Develop Bugs

[Q] System maintainance, SD card decluttering.

From what I've read Android pretty much looks after itself but just wondering if there's any system maintainance that should be done from time to time? (i.e is defraging the SD card OK? Any other things worth doing?)
I've stuck with the stock 2.21 ROM but after installing JIT/Deodexed, debloating, overclocking, and scaleing the phone is running along sweetly. Thing is, about 2 1/2gigs of my 16G card is taken up with various System Recovery backups and I've got .apk files in various places. Can the .apks all be put into the same directory and if so where? I've backed the goaprev folder up to my PC and was going to delete all but the last backup from the phone. Basically, I don't want to do anything stupid now the phones nicely sorted out! Thanks in advance.

Since the seeking time on flash memory is so close to instant that fragmentation does not cause any noticable delays, I see no reason to defragment internal memory or my microSD card.
Furthermore, defragmenting a flash disk/drive, a device with a limited amount of writes, may actually shorten its life-span. In that sense, it may actually be a bad idea.
Backing up is always a good recommendation, when working with any electronic system

Thanks. Any idea if it's ok to move the .apk files? (Could be my OCD but I like things tidy!!) Also, wondering what the situation with ota system updates now I've hacked the phone?...leave well alone or okay? Cheers.

Move apk files - from where to where? Out of /system/app? You could move apks you are certain of you will never need, but the only thing you will gain is - at most - a few megabytes of free space. There's no real performance gain to be had, that I've experienced, just the possibility of losing hair if you remove/rename something you need.
As for OTA updates, you can rename FOTA.apk - that's the package that takes care of those updates.

Got several .apks in the root of my sd card- quite happy to leave them there, I guess and I should avoid ota updates...also is it worth clearing out caches once in a while? Just looking to keep my phone as streamlined and snappy as pos without screwing anything up! I'm new to android so still learning the ropes ! Thanks again

Ah yes, apk files are just installation files. You can move them where-ever you wish, though I would not move them to internal storage.
I do not clear out cache, as I prefer features I use regularly, to be cached already, instead of having to load them from scratch. I have not noticed any performance degradation because of it.
And since I do not share my phone with others, there is no privacy issue to speak of. I do not mind sharing my browsing/twitter/market/auto-complete behaviour with myself.

[Q] There is insufficient space on this device

I have E4GT with Caulkins 2.9.1.
I have the following storage available on my device:
SD Card 24.25GB
USB Storage 3.25 GB
Device Memory 1.23 GB
I get the following error when trying to update apps, or install new apps:
"There is insufficient space on this device"
I have gone into settings>apps>google play> clear cache. -> no change
I have downloaded App Cache Cleaner app and cleared all cached files. -> no change

The error message is a lie written by a lazy programmer. What's actually happening is that the installation is trying to copy or move a file and can't. To circumvent this problem I have to enter root explorer and look for files related to the program I'm trying to upgrade and delete them. Sometimes I just find dangling files which aren't really needed; other times I have to delete the whole shebang and reinstall the program from scratch. One process that I've noticed can sometimes cause this problem is the auto-Odex routine that is available in the Development folder.
Bottom line though is that this problem has NOTHING to do with your available memory space.

Henri Blanche said:
The error message is a lie written by a lazy programmer. What's actually happening is that the installation is trying to copy or move a file and can't. To circumvent this problem I have to enter root explorer and look for files related to the program I'm trying to upgrade and delete them. Sometimes I just find dangling files which aren't really needed; other times I have to delete the whole shebang and reinstall the program from scratch. One process that I've noticed can sometimes cause this problem is the auto-Odex routine that is available in the Development folder.
Bottom line though is that this problem has NOTHING to do with your available memory space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do I find dangling files in explorer. Is there a was for me to determine which ones are wasted files?
before i read your reply i went into recovery and wiped cached and dalvik cache, thought it worked, because i was finally able to install or update about 3 apps, but then got the same error on the 4th app.
so those steps that have been suggested by others on different devices but with similar errors, did not resolve this issue on E4GT.
thanks for any additional help.

This may help http://bit.ly/GNQOZh take a read. I fought this a while ago and went nuts till I did what I describe.

