Develop Bugs

[Q] Memory Storage issues and SD card Install

Hi
My phone recently received the O2 Froyo update and i have been enjoying it thoroughly. i have installed countless apps on it and as expected i started facing storage issues. I was surprised because i thought now all apps would be installed on SD card. Went in to Manage Apps section and all apps were installed on device RAM taking up any where between 10Kb to 8 Mb per each App.
Also found the transfer to SD card option. Decided to shift all apps to SDCard through this option. This did not solve my problem and its still showing the "phone storage is low alert".
What i noticed was an app that was taking up 8+mb on phone memory before transfer to SD card, only showed 200-300Kb size on SD card... Does this mean that the app is still on phone memory? should i wipe phone/SD card and install everything manually via PC?
Please help, i would like to hold on to the apps that i have on the phone.
Thanks.

Taimur said:
Hi
My phone recently received the O2 Froyo update and i have been enjoying it thoroughly. i have installed countless apps on it and as expected i started facing storage issues. I was surprised because i thought now all apps would be installed on SD card. Went in to Manage Apps section and all apps were installed on device RAM taking up any where between 10Kb to 8 Mb per each App.
Also found the transfer to SD card option. Decided to shift all apps to SDCard through this option. This did not solve my problem and its still showing the "phone storage is low alert".
What i noticed was an app that was taking up 8+mb on phone memory before transfer to SD card, only showed 200-300Kb size on SD card... Does this mean that the app is still on phone memory? should i wipe phone/SD card and install everything manually via PC?
Please help, i would like to hold on to the apps that i have on the phone.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when using the move to sd function on froyo, its only the apps .apk that is stored on the sd card... all the app data is still stored in the /data/data/ directory in the devices internal storage

AndroHero said:
when using the move to sd function on froyo, its only the apps .apk that is stored on the sd card... all the app data is still stored in the /data/data/ directory in the devices internal storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what is the solution?

There is no solution, you could root and flash a rom with apps2sd+
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

AndroHero said:
There is no solution, you could root and flash a rom with apps2sd+
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And you won't gain much more with that than with, for example, ModInstalllocation. I read that one guy reported that with app2sd+ only about 140 MB (of installed apps) went to sd card, while internal memory had been decreased by 120 MB. That's comparable with my results using stock Froyo a2sd + ModInstallLocation.

try deleting app's cache, click each app and delete the cache and then reboot phone.

You will only gain the space reclaimed by moving the dalvik cache to the ext partition.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

So it will not help if i wipe/format and fresh install Apps from the PC? When i googled this some of the results showed i should be installing from PC for proper installation over SD card.

i havent found a solution yet

So any solution to storage issues? Such a shame to have a half empty 16Gb mSD Card installed and be running out of app space...

only solution Ive found is to buy a newer device with more storage space lol. Shame as I really like the Desire.

What will happen if memory gets low, will the phone slow down?

[Q] Insufficient storage even though most apps have been linked to SD

Most apps are on the SD card and I still can't install new apps because of low storage. I think the stock email apps is causing problems because I sometimes get the message "delete old messages to download new ones".
When a program first installs, it installs on internal memory right? So there has to be enough room in internal memory before it can be moved to SD?

Exactly.
Don't forget app data (maybe dex and lib files too) is still in internal memory as well, unless you have used app to link those as well.
Check Settings - Applications to see, how much free space you have.
EDIT: Please be clear - did you link apps (ext partition) or did you move them (Android feature)? You use both wording, yet these are completely different.

Someguyfromhell said:
Exactly.
Don't forget app data (maybe dex and lib files too) is still in internal memory as well, unless you have used app to link those as well.
Check Settings - Applications to see, how much free space you have.
EDIT: Please be clear - did you link apps (ext partition) or did you move them (Android feature)? You use both wording, yet these are completely different.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
link apps using link2sd

imgoingtowin said:
link apps using link2sd
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you have the free version then you cannot link everything. do you have the free version?

imgoingtowin said:
Most apps are on the SD card and I still can't install new apps because of low storage. I think the stock email apps is causing problems because I sometimes get the message "delete old messages to download new ones".
When a program first installs, it installs on internal memory right? So there has to be enough room in internal memory before it can be moved to SD?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
clean your apps cashe regularly

Take a look here..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2162233
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1974972
They both worked great for me, I didn't use the link2sd anymore.

insufficient storage available

please help i cant install apps any more because it says "insufficient storage available"
i used apps 2 rom which transfers data to rom and after a month i deleted some apps and i free up my internal storage up to 2.2 gb
and after that i removed my apps from rom and they took a little space to my internal storage, still i have 2.1 gb free but it cannot download apps
My rom free: 316.6 mb
My internal storage free: 2.1 gb
But still cannot download an app
I have it Rooted. i know advanced in android
i dont have a memory card

