I own a Nokia 6, never rooted, 8.1.0 with the latest security patch installed (1 August 2018).
I have 32 GB internal shared storage and 64 GB microSD card installed. Be it a good or bad idea, I have formatted the card as internal storage, and migrated data to it using options available in Android settings, no third party shenanigans.
When I look at apps' details, those that have the option to choose storage signify that they are on sdcard.
Now, to the problem: I approached about half of used space on the sdcard, that's a bit over 32 GB, and I'm closing in on about half on the internal shared storage, that's about 13.4 GB used at the moment.
However, even though it would look like I have lots of unused space left, the phone started to act as if I don't have any. But... Not always. Let me elaborate.
I can't make a picture or record video, all I get is: "there was a problem with saving your photo or video."
I can't download files using a browser. It instantly fails.
I can't install apps from Google Play Store like "Google" and many others, however, I can install some other apps, seemingly at random (but if it fails, of keeps failing).
I can - because I just did - download security patches from settings/system updates....
From the above I speculate without any specific Android knowledge that:
- the internal shared storage isn't a single partition spanning the whole of built-in memory but rather is partitioned into multiple... Well, parts, therefore:
- there's probably a /system, /data and /user partition (forgive the layman guesswork on the names). There's probably also a /swap like in *nix? Then again, I guess not because that would probably slowly kill internal storage flash memory...
Anyway, from the above I gather that the simplistic reporting on how much internal storage I used doesn't let me know that I might have ran out of space on one of those discrete partitions.
That might explain why some apps I can install (they can be installed in external storage, so they do) and some I can't (they need to be on internal storage for whatever reason).
I have tried looking at the app info to maybe move apps to SD card but any and all I check either don't have the option or they already are on SD.
I tried deleting files and removing apps with various results:
- some files I just can't remove, even though they don't appear to be in use (still, maybe they have handles open, I don't know how to check for that apart of forcing suspected apps close)
- some apps (HERE Maps) left a considerable amount of junk in Android/data after themselves, and none of my file managers seem to be able to delete these files.
- some files and apps deleted just fine and the used space indicator did reflect that, however...
I still can't save a photo or video, or download a file, and apps still either install or not, just like before.
That got me thinking that there may be a problem with file/directory permissions for some bizarre reason.
I'm stumped. I'm on the go, visiting Milan tomorrow and I won't be able to take a single photo. Not that Nokia 6 has a great camera, but it's there and I can't use it when I need it.
Halp?
A little bump
So, am I truly sentenced to factory reset?
Hidden Android dialer codes don't work at all... I think I'm out of options here.
Update: So I did end up doing the factory reset. Afterward, my phone started to work fine, with the exception of the microSD card that always showed up in the notification area as needing of attention. I tried formatting it as portable, and it would supposedly work if you went by the final "success" message, but it wouldn't change anything, and it would still not show up in file manager. The notification about it needing to be set up would still be there, no matter how many times I tried.
So I took the card out and connected it to a PC - tried formatting it, deleting and recreating all partitions, wiping it out, all supposedly would work in partition managers, but after the things were all done, it wouldn't reflect on the actual card.
Seems like it was dying already.... Fortunately, I had a 32GB card to spare, got it into the phone. Worked on the first try.
So that's all folks, my 64GB microSD card died on me, and that's the reason of all the anguish above. Now you know.
Related
Hi
Sorry not a high tech question but would appreciate some help
Re. my viewpad 7
Seems to be constantly short of inbuilt memory.
(should be 512mb)
was down to zero today though have not addded anything for a while.
Clearing cache and history via browser took it back up to 8 mb but already with an hours use down to 6mb again.
Have moved everything that Apps manager allows over to the (16GB) SD card, which still has lots of space.
Neither of the "File Explorer" or "Settings/SD card and phone storage" routes let me actually see what's in phone memory.
Pad is "as bought" re rom's etc
Would appreciate any help.
thx
Russ
It's got 512mb total, which is split over different partitions.
You are running out of space on the /data partition, try uninstalling some apps, or use an app like apps2sd to move some to your sd card.
