you a sweet Lollipop experience.
This called for loading of JDK (Java Development Kit) and Android Studio on top of it on my Windows laptop. Thereafter certain components of SDK Manager had to be downloaded using Android Studio. Finally, as required, I added an environment variable JAVA_HOME with its value set to the directory holding JDK and added the SDK directory to system PATH. This was done using System Properties on the laptop. All this labor made available 'adb' and 'fastboot' commands in the 'cmd' window on the laptop for unlocking the bootloader and readying the device for flashing it from the image downloaded and unzipped by me earlier.
Doing all this took whole of a day. I was afraid that I might end up bricking my device but went ahead nonetheless. Finally I did it and felt great when my tablet booted with Lollipop 5.0.2 for the first time. However the feeling was soon gone as the browser started becoming unresponsive and crashing. This unresponsive attitude spread to other apps and the OS as well. Soon I was rebooting the device every few hours. Replacing the Chrome browser with Dolphin provided some relief to start with but that too started fading soon.
This called for more research. The research suggested that I wipe my cache partition using low level system commands. For this you have to get into the mode that you would for factory resetting your device - by powering it off and then on by pressing Power and Volume Dn keys together. At this level there is no touch screen and you navigate the menu using volume up and down buttons and select an option using the Power button. So you choose Recovery Mode and then press Volume Up and Power buttons to get the next menu. From this menu you choose the menu for wiping cache. Finally you reboot.
Cache wiped, the device did show a little more life. But alas, it faded pretty quickly. Finding myself back to square 1 I thought of killing the Lollipop and taking the retrograde step of loading the Kitkat image back on my device. However something at the back of my mind told me to check the sync settings. So I navigated to Settings->Accounts->Google. When I touched my displayed Google account a large number of apps and components appeared. All had a check in the box against them. Desperate as I was I unchecked all the boxes. Presto! The system was running fine and the lags, disappearing and freezing screens were all gone.
Becoming a little bold after my experiment, I checked a few boxes in my Google account sync settings back to on. These were Mail, Contacts and App Data. The system is still working fine and I hope with a certain level of confidence that it will continue that way. I have a suspicion that unchecking the box against Chrome alone would perhaps be enough to solve the problem. However, I have deferred the experiment for the time being.
So if Lollipop is making you desperate, head straight to sync settings for your Google account on the device. The solution lies there and not in the cache partition.
Wish you a sweet Lollipop experience.
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