Phone froze, had to take battery out (computers, remove, browser)

[robertpasa]

My HTC Inspire totally froze last night, when I visited a site for a radio show. I accidentally tapped on a link that downloaded a large PDF file. No buttons would respond, and holding the power button did nothing. I removed the battery for a second and reinserted it, and I was okay.

This phone has only frozen once in the 6 months I've had it. Does a phone freeze for the same reason a Windows computer would freeze? That is, an error in a page or program; or malware; or other memory problems. One thing I can add is that large PDFs often crash computer browsers.

General question about freezing phones and computers: I thought the device's OS is supposed to manage the apps and the device's memory. But why is it possible for a program to "leak" into areas of the OS that cause it to freeze or crash? Why does an error kill the power button?

You'd think there'd be a better way of totally restarting, besides taking out the battery. I've heard of computer freezes so bad you have to unplug the computer.

[dontaskwhy]

Yes, cell phones screens freezing up is a lot like when your MS Windows computer freezes up. Pulling the battery is equivalent to typing <CTRL> <ALT> <DEL> on the computer.

[NHDave]

Originally Posted by dontaskwhy

Yes, cell phones screens freezing up is a lot like when your MS Windows computer freezes up. Pulling the battery is equivalent to typing <CTRL> <ALT> <DEL> on the computer.

Actually the PC equivalent would be pulling the power cord.

I had a few lockups on my Inspire, likely due to all the bloat that comes with it, after rooting and installing a decent ROM it's been rock solid, sometimes don't reboot it for weeks. The wifes new Vivid was having major lockups/ crashes. I rooted it and installed an app to remove all the bloat and it too has been solid since.