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Read to Know in Detail about Force Stop and Clear Cache Functions

If you’ve been using an Android device since long, you might have come across the need to use ‘Force Stop’ and ‘Clear Cache’ functions on it. In general, both the terms are quite clearly understood, the former is used to stop any running application instantly while the later one is meant to free up the cache memory. Do you think these functions really help in getting what you want? Let’s get to know more about them right here.

Force Stop

The base of this function lies in its Linux Kernel, which is primarily responsible for your device’ memory management and various other processes as well. When you run an app, you actually kick-off a Linux process.

This process is generally defined as a logical container related to that app. It’s processed by the kernel in such a way to share the system resources (including memory and CPU time) among all other running apps. Each process contains a unique ID, called PID (Process ID); a priority, its relevancy; its own address signature, and associated pages of physical memory; and state info: running (or runnable), sleeping, stopped and zombied.

And when you exit an app, the kernel is meant to free up all the resources associated with the app. It is followed by deletion of the process that was started initially. Android never kills an app directly. Instead, it turns down the process in which the activity runs. This kills everything associated with the process. It is done to free up RAM, using the ‘Force Stop’ function under Application Manager.

There are generally three stages of an app: running; paused and stopped. When you force stop an app, its active stages changes from running to paused and eventually gets killed (stopped) by Android. This becomes necessary if an app stops responding to user’s actions. Force Stop is a feasible and effective way to fix a misbehaving app.

Clear Cache

Once you decide to kill an app, it generally wipes off the data stored in cache memory. The cache directory is the place where an application puts its temporary file, a pre-processed file, and any other information that app wants to save for its execution. Each app has its own directory where it can put working files.

If an app downloads data from internet and puts it in the cache directory, that data is reused again and again to avoid downloading from the internet. As Android deletes, these files from time to time or whenever devices get slow, doing this would make the app download the relevant file again from the internet. But there is no harm associated with this function as it deletes the temporary files stored in the cache directory.

Besides these Android functions, there are several other clean-up apps that can be used to free up the RAM and cache memory. These functions are of great use if you notice that your device is not behaving in its usual manner and it’s time to refresh them.

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