It's usually, but not always, as simple as looking for files with the name of the program imbedded. The most recent program for me was AudioGalaxy.... so I just searched for and deleted any reference to the program that didn't look essential.
If you're REALLY stumped, then download a program from the Market like Log Viewer, which shows you the real-time system log of your Android operating system. That's how I discovered that a failed file copy was being misinterpreted as a full disc in the first place. It also will show you the name of the file being copied or moved and into which directory. Helpful hint: cut and paste the log into something like Notepad for easier reading.
By all means empty out your caches... but only to remove a potential file that's causing you a problem. Like I said, you haven't run out of free space.
Good luck!

A common source for this error is also that there are partitions on your phone that are not visible in the system settings, but which can fill up too.
If you open a console on your device, i.e. with terminal emulator, and type "df" you should see every partition and how much space is free on it.

leaderbuilder said:
This may help take a read. I fought this a while ago and went nuts till I did what I describe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did this earlier, and then downloaded App Cache Cleaner app and cleared all cached files which did not result in a solution...
im working on other suggestions from this thread

CandyIsYum said:
I did this earlier, and then downloaded App Cache Cleaner app and cleared all cached files which did not result in a solution...
im working on other suggestions from this thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App Cache Cleaner isn't really that thorough.
Try SD Maid.

CandyIsYum said:
I did this earlier, and then downloaded App Cache Cleaner app and cleared all cached files which did not result in a solution...
im working on other suggestions from this thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You 'cleared data' on the media and still had this issue? http://mikemartinezonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/03.png I've had this issue a few times with a few people- again it just happed to me yesterday! Seems that the media storage, media hub, oovoodo, and some others were taking up huge amounst of space. In fact my media storage was at 800MB until I cleared it. Especially noticed this for me after adding and removing media and swapping different sd cards.

leaderbuilder said:
You 'cleared data' on the media and still had this issue? ] I've had this issue a few times with a few people- again it just happed to me yesterday! Seems that the media storage, media hub, oovoodo, and some others were taking up huge amounst of space. In fact my media storage was at 800MB until I cleared it. Especially noticed this for me after adding and removing media and swapping different sd cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cleared the app cache there, and still had the issue. I also went into recovery and cleared cache, dalvik cache.
I didn't try the SDMaid method, so if someone else has this same problem, that may be a place to try.
I ended up starting with scratch with my device, and just upgraded to calkulin 2.9.2.
now my device is functioning as expected, and i can finally install angry birds space...

Well same problem shows up again.
updated to Calkulin 3.0, in hopes to resolve the problem, but still no go.
insufficient space when trying to install or update app from google play.
SD Card: 3.25GB Free / 29.7 GB
USB Storage: 7.29 Free / 11.50 GB
Device: 1.29 GB Free.
It's kind of annoying, is this something that would be resolved by going back to stock. This is getting a bit annoying.
thanks again.

Which app?
Edit: Have you tried clearing data for google play in settings/applications/all yet?
Sent from my SPH-D710 using XDA

[Q] Problem installing / uninstalling apps

Hi,
I tried to install Angry Birds Space last week, the download and installation seemed to complete normally, however once the installation was complete the app wasn't present and the memory the game uses (~24mb) was gone. I tried again the day after and the same thing happened. So I'm now down 48mb of RAM and my phone has started to freeze as there's only ~ 1mb of RAM free. I tried to uninstall the apps in the Manage Applications section but they don't seem to be listed there. Is there anyway I can find where these files are stored and delete them? I've already had to do a factory reset on my Desire twice in the 21 months I have it, I don't particularly want to do it again.
Thanks!

it happened to me too, are still with stock 2.3 (or 2.2) rom?
Best thing I could do was root and flash another rom, and it's really worthed

I'm still on 2.2. Did the same thing happen to you with Angry Birds Space or just in general?

