[Q] Can't free space on my phone? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My phone is NOT rooted.
Few days ago, it started saying not enough storage space, uninstall some programs, 200 mb left free.
First of all, i moved what can be moved from phone to SD, and actually i was already doing that since i bought the phone (2 months ago), and still it didn't help.
So i uninstalled programs which can't be moved from phone, cleared all cache and some data, and had 240 mb free.
Now it's back again to 188 mb free! And i calculated the sum of the downloaded programs and they don't get past 100 mb! I don't understand? Why a 2 GB memory get used up like that?
Further more, one of the programs i had was 7 mb, and when i uninstalled it, it freed only 1 mb!
Do these programs gather some data in a way that can't be deleted?

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first of all, moving apps 2 sd does not really make sense. then, your 2gb data partition, that is meant for apps stays empty, while you waste space on your sdcard, which could be used for files of all sorts, like music, pictures and video.
since obviously, in your case, something went wrong, you should format the /data/ partition. without root privileges, it is not that easy to do though. apparently, you are not very attached to your apps' data, since you said you deleted most of that. if you have backed up everything else, like contacts, calendar and so on to your google account, make a backup of your sms and then the sdcard to your pc through usb and perform a full factory reset, then when you set up your phone, your apps will be downloaded again and should not waste as much space anymore.

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My USB storage is 12 GB, and SD card is 32: i am not worried about that. Actually i prefer nothing to be on the 2 GB of system storage, even apps! I just don't understand: what eats up the root partition like that? I don't want it to happen again. I will do what you said, but i need to prevent this from happening again. You know what could have done this?

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MagnumJoe said:
My USB storage is 12 GB, and SD card is 32: i am not worried about that. Actually i prefer nothing to be on the 2 GB of system storage, even apps! I just don't understand: what eats up the root partition like that? I don't want it to happen again. I will do what you said, but i need to prevent this from happening again. You know what could have done this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perusing your past posts, it appears you have an I9100G.
This may be of some interest to you. You will need root in order to even see if this is your problem, though; not to mention in order to implement the workaround presented in that thread.

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why in the world would you want the 2gb data partition to be empty. it is on the same physical internal sdcard as the 12gb partition?

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Chef_Tony said:
why in the world would you want the 2gb data partition to be empty. it is on the same physical internal sdcard as the 12gb partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No no! I am not partitioning anything! The phone's settings are this way!? The internal memory is: 2 GB system memory: which has the system files, which are full and i can't access these 2 GB because they are system storage and i am not rooted, and 14 GB called "USB" Storage. I didn't do this partition. And i want to keep these 2 GB free for system only, not even apps or anything.
Edit: sorry i thought the thread was irrelevant, but it is relevant. But i don't understand: that dump file, what does it do? I am not following what thy are saying? Also i have another problem: I don't know how to back up my phone while Kies and my PC both utterly refuse to recognize my phone. I gave up on them. It's useless.

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MagnumJoe said:
No no! I am not partitioning anything! The phone's settings are this way!? The internal memory is: 2 GB system memory: which has the system files, which are full and i can't access these 2 GB because they are system storage and i am not rooted, and 14 GB called "USB" Storage. I didn't do this partition. And i want to keep these 2 GB free for system only, not even apps or anything.
Edit: sorry i thought the thread was irrelevant, but it is relevant. But i don't understand: that dump file, what does it do? I am not following what thy are saying? Also i have another problem: I don't know how to back up my phone while Kies and my PC both utterly refuse to recognize my phone. I gave up on them. It's useless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The issues are related. The dump file being generated is saved to the /data partition, which is part of the 2gb system storage. This is what is eating up your space in the 2gb. The 2gb is for system apps, installed apps, etc. The dump file is more or less an error log dump. It is supposed to stay relatively small, but on some versions of GB for the i9100G, this for some strange reason (that I don't know, since I don't have an i9100G) grows erroneously large.
The workaround detailed in the thread I linked above is to remove execute permissions from the dumpstate file. This has the effect of the system being unable to create the wifi dump file, thus no longer eating up the space on that 2gb partition.

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ctomgee said:
The issues are related. The dump file being generated is saved to the /data partition, which is part of the 2gb system storage. This is what is eating up your space in the 2gb. The 2gb is for system apps, installed apps, etc. The dump file is more or less an error log dump. It is supposed to stay relatively small, but on some versions of GB for the i9100G, this for some strange reason (that I don't know, since I don't have an i9100G) grows erroneously large.
The workaround detailed in the thread I linked above is to remove execute permissions from the dumpstate file. This has the effect of the system being unable to create the wifi dump file, thus no longer eating up the space on that 2gb partition.
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Click to collapse
Read only, either by adb or terminal. Now what? That G variation should be burned alive! I found the dump files, they are text logs for god's sake! And they are freaking huuuge! What the hell?

