Appodeal and memory

Rob I can confirm, I tried using LFS and it doesn’t see any of the video files.

Adrian

Hi,

I am jumping in on this discussion as I am the user who reported the heavy data usage below.

I must admit that I know nothing about coronalabs and appodeal.

I also know little about Android applications but I am well versed in C and Linux.

It seems that the heavy data usage is due to an accumulation of files, particularly m4v video ones, in the /data/data/com.jealogic.triogicalB2/files/adc3/media directory.

(com.jealogic.triogicalB2 is the reference of Triogical)

UPDATE: I have looked at the m4v files and they are indeed advertisements for Android applications.

It seems that regularly four m4v files of about 3 MB with identical content are added cumulatively.

UPDATE2: I have to do these tests on another machine where I have root access.

I do not have root on the machine with 1.55 GB of data :frowning:

Without root, Android (or toolbox?) will not allow me to traverse the directories.

This is unexpected as their access rights are “drwxrwx–x”.

Sometimes I only have single copies of the files but they are always added cumulatively.

The largest I have seen so far is about 5 MB.

UPDATE3: These m4v videos have the logo AdColony at the bottom right.

HTH

Cheers,

Chris

Karina, please help !

this thread is alive until middle august and we are last septembre.

it’s a very important bug to fix because all our apps fill android’ directory with up to 2 Go data od unused video file !!

oooooopssss

In countries like Vietnam (and this kind of “very-android” and “poor-device” country), an app using corona and android CANNOT be load more than 3 times before crashing due to this leak.

Please can you tell us when this will be fix ? in a couple of days ? of weeks ?

I am not an appodeal coder, but the goal is only to delete old files, it surely could be fixed “easily” no ?

As always, sorry for my english, hope you understand me :slight_smile:

Hello.

I develop the app along with sig.g1.

I agree with triogical. I think it’s a very important issue.

We are waiting to update the app and publish it but if it does not resolve soon we should change the plugin.

At least until it resolves…

I apologize for my English too

Max

Hello,

I should also like to underline that this (flash) memory leak is very serious.

It is much more serious than even a standard (RAM) memory leak because:

  • memory leaked by an application is reclaimed on closing the application
  • memory leaked by the kernel is reclaimed by a reboot
  • however memory leaked by this bug is never reclaimed, not even after a reboot

Please would you kindly correct this bug rapidly.

Would it help if I filed an official bug report?

UPDATE: Wouldn’t a simple workaround be to store these files as cache rather than data?

At least the cache can be easily cleared by the user without losing all the application’s settings.

Cheers,

Chris

Hi,

The solution to storing data in cache does not like me.

For us to clean it is simple but for many users it is not(as children).  I always think of all the users.

I think the problem should be resolved to the root …

Yes, I agree, but as I wrote, it is just a workaround which should be easy to implement quickly with little risk of regressions.

Cache cleaning on raw Android does indeed require a little knowledge.

However there are also applications, such as CCleaner and ES Explorer, which greatly simplify cache cleaning and virtually automate it.

Hello guys,

(Adding my 2 cents) It seems that ads files should have been put in the ‘cache’ directory in the first place.

Those are temporary files used to speed ads loading on device so, by definition, cached files.

Putting them in the ‘data’ folder was a really bad idea, as users will have no other choice but to delete their

game saved files (and reset all progress) to remove Gigas of obsolete/unwanted ads data. How fun is that ?

But I agree with @maximo97, it is not even a valid workaround to solve this memory issue as we can’t expect

users to manually clear cache from time to time to keep the system working.

I think the Appodeal plugin should manage cached file like web-browsers do:

  • define a maximum disk space to not exceed and delete (oldest) files accordingly

  • define a “time to live” for ads files and delete them when past due

Hope this help and the bug will be fixed soon, as it is quite critical !

I completely agree with GoG.

However, as a complete newbie to this, I have another, probably stupid, question:

Why does Appodeal need these files to be persistent?

Can’t it just delete them on exit?

Is the intention to avoid reloading the same file?

If so, it doesn’t work as I have seen several m4v files with identical content (but obviously different file names) :frowning:

I don’t think Appodeal is in control of all the libraries caching scheme. Appodeal just integrates multiple libraries and then calls them individually. Some of those libraries don’t cache or cache only in memory. I think the issue is with a couple of the libraries they are using.