No, I cannot rememeber what I was triyng to install (it was in dec!), and surely, that time, I had just applied the 2.3 offical update for desire (which btw is really awful).
Another thing you can do of course is uninstalling most of your app so that you sort of "clean" your memory, checking if any folder related to these app is really deleted from your sd (you can check in the system directory too, but I don't think you can delete folders without superuser permission). Then try to re-install everything.
Anyway, the suggestion is still the same: try a new rom

You probably just have to clear the cache of the market app, or you can use something like this to clear the cache of all apps
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.infolife.cache
If that doesn't work you can try to clear /data/local/download, that's where the market stores its downloads IIRC (don't know if you can clear it without root though)

Had the same problem. (Not with the same app as you have) but clearing the market cache did the trick for me
Sent from my GT-P7500 using XDA

[Q] Unexplained Consumed Memory

I bought this Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 SM-T210R for my mom its currently running kitkat 4.4.2 non rooted which I am about to fix here soon.
The problem is my mom hardly does anything on this facebook some books recipes and maybe 1 or 2 games and her church stuff and for some ungodly reason it keeps telling her she has low memory around 775mb left and it wont install anything else.
I put a 16gig sd in it for her and moved everything possible over to the SD cleared all the cache from all apps and have gone to the extent of restoring it to factory and it still keeps doing the same thing.
My only thoughts are root it with custom recovery and wipe it that way and reinstall the firmware but that is a extreme I would only do in a worst case scenario.
If anyone has any idea's I would appreciate it this isnt my first rodeo with android devices I am not a complete novice I have rooted my phones in the past including my current galaxy s4 so I am open for any and all ideas.
Thanks,
West

Need like 1 gig left on device on samsung device if that come from playstore.

nannaniel said:
Need like 1 gig left on device on samsung device if that come from playstore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea I am aware of that part my problem is I keep wiping the tablet and restoring to factory and within a couple hours it tells me it has full memory or low storage space again.
I went to the extent of deleting the non needed folders such as downloads images dcim etc and letting the system remake them assuming they were the culprits I also went into the Android\Obb
and also Android\Data and cleaned out the stuff that did not need to be there on my last factory restore.
And No matter what I do upon resetting back to factory the space gets consumed within a couple hours and that's only just browsing the web and clearing the cache when done.

W,
hi, if you have a large amount of pictures/video, it may be gallery
generating/regenerating thumbnails in /sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails.
Check the size of that directory, if that's the case delete the directory and replace it
with a dummy file named .thumbnails an set it's permissions to read-only
i ask because if your moms got hymns etc. that are actually in an image format instead of text
those will have thumbnails, the same with some ebooks.
Replacing .thumbnails with a fake .thumbnails will only make gallery run a little slower.
Many apps do the same thing, generating images in hidden folders on your sdcard for caching ads etc.
m

Dumped all apps but one, still "critically low on storage" Help

Hi there. I just signed up thinking this was an Amazon Firestick forum. Looks like it's a lot more than that.
Maybe you can point me in the right direction, maybe not.
My firestick keeps telling me its critically low on storage and to remove apps. I have removed every app I cam remove except one. I have cleared every cache. No luck So with one app and every cache cleared it still isn't happy. What can I do?

When you go to FireOS settings / My FireTV / About, how much space is actually available?
The suggestion to remove apps is generic, and you may have a bunch of files taking up space elsewhere. Download a file manager app like Total Commander or MiXplorer and check to see if you have accumulated files in the Download folder.
Also check the rest of the internal storage one folder up (storage/emulated/0). Some apps may have left behind a folder with their own downloads. For example the Downloader app, creates a 'Downloader' folder where it puts anything downloaded through that app.

littleharbor2 said:
Hi there. I just signed up thinking this was an Amazon Firestick forum. Looks like it's a lot more than that.
Maybe you can point me in the right direction, maybe not.
My firestick keeps telling me its critically low on storage and to remove apps. I have removed every app I cam remove except one. I have cleared every cache. No luck So with one app and every cache cleared it still isn't happy. What can I do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try reset to factory defaults, that should wipe all the garbage left out by other apps

arana1 said:
Try reset to factory defaults, that should wipe all the garbage left out by other apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Problem is if I reset it will wipe out the one app I can't afford to lose.

It might still be easier to install a file manager and browse through the stick to find out where the space has gone.

Thank you1