# Source-Free Detection and Impact Analysis of Compiler Optimization Problems in Mobile Applications

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23512 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23512/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jun 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [OpenHarmony Bench: Evaluating LLMs and Coding Agents on OpenHarmony App Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16022/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Mobile apps frequently suffer from frame drops, overheating, and excessive power consumption. While developers optimize algorithms and debug code, a critical bottleneck often goes unnoticed: native libraries compiled with low optimization levels (O0/O1 instead of O2/O3). Because these libraries execute without functional errors, the resulting performance degradation remains hidden in production apps. We present textscOptDetect, a source-free framework that detects compiler optimization problems directly from app binaries. textscOptDetect handles mixed optimization levels through binary disassembly, chunk-level classification, and weighted score aggregation, achieving 93.0% accuracy on controlled datasets and 81.9% on real-world datasets. Applying textscOptDetect to 21,972 native libraries from 830 top-ranked Google Play apps, we find that 30.5% of libraries use low optimization levels, affecting 91.7% of apps. Through case studies on 12 production apps, fixing detected issues reduces CPU instructions by 10-63% (median: 20.5%) for commercial apps and 15-58% (median: 32%) for open-source apps. Performance complaints decrease in 5 of 6 commercial apps, and ratings increase in 5 of 6. Further investigation reveals that widely-used third-party libraries are themselves distributed at low optimization levels, with 49.7% of 1,073 libraries in a major repository exhibiting this problem. These findings show that compiler optimization problems are common, source-free detectable, and practically consequential in mobile app ecosystems.