How to re-enable background tasks

[paolojackson]

Maybe I'm completely missing something but I'm having a hard time re-enable particular background tasks (USA Today, Tasks, Evernote...to name a few).

To help conserve battery one day, I turned off almost all my BG tasks by going to settings > applications > background tasks. When I went back to re-enable them, there was a check box that says:

"Turn background tasks back on for this app the next time I open it"

I check the box and reopen the particular apps, but nothing ever seems to happen, they stay off. I've tried it every day this week and nothing seems to happen.

If anyone has any experience with this problem, please help a WP7'r out. It's been very annoying. Thanks in advance.

 

[Dagolara]

I had that issue before, the way I worked around it was to open the app in question and toggle it's live tile option off and on in its settings.

 

[jimski]

I had that issue before, the way I worked around it was to open the app in question and toggle it's live tile option off and on in its settings.

Yep, that would probably work. Or uninstalling/reinstalling the app.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[paolojackson]

Thanks for the responses.

I was successful in re-enabling BG tasks for one app, however I cannot do it with them all by finding a setting within the app.

Uninstall and reinstall works fine, however I am having a (different) problem regarding my XBL gamer tag which apps/music are associated with.

 

[Dagolara]

How many background tasks do you currently have running? You max out at 6 background agents at any given time, if a 7th is opened one gets turned off.

 

[paolojackson]

Only have 4 bg tasks at the moment...how incredibly frustrating.

 

[gerrymad]

You can only have 5 applications open, but you can have more than 5 background tasks. I currently have 7. Background tasks are things like weather aps preiodically checking for updates, timer apps, reminder apps etc. These are all things that can run in the background and then do things like push toast notifications. These background tasks can be turned off manually or if 14 or 21 days (I can't remember which) days elapse since you last used the application they will turn off on their own.

 

[Dagolara]

You can only have 5 applications open, but you can have more than 5 background tasks. I currently have 7. Background tasks are things like weather aps preiodically checking for updates, timer apps, reminder apps etc. These are all things that can run in the background and then do things like push toast notifications. These background tasks can be turned off manually or if 14 or 21 days (I can't remember which) days elapse since you last used the application they will turn off on their own.

Below is some information on the subject I received from a dev, I've also asked Jay during the last podcast to maybe write up an article on the subject in the future:

By default, an agent can run only up to 14 days. So if you stop using an app, it?s agent will expire automatically after 14 days, thereby not running forever.

There is also a memory cap and time limit cap on agent, if it?s violated twice in a row then phone will automatically disable it. Generally for apps, this shouldn?t happen as it would have been tested.

Also, there is per device agent limit, which is only 6 apps or more can be supported at a time. So if you enable tasks for more than 6 apps, other ones may get turned off.

And if battery is lower than 30%, agents will not run.

 

[gentry33]

I wonder why the limit is set so low when many apps that are updated for 7.5 have background tasks. Currently listed under switchable background tasks Due Dates-on, HTC Hub-on, Weather-on, BBC News Mobile-off, Daily Dilbert-off, Poynt-off, USA Today-off. Under the advanced tab Food Spotting, iHeart Radio, Slacker Radio and TuneIn Radio are added. I would really like my news apps to run in the background. I could probably ditch Poynt thanks to local scout but it's not running in the background. I haven't used Food Spotting yet but would like to. I use TuneIn Radio but my favorite local am radio station recently restricted this app from streaming and I don't want to always use the headphones to listen to the radio. Does the built in radio even play am band? The problem must be the minimal 512k ram.

 

[jfa1]

nope its an fm only tuner!

 

[anon7989605]

Just ran into the same problem with the weather app form "The Weather Channel" Weather | Windows Phone Anwendungen + Spiele Store (Deutschland). So that means 2 years later this problem is still not solved for some apps. Wow. This is frustrating.