Applies to: Field Link on Android Symptoms: The app returns to the site list or a "Preparing…" screen after you switch to another app, lock your phone, or take a photo. You have to search for your ticket again and reapply your filters.
What's happening
This is not a bug in your data — nothing you entered and saved is lost. What you're seeing is Android shutting Field Link down in the background and then starting it again from scratch when you return to it.
Android does this for two reasons:
1. Your phone runs low on memory
Field Link works with a live, interactive site map, which needs a fair amount of memory to run. When you switch to another app (for example, to open drawings or a browser), Android moves Field Link to the background. If the phone then needs that memory for whatever is now in the foreground, it will close background apps to free it up — Field Link included.
This happens most on devices with a small amount of RAM. As a guideline:
On a 4 GB device (such as the Samsung Galaxy A16), a large part of the memory is already used by Android itself, so even opening one other app can be enough to push Field Link out of memory.
On an 8 GB or 16 GB device, it happens far less often, but it can still occur when the app has been in the background for a while or the phone is under heavy load.
2. Battery optimization closes the app
Even when memory is fine, Android's battery-saving features can shut a backgrounded app down to conserve power. Most phones apply this automatically unless you tell them not to. This is the most common cause and, fortunately, the easiest to fix.
What you can do
1. Set Field Link's battery usage to "Unrestricted" (recommended first step)
Telling Android not to restrict Field Link in the background is the single most effective fix and takes under a minute.
On most Android phones:
Long-press the Field Link app icon and tap App info (or go to Settings › Apps › Field Link).
Tap Battery (may be labelled "Battery usage" or "App battery usage").
Select Unrestricted (may be labelled "Don't optimize" or "No restrictions").
Menu names vary between phone brands. If your steps don't match the above, use the guide in the next section for instructions specific to your device.
2. Find the exact steps for your phone brand
Every phone manufacturer (Samsung, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Huawei, Oppo, and others) handles background apps differently, and some are far more aggressive than the standard Android steps above can cover. If the steps in section 1 don't match your phone, or the app is still being closed after you applied them, use the guide below.
The community site dontkillmyapp.com keeps up-to-date, illustrated instructions for each phone brand and Android version.
How to use it:
Open dontkillmyapp.com.
Find and select your phone's manufacturer from the list (for example OnePlus, Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei).
Follow the steps shown for your brand. They walk you through the settings your phone uses to stop closing apps in the background.
The site is aimed at a general audience and can look technical — you only need the section for your own phone brand, and you can ignore the rest. If anything is unclear, contact our support team and we'll walk you through it for your specific device.
3. Keep other apps closed while working
If you're working on a low-memory device, closing apps you're not actively using (especially browsers and other heavy apps) leaves more memory available and makes it much less likely that Field Link is closed while in the background.
4. Consider device specifications
If you regularly need to switch between Field Link and other apps on site, a device with at least 8 GB of RAM will give you a noticeably more reliable experience. On lower-memory devices, occasional restarts may still happen when the phone is under load, even with the settings above applied.
If you've applied the battery setting above and still experience the app closing, please contact support with your phone brand and model, your Android version, and your Field Link app version so we can investigate further.