Android 5.0 Lollipop Memory Leak Bug That Crashed Apps Finally Fixed

By Ketan Pratap | Updated: 30 December 2014 17:25 IST

Google has almost after a month closed one of the issues that were reported on its Android Issue Tracker, marking the fix for 'Future Release'.

The "Memory Leak on Lollipop crashing Apps" issue was first reported back in November and it caused apps to crash and even filled device's memory. A Google project member on Monday finally marked the issue for 'Future Release' tipping that Google was unable to roll out a fix for this particular bug even with the recent Android 5.0.1 Lollipop update. This is further validated by multiple users who report that even after installing the Android 5.0.1 update, the memory leak issue still occurs.

Android Police points out that the memory leak issue pulled a record number of complaints from users running Android 5.0 Lollipop, and it climbed up at 34th position in the Android Issue Tracker by number of stars - which was 1750. "Prior to being closed it was the most-starred unresolved issue in the tracker," it adds.

The background apps crashing bug seems to be affecting all Nexus devices including the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7, and Nexus 9, apart from the Moto G (Gen 2), as can be seen on the issue tracker.

One of the notable issues caused by the bug is that apps crash in the background, included those with 'persistent notifications'. Several users had claimed that the only way to fix the issue was by restarting the device regularly.

Google earlier this month started releasing the Android 5.0.1 Lollipop factory image for the Nexus 5, Nexus 4 and Nexus 6 smartphones with build number LRX22C. While the company had already released factory images for the Wi-Fi only Nexus tablets including Nexus 7 (2013), Nexus 9, and Nexus 10, as well as the LTE version of the Nexus 9. The factory images for the 3G-enabled Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013) are yet to be published. Last week, Google released the Android 5.0.2 Lollipop factory image for the original Nexus 7 (2012) Wi-Fi tablet, but till date no other Nexus device has received the same update.

Considering that some users have reported the same issue after updating to Android 5.0.1, we can expect that Google will soon announce another incremental update.

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