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MagnumJoe said:
Read only, either by adb or terminal. Now what? That G variation should be burned alive! I found the dump files, they are text logs for god's sake! And they are freaking huuuge! What the hell?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my post above. (post 4)
ctomgee said:
Perusing your past posts, it appears you have an I9100G.
This may be of some interest to you. You will need root in order to even see if this is your problem, though; not to mention in order to implement the workaround presented in that thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if you see the file, I can only assume you are rooted? Then delete the file.
Follow directions in the linked thread to prevent further dump files from being created.

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ctomgee said:
From my post above. (post 4)
So if you see the file, I can only assume you are rooted? Then delete the file.
Follow directions in the linked thread to prevent further dump files from being created.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ummm... I deleted the dumpstate file, and then when i do the adb trick or the terminal one, it says: Bad mode?

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MagnumJoe said:
Ummm... I deleted the dumpstate file, and then when i do the adb trick or the terminal one, it says: Bad mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It really says "Bad mode"?
I take it you read post 10 of the thread I linked above?
If you are having issues with adb, then use option c from that post. You need to mount /system as R/W before you will be allowed to change permissions on the dumpstate file though.
EDIT: wait a sec. You actually DELETED the /system/bin/dumpstate file? Well, I wouldn't have done that, but that should also solve your problem, since now the file just doesn't exist, so no more dump files will get generated. It also would probably be the reason you can't change permissions on that file. Since you deleted it, it doesn't exist anymore, so you can no longer change permissions on it. ( :facepalm: )
The file(s) I was telling you to delete was whatever wifi dump files were in /data. NOT the /system/bin/dumpstate file. I was saying you just needed to remove execute permission from that file so it would be unable to generate any more dump files.

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ctomgee said:
It really says "Bad mode"?
I take it you read post 10 of the thread I linked above?
If you are having issues with adb, then use option c from that post. You need to mount /system as R/W before you will be allowed to change permissions on the dumpstate file though.
EDIT: wait a sec. You actually DELETED the /system/bin/dumpstate file? Well, I wouldn't have done that, but that should also solve your problem, since now the file just doesn't exist, so no more dump files will get generated. It also would probably be the reason you can't change permissions on that file. Since you deleted it, it doesn't exist anymore, so you can no longer change permissions on it. ( :facepalm: )
The file(s) I was telling you to delete was whatever wifi dump files were in /data. NOT the /system/bin/dumpstate file. I was saying you just needed to remove execute permission from that file so it would be unable to generate any more dump files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh! I misunderstood you. No of course i tried this adb thing before deleting it. And it said bad mode. Then i deleted it. Isn't this a file to give the command of making these dump files about wifi error? To hell with it! What would i do with that anyway? Nothing wrong will happen. It's like ending the dumprep.exe process on windows xp. And by the way, even when i did the R/W thing, it still said that the file is Read only, and i can't access its permissions. That I9100G is a pain in the freaking a$$: it always needs a "special" kind of everything!
Thank you very much anyway for your help That was too the point and very professional It's sure that you will have my thanks.

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MagnumJoe said:
No no! I am not partitioning anything! The phone's settings are this way!? The internal memory is: 2 GB system memory: which has the system files, which are full and i can't access these 2 GB because they are system storage and i am not rooted, and 14 GB called "USB" Storage. I didn't do this partition. And i want to keep these 2 GB free for system only, not even apps or anything.
Edit: sorry i thought the thread was irrelevant, but it is relevant. But i don't understand: that dump file, what does it do? I am not following what thy are saying? Also i have another problem: I don't know how to back up my phone while Kies and my PC both utterly refuse to recognize my phone. I gave up on them. It's useless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the entire storage inside the phone is one 16GB sd card which is built into the phone. there are different partitions on there:
your system is on the 1GB partition /system/, your rom, your system apps and settings are stored there.
then there is a 2GB partition /data/, that is exclusively for user installed apps and their data, from the play store for instance.
there are some other minor partitions and then there is about 12GB of "usb storage", shown as /sdcard/.
if you don't use the /data/ partition for apps, it will remain entirely empty and unused. and in the last sentence of the first paragraph you state you want it for the system, but that does not work, the /system/ partition will always be 1GB and not use /data/.
Another reason I asked and informed you of the fact that it is the same card is, some people think, app2sd is faster, or slower or makes any difference whatsoever to the system, but it is the same card, same speed, only that app2sd wastes space.
i know, this still does not do anything about your problem, but is meant purely for your information, so in the future you can make an informed decision, where what data goes and that you should use the data partition.
i currently have 130 apps installed (some of which are games of >40MB), all internally and use 1GB of the /data/ partition, at the most i had 340 apps (most of them rather small though) and it still was not full.