Thanks for quick response but have tried deleting a few apps and have already moved everything that can be moved onto sd card
have downloaded a couple of versions of app2sd apps 2sd etc but they do not offer any more suggestions on apps that can be moved as I say I have aready moved all that seem moveable
It does seem that it's some sort of data thats the problem but I can't see into the inbuilt memory to see what data it is or from what app
rgds
russ
It is stupid Android. When you move apps to SD, than still some (usualy bigger) parts is still in internal memory. When you move apps to SD, than info about occupied space is valid only for occupied space on SD by the apps. If you want to know how big is the application than you have to move back to internal memory, than info is correct.
Also some updating of system apss can consume very big space of internal memory. For example Aldiko can occupy 6MB !!!!
The problem is, when you install a new app either from Android Market, Amazon App Store or anywhere else, the system retains the .apk install file somewhere in memory. I'm yet to find where those files are stored.
You can use a file manager like Astro File manager to see all the files on your viewpad 7's internal memory however, manipulating those files is a bit trickier. I thought I found them in a \sys\data directory or something like that but the system refuses to let me delete them.
Does anyone know for certain where these .apk files are stored. I've deleted/moved everything I can and am down to the apps that I need on the unit. If I have to delete more, then there is no sense having a small form-factor tablet. The space that is being used is far above the applications that I have installed so there has to be garbage files somewhere that need cleaned up.
Hi all
I have just installed CyanogenMod 7 on my HTC Desire.
I partitioned my 16GB Class 10 MicroSD card into a 14GB FAT32 partition and a 2GB ext3 partition. I installed DarkTremor's apps2sd scripts, and the apps2sd gui. I set it to save apps to the SD card, and to move the dalvik cache to the SD card.
Everything was working well: I was able to install apps, and they were going to the SD card (had they not, I would have hit the limit of the Desire's internal storage!). Rebooting didn't negatively affect anything - I rebooted several times and the apps were still there.
Then, when I opened the Theme Explorer, the phone just hung. It didn't respond to any input, from the touch screen to pressing or long pressing the power button. Eventually, in desperation, I took the battery out to do a hard reset.
When the phone booted back up, all the apps I had just installed were gone. Their icons remained on the homepage, but with the generic Android icon instead of their actual icon. They were missing from the ADWLauncher panel. The apps are still present in the list of apps, but are missing their icons and proper names. Instead they are displayed with a generic Android icon, and their "long-form" name, for example "com.amazon.kindle".
In addition to all the apps I had installed being missing, certain apps that came with CyanogenMod were also missing, such as: ROM Manager and the program that lists the apps with root permissions (I forget the name). Also, the Market application is missing. However, the calendar, messages, Google Talk, Theme Chooser, etc are all still present and working.
I tried rebooting the phone multiple times, as well as unmounting and remounting the SD card, with no improvement.
Using the terminal emulator, I can see that /sd-ext still has five directories: app, app-private, dalvik-cache, data, lost+found. However, all these directories, including the /sd-ext/app directory, are empty.
Running a2sd reinstall goes through the list of apps, but for each app that is missing, it says that it cannot find the .apk file for that app.
I suppose, then, that I have two questions:
1. Can I restore my apps somehow?
2. If not, and I have to reinstall, how can I prevent this from happening again?
(At the root of both of these is the question "why did this happen?" so if anyone knows that, that would be a great help too!)
Thank you all in advance - please let me know if there's any other information I can provide.
I have a similar problem with my Samsung Galaxy S2 on Sprint. I used Apps2SD by Sam Lu to move many of my apps over to my new 32 gig SD Card. After a bit I realized that I had moved many of the apps over that should have stayed on the main internal storage, mainly because of widgets. So I moved many of them back.
Shortly after doing that I was at a retreat with my phone on airplane mode to preserve battery life. I took some pictures and videos, read my Kindle app and Bible and then plugged it in to charge. The next day several of the pictures and videos I took showed up as a black icon and were not accessible. Then I noticed that all the apps that I had moved to the SD card were "greyed out" and even some of the apps that I had moved back to the internal storage. The phone then told me the SD card needed to be formatted.
Since then I have tried to use file recovery software to recover missing files on the SD card and it finds hundreds of photos and several videos, but nothing else. So the big question is, where are my apps? I hope you find a solution to your issue because it may be the same solution for my issue.