cedie said:
please help i cant install apps any more because it says "insufficient storage available"
i used apps 2 rom which transfers data to rom and after a month i deleted some apps and i free up my internal storage up to 2.2 gb
and after that i removed my apps from rom and they took a little space to my internal storage, still i have 2.1 gb free but it cannot download apps
My rom free: 316.6 mb
My internal storage free: 2.1 gb
But still cannot download an app
I have it Rooted. i know advanced in android
i dont have a memory card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some apps look for percentage available instead of MB available or some nonsense.
Could also be that it needs to install some secured data, and that's going into a place you don't have enough space.
Also, if you had an app installed on external memory at some point, and you try to reinstall it, you'll get that error. Check your Application Manager for any apps that have the memory card icon on them. Those can cause problems.
Personally, I use Link2SD Plus, which requires an SD card. This allows you to move whole applications to a second partition of the SD card. Works well with the tab 3, and leaves me with lots of free space.
I'm assuming when you say ROM space free, you mean System partition space free? I only have about 9MB free on mine and it causes no problems.
Have had this issue on my phone before because the ROM itself locked the device as read-only, causing any app to give that error, and had to flash it again.
I had a bunch of unknown junk cluttering my user/data partition (they're the same physical area on the device), and had to wipe the "internal storage" and "data" from a custom recovery after backing up my data I cared about.
Hopefully this is informative, and hopefully someone else can be more helpful
Good luck to you

Greaper88 said:
Some apps look for percentage available instead of MB available or some nonsense.
Could also be that it needs to install some secured data, and that's going into a place you don't have enough space.
Also, if you had an app installed on external memory at some point, and you try to reinstall it, you'll get that error. Check your Application Manager for any apps that have the memory card icon on them. Those can cause problems.
Personally, I use Link2SD Plus, which requires an SD card. This allows you to move whole applications to a second partition of the SD card. Works well with the tab 3, and leaves me with lots of free space.
I'm assuming when you say ROM space free, you mean System partition space free? I only have about 9MB free on mine and it causes no problems.
Have had this issue on my phone before because the ROM itself locked the device as read-only, causing any app to give that error, and had to flash it again.
I had a bunch of unknown junk cluttering my user/data partition (they're the same physical area on the device), and had to wipe the "internal storage" and "data" from a custom recovery after backing up my data I cared about.
Hopefully this is informative, and hopefully someone else can be more helpful
Good luck to you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont know what it says but i think it means read-only memory, and my tablet has no recovery mode it only shows "downloading mode"

I don't know if this is a permanent solution but I noticed that I had no "OBB" file in "Android " on my "extsdcard". I created said file and moved all files from "OBB", "sdcard0" to new OBB file. I then started a program who's file I moved to new OBB and immediately closed. Then went back to original OBB to delete newly created file (double) for that app. Now all my apps download straight to extsdcard in the new OBB file. I can also move apps to SD card from app manager .
Let me know if it worked for you.
Sent from my SM-T230NU using XDA Free mobile app

cedie said:
i dont know what it says but i think it means read-only memory, and my tablet has no recovery mode it only shows "downloading mode"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you press Volume up+power+home button?
Sent from my SM-N910C using XDA Free mobile app

insufficient Internal storage

Hello..
I have htc desire 816 with 8gb of internal storage ....when i bought it,it had about 4gb free of that storage.....which is quite normal.
After buying it, I updated to lollipop 5.1 then i got it rooted......
Lately i've noticed the insufficient internal sotrage,so I've uninsalled ALL the apps and games from internal and external memory,however,that only freed up about 2 gb of the intrrnal storage ....so what is taking all that space despite there is No apps ....I know that the system files are taking some space....but those files only took 4gb when i bought the phone
Now i don't have any apps ,However, there is only free 1.8gb
I tried using clean master,but it only cleaned about 300mb of junks and cache

This is strictly a personal opinion but you should lose Clean Master and anything else made by Cheetah Mobile.
As for your storage issues... You state you've rooted. Have you done a backup? If so, are you sure your recovery is saving backups to the external storage?
Sent from my YOGA Tablet 2-830F using Tapatalk

Ibrahim elhossiny said:
Hello..
I have htc desire 816 with 8gb of internal storage ....when i bought it,it had about 4gb free of that storage.....which is quite normal.
After buying it, I updated to lollipop 5.1 then i got it rooted......
Lately i've noticed the insufficient internal sotrage,so I've uninsalled ALL the apps and games from internal and external memory,however,that only freed up about 2 gb of the intrrnal storage ....so what is taking all that space despite there is No apps ....I know that the system files are taking some space....but those files only took 4gb when i bought the phone
Now i don't have any apps ,However, there is only free 1.8gb
I tried using clean master,but it only cleaned about 300mb of junks and cache
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the same issue. The firmware is in it's own partition with room for updates but some of those files fill up your internal storage as well, they did for me when I updated so the solutions are either use a root file explorer or Titanium Backup app to move some user apps to system apps , use the forum here in XDA for altering your SElinux permissions and enable write permissions to your system partition(WP.MOD_KO) so that you can use Link2SD app to move your user apps to your external SD card or pay to obtain full S off using the Sunshine app and have those permissions plus more enabled at the system level so that you can also use Link2SD app to move user apps to the external SD card.
The last 2 methods are the most used and also require you to reformat your external SD card into 2 partitions using EaseUS PARTITION MANAGER on a P.C. Instructions for doing this are easy and available on Youtube and Google if you want to read them instead. These are really the only ways to help your storage issue other than just not using very many apps. I chose the full S off method and Link2SD but the other works it just alters your SElinux permissions and has to be removed to do stock updates whereas S off doesn't affect stock updates. Only system file changes do like the mod I described.
I also echo the previous posters thoughts on Cleanmaster and most all "task killing" apps. Android has built in RAM management that does a good job on its own of managing memory and there is the on screen square button on the right that shows you open apps and tabs and allows you to quickly close them all out. You'd be better off regulating Wavelocks using Amplify app and Greenify to freeze apps from staying on . Root required and there are paid version but the basics are free in both apps.
I had a brain f**t and misread that you've uninstalled "all" of your apps so the previous poster might be onto something if you've done any TWRP nandroid backups to internal instead of micro storage. They can take up to 2 to 4 gbs just on their own even with compression enabled. If you haven't and even if you have my previous info and advice is still accurate for improved storage space.

