Record a system trace
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A system trace shows you system-wide activities and resource usage, so you can
see how your app processes are scheduled and run. The system trace view in the
Android Studio Profiler is commonly used to investigate the following:
- How app and system processes are distributed across device cores and threads.
- How smoothly the UI renders.
- Power usage at both the device and app level.
This page provides an overview of the most commonly used visuals in the system
trace view. See the chart glossary
for more details about visualizations not described here. For more detailed
examples of what to use a system trace for, see the other pages in this section.
After you record a system trace, you see the
following visualizations displayed over a timeline. You should focus on how
different system resources are correlated; for example, if you notice a spike in
the modem power rail, you should go to the threads section and see what thread
activity could be causing the spike at the time.
- CPU Usage: Shows CPU usage of your app as a percentage of total available
CPU capacity by time. Highlight a section of the timeline to filter to the
details for that time period.
- Interactions: Shows user interaction and app lifecycle events along a
timeline (requires a debuggable
app process and a device running API level 26 or higher).
- Display: Shows info related to how smooth your app UI renders. Select
Lifecycle to inspect how long it takes your app to render each frame on
the main thread and
RenderThread. This info is helpful for investigating
bottlenecks that cause UI jank and low
framerates.
Threads: Shows the threads that your app and various system processes run
on. To learn about how to use system traces to investigate and help reduce UI
jank, see Detect UI jank.
Tip: When inspecting the
Threads timeline, the following
shortcuts are available:
- Zoom in: Press W or scroll the mouse wheel while
holding Ctrl (Command on macOS).
- Zoom out: Press S or scroll the mouse wheel backward
while holding Ctrl (Command on macOS).
- Pan left: Press A or drag mouse right while
holding Space.
- Pan right: Press D or drag mouse left while holding
Space.
- Expand or collapse a thread: Double-click the thread name or
press Enter while a thread is selected.
CPU cores: Shows the activity on each core in your device. Viewing the
activity by core might give you an idea of which ones are the "big" or
"little" cores in
modern mobile processors. Hold the pointer over a thread activity to
see which thread this core is running on at that particular time.
Process Memory (RSS): Shows the amount of physical memory currently in use
by the app. For more details, see the chart glossary.
Power Rails: Appears when you profile on a physical device. For more info,
see Inspect power usage.
Battery: Shows your app's battery usage.
Content and code samples on this page are subject to the licenses described in the Content License. Java and OpenJDK are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2024-08-29 UTC.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2024-08-29 UTC."],[],[],null,["# Record a system trace\n\nA system trace shows you system-wide activities and resource usage, so you can\nsee how your app processes are scheduled and run. The system trace view in the\nAndroid Studio Profiler is commonly used to investigate the following:\n\n- How app and system processes are distributed across device cores and threads.\n- How smoothly the UI renders.\n- Power usage at both the device and app level.\n\nThis page provides an overview of the most commonly used visuals in the system\ntrace view. See the [chart glossary](/studio/profile/chart-glossary/flame-chart)\nfor more details about visualizations not described here. For more detailed\nexamples of what to use a system trace for, see the other pages in this section.\n\nAfter you [record a system trace](/studio/profile#start-profiling), you see the\nfollowing visualizations displayed over a timeline. You should focus on how\ndifferent system resources are correlated; for example, if you notice a spike in\nthe modem power rail, you should go to the threads section and see what thread\nactivity could be causing the spike at the time.\n\n- **CPU Usage**: Shows CPU usage of your app as a percentage of total available CPU capacity by time. Highlight a section of the timeline to filter to the details for that time period.\n- **Interactions** : Shows user interaction and app lifecycle events along a timeline (requires a [debuggable](/studio/profile#profileable-v-debuggable) app process and a device running API level 26 or higher).\n- **Display** : Shows info related to how smooth your app UI renders. Select **Lifecycle** to inspect how long it takes your app to render each frame on the main thread and `RenderThread`. This info is helpful for [investigating\n bottlenecks that cause UI jank and low\n framerates](/studio/profile/jank-detection).\n- **Threads** : Shows the threads that your app and various system processes run\n on. To learn about how to use system traces to investigate and help reduce UI\n jank, see [Detect UI jank](/studio/profile/jank-detection).\n\n **Tip:** When inspecting the **Threads** timeline, the following shortcuts are available:\n - **Zoom in:** Press \u003ckbd\u003eW\u003c/kbd\u003e or scroll the mouse wheel while holding \u003ckbd\u003eCtrl\u003c/kbd\u003e (\u003ckbd\u003eCommand\u003c/kbd\u003e on macOS).\n - **Zoom out:** Press \u003ckbd\u003eS\u003c/kbd\u003e or scroll the mouse wheel backward while holding \u003ckbd\u003eCtrl\u003c/kbd\u003e (\u003ckbd\u003eCommand\u003c/kbd\u003e on macOS).\n - **Pan left:** Press \u003ckbd\u003eA\u003c/kbd\u003e or drag mouse right while holding \u003ckbd\u003eSpace\u003c/kbd\u003e.\n - **Pan right:** Press \u003ckbd\u003eD\u003c/kbd\u003e or drag mouse left while holding \u003ckbd\u003eSpace\u003c/kbd\u003e.\n - **Expand or collapse a thread:** Double-click the thread name or press \u003ckbd\u003eEnter\u003c/kbd\u003e while a thread is selected.\n- **CPU cores** : Shows the activity on each core in your device. Viewing the\n activity by core might give you an idea of which ones are the [\"big\" or\n \"little\" cores](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE) in\n modern mobile processors. Hold the pointer over a thread activity to\n see which thread this core is running on at that particular time.\n\n- **Process Memory (RSS)**: Shows the amount of physical memory currently in use\n by the app. For more details, see the chart glossary.\n\n- **Power Rails** : Appears when you profile on a physical device. For more info,\n see [Inspect power usage](/studio/profile/power-profiler).\n\n- **Battery**: Shows your app's battery usage."]]
