Joplin on Android phone repeatedly crashes trying to do first sync

[itsblippingjbh]

Operating system

Android

Joplin version

3.4.7 (prod, android)

Desktop version info

Joplin Mobile 3.4.7 (prod, android)

Device: android
Client ID: b118685635b84bfabc1c9459547767f8
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 48
Keychain Supported: No
Alternative instance ID: -

Revision: 44ac261 (release-3.4)

Android API level: 35
WebView version: 140.0.7339.207
WebView package: com.google.android.webview
FTS enabled: 1
Hermes enabled: 1

Current behaviour

1. Joplin launches, attempts to begin pulling from Joplin Cloud.
2. Joplin is able to pull from Joplin Cloud for several minutes
3. Joplin crashes to home screen
4. Attempting to reopen Joplin results in more crashes about 1-3 times before the app will reopen normally
5. App will again try to continue syncing before the cycle repeats

Expected behaviour

Joplin should be able to pull my notes from the cloud without crashing.

Logs

mobile-log.log

[tomasz1986]

The app crashes because it runs out of memory. I have had this happen on a Google Pixel 8 with 8 GB of RAM. How much RAM has your device got?

[itsblippingjbh]

The app crashes because it runs out of memory. I have had this happen on a Google Pixel 8 with 8 GB of RAM. How much RAM has your device got?

I have 16 GB. It's a OnePlus 12R.

[tomasz1986]

Yeah, without diving into the code, my feeling is that there is simply no mechanism to prevent memory overflow. If you don't sync much, there is no issue, but with a larger note set, the app will end up using a lot of memory.

On Android specifically, there is no swap file, so when the OS runs out of RAM, it simply kills the application.

[itsblippingjbh]

OK, that makes sense.

[mrjo118]

@itsblippingjbh Have you tried killing every other app before doing the sync? Also check if you have any background services running in the recent apps screen and stop any if there are.

If it still crashes after closing everything, then it would be concerning that the sync could use so much memory, even if you have a lot of data.

What is the filesize of the largest attachment in your Joplin profile? You could also try setting attatchment download behaviour to manual, on the advanced sync settings

[itsblippingjbh]

I was able to get the sync to complete eventually by just relaunching the app every time it crashed, it basically completed it in increments. The vast majority of my notes are just text, though my earlier notes which I imported from OneNote had some drawings and images. But it doesn't seem like these are taking up a phenomenal amount of space as the full size of my entire Joplin Cloud account is just 32.4 MB. So even if the app were storing everything being synced into RAM it wouldn't get anywhere close to my phone's RAM capacity.

[janxkoci]

I'm just starting with Joplin, but this issue would be crazy if it was really happening due to memory - many other apps can sync without consuming that much memory.

To test it, can you start playing music before you open Joplin and sync? If the music dies I will believe you really ran out of memory (and will probably look for another notes app).

[janxkoci]

So I just imported some 370 notes (from md) on my desktop and synced with Dropbox to my phone, and it was all done in under a minute. No crash, music keeps playing in the background 🤟😎

[github-actions]

Hey there, it looks like there has been no activity on this issue recently. Has the issue been fixed, or does it still require the community's attention? If you require support or are requesting an enhancement or feature then please create a topic on the Joplin forum. This issue may be closed if no further activity occurs. You may comment on the issue and I will leave it open. Thank you for your contributions.

[github-actions]

Closing this issue after a prolonged period of inactivity. If this issue is still present in the latest release, feel free to create a new issue with up-to-date information.