On my phone, the .thumbnails folder in DCIM takes 1 GB...

TobiBot said:
On my phone, the .thumbnails folder in DCIM takes 1 GB...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah mine says 550 mb total in thumb data but it is not pictures from my camera like the other few kbs are. Can't open it so I wonder if it's some sort of cache for something else. Don't know all the ins and outs of the Android file structure but I do know that when I started flashing custom roms,CM in particular, my internal storage went up due to the lack of bloatware coming from my stock Rom. Good to know this though. Not going to delete it though for now till I find out what it is.

Some Facts About Thumbnails
thoctor said:
Yeah mine says 550 mb total in thumb data but it is not pictures from my camera like the other few kbs are. Can't open it so I wonder if it's some sort of cache for something else. Don't know all the ins and outs of the Android file structure but I do know that when I started flashing custom roms,CM in particular, my internal storage went up due to the lack of bloatware coming from my stock Rom. Good to know this though. Not going to delete it though for now till I find out what it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some Apps, like WhatsApp save pics in .thumbnails to work smooth, i think.
You can delete them, but they will create themselves at the next boot again, i also tried to write an init.d script which deletes them at boot, but it doesnt work.
Also if you create a file ".thumbnails" which isnt writable, the system doesnt give you the space
Ive read something about creating this file before first boot after flashing so it works, but i havent tried it...
Damn thumbnails
Sorry if my english is horrible ^^

TobiBot said:
Some Apps, like WhatsApp save pics in .thumbnails to work smooth, i think.
You can delete them, but they will create themselves at the next boot again, i also tried to write an init.d script which deletes them at boot, but it doesnt work.
Also if you create a file ".thumbnails" which isnt writable, the system doesnt give you the space
Ive read something about creating this file before first boot after flashing so it works, but i havent tried it...
Damn thumbnails
Sorry if my english is horrible ^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your English is perfectly fine. Better even than some to whom English is their "first" language. Thanks for that breakdown and I bet that's what it is. I forgot about the apps storing their stock images in your phone. I used to love using the app called Pocket until I found that it stores all the saved links and images directly on your phone. I saved almost a full gb by deleting it finally. Great app other than that and if I had a device with more storage I'd still have it on my phone instead of just my computer. This is all why it pays to be curious about your own phone storage and learn how to navigate a good root file explorer.

Fix Other Storage bug?

Hey guys,
[e] Do i have to 'install' the new storage layout?
I'm sure everyone knows that problem, that the internal memory is getting filled by 'other storage'. My HOX shows me that my internal memory (app memory? have german version here) is using 4,75GB 'Other' memory out of the 6,76GB memory. Sure there I have left ~25GB of 'Phone storage' or how it's called in english.
I want back some free space out of that 'other storage' which takes 4,75GB because as soon as it reaches that 6,76GB I cannot install apps anymore. I'm sure you know what my problem is? I took a lot of time now to search for solutions an did a complete root and have installed CWM, ViperX and did factory resets / wipe data, everything.
Is there no way to get back that memory space? File explorer apps only show me that I have free 1,9GB/2GB of max internal memory but It should be 1,9GB/6,76GB?
Thanks for your help.

Diluvian said:
Hey guys,
[e] Do i have to 'install' the new storage layout?
I'm sure everyone knows that problem, that the internal memory is getting filled by 'other storage'. My HOX shows me that my internal memory (app memory? have german version here) is using 4,75GB 'Other' memory out of the 6,76GB memory. Sure there I have left ~25GB of 'Phone storage' or how it's called in english.
I want back some free space out of that 'other storage' which takes 4,75GB because as soon as it reaches that 6,76GB I cannot install apps anymore. I'm sure you know what my problem is? I took a lot of time now to search for solutions an did a complete root and have installed CWM, ViperX and did factory resets / wipe data, everything.
Is there no way to get back that memory space? File explorer apps only show me that I have free 1,9GB/2GB of max internal memory but It should be 1,9GB/6,76GB?
Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recommend go for the new layout

Thanks for the reply, I already changed to the new layout and flashed XenonHD onto the phone. Still some problems there but at least the memory problems are solved.