Question

I took a look in the developer’s console and saw for the first time a freeze report rather than a crash. A crash is easy to define the breaking point from the stack trace. It normally led to a class/method being incorrectly defined or implemented.

However I have never encountered a freeze. Since Google made the effort to make the distinction in the dev console, what is the distinction?

From a general point of view obviously a crash is a force close. But does a freeze simply slow down the user experience without a force close? What are the technical differences? Is there a different method to address a freeze when compared to a crash?

Edit: added example stack traces.

Here is an example of a Crash The stack trace is very specific pointing to a line of failure.

android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #21: Error inflating class android.widget.ZoomControls
at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:518)
at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneLayoutInflater.onCreateView(PhoneLayoutInflater.java:56)
at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:568)
at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:623)
at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:383)
at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:320)
at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:276)
at android.widget.ZoomButtonsController.createContainer(ZoomButtonsController.java:262)
at android.widget.ZoomButtonsController.<init>(ZoomButtonsController.java:211)
at android.webkit.WebView.getZoomButtonsController(WebView.java:6313)
at android.webkit.WebView.startDrag(WebView.java:5700)
at android.webkit.WebView.onTouchEvent(WebView.java:5428)
at android.view.View.dispatchTouchEvent(View.java:3885)
at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:903)
at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:942)
at android.view.ViewGroup.dispatchTouchEvent(ViewGroup.java:942)

Here is an example Freeze the stack trace is less specific not pointing to a direct line or activity at fault.

DALVIK THREADS:
(mutexes: tll=0 tsl=0 tscl=0 ghl=0 hwl=0 hwll=0)
"main" prio=5 tid=1 NATIVE
  | group="main" sCount=1 dsCount=0 obj=0x40027550 self=0xcfc0
  | sysTid=2076 nice=0 sched=0/0 cgrp=bg_non_interactive handle=-1345006240
  | schedstat=( 30958526727 7780212297 24174 )
  at android.graphics.Bitmap.nativeCreateScaledBitmap(Native Method)
  at android.graphics.Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(Bitmap.java:556)
  at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.finishDecode(BitmapFactory.java:722)
  at android.graphics.BitmapFactory.decodeResourceStream(BitmapFactory.java:478)
  at android.graphics.drawable.Drawable.createFromResourceStream(Drawable.java:697)
  at android.content.res.Resources.loadDrawable(Resources.java:1727)
  at android.content.res.TypedArray.getDrawable(TypedArray.java:601)
  at android.view.View.<init>(View.java:1998)
  at android.widget.TextView.<init>(TextView.java:389)


     at android.widget.Button.<init>(Button.java:108)
      at android.widget.Button.<init>(Button.java:104)
  at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.constructNative(Native Method)
  at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:415)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.createView(LayoutInflater.java:505)
  at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneLayoutInflater.onCreateView(PhoneLayoutInflater.java:56)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:568)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:623)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:626)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:626)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:626)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:626)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:408)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:320)
  at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:276)
  at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.setContentView(PhoneWindow.java:224)
  at android.app.Activity.setContentView(Activity.java:1702)
  at com.e3h.usmcknowledge.MainActivity.onCreate(MainActivity.java:37)
  at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1093)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1780)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1837)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleRelaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3242)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.access$1600(ActivityThread.java:132)
  at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1037)
  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
  at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:143)
  at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4196)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:507)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:839)
  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:597)
  at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

There’s really no formal definition. But broadly speaking, a crash occur when an uncontrolled error happens. Freeze is when an application stops to respond to any event (for example an infinite loop) but no actual error happens (no exception thrown).