@trogicaluser the intention is to yes not have to load the file again and to have a file ready when needed.

Hi here,

Hey APPODEAL guys, is there anything on the way ?
Are you working on a fix ?
Please could you give us something to eat ? At least some information ?
You think the fix will be ok in a couple of days, 2 weeks, 2 months ?

We need you help and INFORMATIONS!

Thx

Sorry team, I’ve been out of the office for a bit, let me see if there is an update on this. The last discussions was with the URL’s provided where we could download and test, we were not experiencing the app growth. But I need to get caught up on the discussion.

Bear with us.

Rob

Hi,

I just looked today and Triogical’s data usage is down to under 60 MB on the phone which had 1.55 GB previously  :slight_smile:

This is reasonable.

Unfortunately I don’t have any explanation why this has happened.

I have been playing the game a lot and initially the data usage increased even further.

AFAICS there haven’t been any updates to the Triogical app.

However I did try (unsuccessfully) to root the phone via ADB but I didn’t explicitly delete any files.

Is there a “time to live” in Appodeal which could have caused their deletion?

UPDATE: I do have ES Explorer and CCleaner installed but AIUI they clean up cache semi-automatically but not data.

UPDATE2 : Could there be a cleanup programmed for the first of every month or is it just a coincidence?

Chris

Hello.

I opened the discussion about 2 months ago. I would like to know some news or at least when you are thinking of resolving. I really do not have anything against Appodeal but if I do not have news I will change it permanently. I can not delay over corrections.

Thanks to the availability

We are investigating on this problem. Our engineers have tested several times, but we were unable to reproduce the problem. However, we’ll  analyze everything again and I will post an update by the end of the week.

We have found that these problems are caused by Adcolony, we’ll fix this in our next plugin for Corona. As a temporary solution, you might try to disable Adcolony through segments in your Appodeal dashboard.

I am glad that you managed to reproduce the problem.

I wrote several days ago that the data usage was mainly AdColony m4v videos :wink:

I find it incredible that none of the developers of the Corona/Appodeal/AdColony SDKs and plugins can answer my questions, most of which are explicit although I admit that some are implicit.

For clarity I repeat them here:-

Why did I find more than 1.5GB of AdColony m4v videos on my phone?

Why does AdColony need these to be persistent?

Why can’t it just delete them on exit?

If this is to avoid reloading them, why do I find several files with identical content?

Why are they stored as data and not as cache?

The usage dropped from more than 1.5GB to less than 60MB between the 25th September and the 1st October.

I did not deliberately do anything to cleanup.

Does AdColony perform cleanups based on a “time to live”?

Does AdColony perform monthly cleanups, for instance on the 1st of each month?

I understand that Appodeal has acquired Corona Labs, that this is the appropriate forum for questions related to Appodeal and that Appodeal integrates AdColony.

Doesn’t anyone at Appodeal know how AdColony works?

Is there anyone competent from Appodeal on this forum?

Would it help to file an official bug report?

I am not a developer using Corona, just a user of a game that unfortunately uses Appodeal.

Please help the developers of the game to find a solution quickly.

Such enormous data usage will cause most users to uninstall their application causing loss of revenue for you.

Maybe this will motivate you to find a solution :wink:

Instead of suggesting that developers disable AdColony, why don’t you (i.e. Appodeal) disable it temporarily on your side ?

This has two advantages:

  • developers need perform no action, apart from possibly a rebuild
  • you can put pressure on AdColony to correct the problem if it is on their side

@Karina Shakh

Thank you! Finally good news! I have only two quick questions about it:

  1. Is there a date for updating the plugin?

2. Can our revenue be lost if Adcolony is disabled?

@TriogicalUser

I can not answer your questions.

However, Karina Shakh said they will make an update so our preoccupations should be resolved …

@Karina Shakh

Please would you kindly indicate:

  • the type of solution that you are working on
  • whether it is a temporary workaround or a permanent fix
  • an estimated release date

I am sure that the application developers concerned would be prepared to test a beta version.

I should be only too pleased to assist in testing at a user level.