Android 5.0 Lollipop Memory Bug Causing Apps To Crash

You might want to think twice before upgrading your Nexus 5 to Android 5.0 Lollipop, because many users have reported a critical memory bug that’s causing their apps to crash.

This bug essentially causes apps to leak valuable memory, which subsequently bogs down the Nexus 5’s system resources to a crawl. If you’ve noticed exceptionally slow speeds after updating to Android 5.0 Lollipop, your device could be suffering from the memory leak. It isn’t going to brick your device by any means, but it will certainly impact speed and performance.

According to ASOP tracker, nearly 2,000 users have reported the Lollipop memory leak. Of course, the actual number of users affected by this bug is likely much higher since only a fraction of users would have reported it. In addition to the Nexus 5, the bug also affects the Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, Nexus 10, and Moto G2 (2nd generation).

The aforementioned link reveals some rather disturbing information about this memory leak. Several users reported their Nexus 5 using more than 1.2GB of RAM, which is far more than the normal usage of 500MB. And in case you were wondering, the Nexus 5 is equipped with 2GB RAM, so the memory leak is essentially using about 60% of its total memory.

“When play music crashed in the background today, with maps navigation running in the forefront, system ram usage was at 780mb. Maps ram usage was at 280mb. The play music process was stuck in ‘restarting’ status until I swiped it out of recents and restarted it. This was after around 48 hours uptime. Camera app also started crashing mid-photosphere shortly after this. After a reboot system usage dropped to ~380mb and everything’s working fine again,” wrote one user on the Google forum.

Unfortunately, the most recent Android update — to 5.0.1 — did not fix the issue. Google has closed the issue on the forums, changing the status to “Future Release.” We can only presume this means the Mountain View company will release yet another update to fix the memory leak. Until that time comes, it’s recommended that Nexus 5 users keep an eye on their memory usage. If your device begins to use an excessive amount of RAM, restart it for a quick fix. This isn’t a permanent solution by any means, but it should temporarily solve the issue.

Have you experienced the memory leak bug after updating to Android 5.0 Lollipop? Let us know in the comments section!