Nexus 7 constantly crashes: Just had it replaced and the new one does the same.

[dwhistle]

Both the Chrome and Firefox browser constantly crashed on my N7, as well as Moonreader.  I returned it and the new one does the same thing right out of the box.  I did everything that Google support suggested: cleared Cache, did FDR and rebooted, and nothing helps.  Right now I am trying to get a refund but Google is dragging their feet.  This device has been a huge disappointment.  Can anyone help?   I either get an error message after the app crashes or sometimes just a black screen and reboot. 

[birdastrompgman]

We aren't mindreaders here.  What's the error message?  What web pages are you trying to access, and what tasks are you trying to perform when the crashes occur?  Be specific, and step us through a crash.

[dwhistle]

Sure.  It's a N7 16g.  It freezes and gives me the message that Chrome has stopped responding, or else the screen just goes blank and it reboots. This is the one that they just sent two days ago as a replacement.  It did this on a variety of web pages, including 4 separate hard crashes on the Google play support page as I was trying to find the phone number.  I am not trying to perform any specific tasks other than view web pages with the browser.  My previous Nexus would also hard crash while viewing ebooks and PDF files with Moonreader as well as the Android doc reader app. 

Please let me know if there are any other details that would be helpful.

[birdastrompgman]

If it will make you feel better, yours is a highly unusual experience.  I was hoping you were overtaxing your N7, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.  You aren't experiencing any problems with other computers accessing the same wi-fi network, are you?

[bjs229]

Sorry about your misfortune. Sounds like horrible luck or an app is disagreeing with your setup somehow. To the best of my knowledge , Moon reader and or Firefox is not an app that comes right out of the box. I would do a factory reset and troubleshoot app by app to exactly when the problems start .
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[dwhistle]

My wifi is pretty good.  Three Macbooks and an ipad in the house never have a problem.  Also, my first N7 (the one they replaced), crashed just a much on other networks. I have not had the new one long enough to try it elsewhere.  I really appreciate the response btw.  I don't know anyone else who has a Nexus 7, so I have been feeling pretty alone in this issue.  Could this be a problem with one of my apps?
 I'm going to try to trash all the non-essential apps and do another FDR to see if that helps. 

[JayJ]

As the guys have said, these issues are not your Nexus 7 and are likely app related. I do not use Moon Reader but I use Chrome regularly and it does not crash on my N7, this would lead us to believe that something you have installed is causing your problems. I too suggest what bjs has suggested, factory reset your device and install apps one or two apps at a time to weed out the app causing this. Alternatively you could not factory reset and uninstall applications one at a time, test whether your N7 is having problems and find the misbehaving application that way.

Hope you sort it because your missing out on this awesome tablet whilst having these problems.

Sent from my 32GB Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2©

[dwhistle]

Okay,new info.  I deleted all the apps that I could find (a few language translation apps and a dictionary) and did another FDR.  I used the device for a few minutes to open a couple of web pages and then I got the message as to whether I would like to automatically send reports to Google.  When I clicked the "X" the browser crashed and gave me the "Chrome is not responding" message.  I re-opened Chrome and started browsing again.  This time it crashed sooner and gave me the "Chrome is not responding" message again. This time I chose "close" and the whole OS seems to crash.  I got the message "launcher is not responding" after the screen came back on, and now it's saying "Setup Wizard isn't responding". 

[bjs229]

Setup wizard?  Hmmm.  After A reset there shouldn't be any user installed apps. I believe  It should be like starting fresh. Earlier you said you started right out of the box and now we are talking about language apps and such.  Are you sure you haven't deleted something you need as well?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[dwhistle]

It seems to automatically reload my apps after It syncs with my Google account.   Also, I didn't delete anything but apps such as BBC, Facebook, Translate etc. 

[birdastrompgman]

I'd choose not to activate the automatic apps restore during setup after your FDR.  Then web surf with the clean setup. 

If it still crashes, it will be a bad memory problem, and you'll have to send your second N7 in for warranty replacement.  In your case, the third time's the charm.

[dwhistle]

Even with all the non Android apps deleted it still froze again.  Here is what the Preview feedback for the crash report says.  "Event log: app not responding"  "Activity: com.android.chrome/come.google.android.apps.chrome.Main.  "Caused by: ANR keyDispatching TimeOut"
   The last line of the system log says "D/dalvikvm (6241): WAIT_FOR_CONCURENT_GC blocked 23ms

Any help is appreciated. 

[birdastrompgman]

The first error occurs while the system is waiting for a key to be pressed.  While it could be caused by a poorly written app, I doubt it's an issue with Chrome or Firefox, since millions of users don't have your issue.

The second error refers to garbage collecting, and can occur when:
when user code explicitly calls gc(), and a gc is already in progress.
when code tries to do an allocation but there isn't actually room in memory to accommodate the request, and a gc is already in progress.
In either case, what's happening is that, in order to satisfy the request, the first step is waiting for the hot garbage collecting action that's taking place in another thread. Once that's done, then the thread can move onto what it was more directly asked to do (which might cause further garbage collection).

I'm leaning toward thinking the common cause is bad memory.  Look for a memory testing app.

[dwhistle]

Thanks. I've been running a classic stability test from the Android app for 20 minutes and no errors have come up.  Before that I tried to watch a few short Youtube clips as a test and each one crashed after a few minutes. 
 This thing is ridiculous.  I'll just return it and hope the third one is good.  Thanks for all the help.

[dwhistle]

Actually, I decided to try one last thing.  I did another FDR and logged in with a secondary gmail account instead of my usual one.  Now my device works perfects after an hour of use.  Any ideas why this is?