Sincerely,
Nathan
Hi there, noob speaking... (at least in terms of Android)
Let's start with the fact that I bought rooted phone with Cyanogenmod alredy installed which is my 1st Android device. That way I omitted few steps of learning how to root, how to flash it, etc. not to mention that I'm not a Linux guy, so even the way system handles folders and files is new for me. As the problem is more phone-related than system-related I'm posting it here, on XDA.
I'm trying to learn how to partition an "internal SD card" to make it work with Link2SD. I've found lots of tutorials how to do this with an external memory card, but there is not much info about doing the same with internal storage. I've found a tutorial for a diffrent phone, but I'm worried that droid devices seem to be very diffrent and simply retyping everything without understanding what I'm actually doing may cause more harm than good.
My biggest objection is the fact that I'm alredy using my internal SD and beside various media files (photos, music, etc.) there are lots of system, or app related stuff there. There are folders like .android_secure which as I guess store app-related files (or even parts of apps that I moved to SD with build-in feature). If this was Windows, I'd simply back up everything, format it, partition into "general storage" and "app memory" and put backed up files back directly onto new partition only worrying to keep correct letters assigned to new partitions. I'm preety sure that doing same in Android (by copying everything to PC and back to phone) would not work because all those permisions, or am I wrong?
Anyway - Any advice how to do this?
Additional question is related to accessing whole phone memory via PC connected by USB. I know that Android phones are made with security in mind and "system" partition is hidden when connecting USB, but there should be some other way than browsing everything from some phone apps with root permissions. I'd really like to browse my phone both for educational reasons and to check what really takes up space on my "system storage". I'm suspecting that some app went crazy eating lots of space, because once every time I uninstalled something my storage after few minutes was again at 20mb level and it continiued for some time.
BTW: Is there any reason why having about 200mb empty space for apps is not enough to install or update some small applications, while other install even when just 100mb is left?
Tl;dr:
-How to partition internal SD to make it work with link2sd while there are some system/app files on internal SD alredy?
-How to browse "system memory" from PC via USB?
-Why some apps don't install when there is still 200mb+ free space?
Hey guys,
(running Xperia Z2 on Cyanogenmod version cm-11-20141206-NIGHTLY)
i know, i know. this question was asked a thousand times before and most of the time the solution was simple. but it seems, like the xperia Z2 has a different reason for this behaviour. i bought the 16 GB Version a couple days ago and the Power of this thing is incredibly, considering i had a Samsung Wave II before.
installed a few apps like Instagram, Twitter, etc. and tried out some games. of course, running them was no struggle for this Flagship, of course. but soon, my storage was already full. After uninstalling the huge games and some smaller apps, cleaning up the leftovers, clearing the cache, rebooting...still "insufficient storage available".
Turns out around 7 GB of Storage were used by "other" files, says android. so i hit up "other", check every file in there, delete 'em, reboot - still the same problem.
next thought: maybe 16 GB just isn't enough for all the background data that comes together after installing a few apps. so i put a 32 GB micro SD in, tried Link2SD. which failed. would post a screenshot but i don't run Android in English.
Says something like "App2SD is not support by your device, because its primary external memory is emulated from the interal storage."
i'm not familiar with unix and it's data system, but to me, this sounds like a plugged in micro sd would be added to the internal storage. which would make linking apps unneccessary. but then, i wouldn't have this storage problem.
i didn't need to make a swap/linking partition on my SD card before, but maybe i need to do it for this phone.
downloading partition app...surprisingly successfully, tried to reformat, delete all partitions, create a big one for private storage and about 8 GB for the swap. failed. every app i tried just wouldn't work. no errors, just won't apply the changes. i tried it with the SD card mounted and unmounted. i made sure i was going to partition the SD card, not the internal memory.
this is depressing and really takes the fun out of a Overkill-Phone like this.
i hated the bloated and customized Sony UI on the original Firmware, but i didn't have a storage problem. but i shouldn't need to "downgrade" just because of this bug.
could it be the development progress on this phone? i'm running a nightly, but there are no stable versions yet. but this stuff worked with an unofficial port, on an really outdated phone.
My Device:
I am using a Galaxy S7 SM-G930F 32GB Exynos running IronMan-Rom V1.2.0 and have TWRP 3.0.2-4 and the phone is rooted.
The Issue:
Something is using 13.85GB on my internal SD/Storage (see attached screenshots) I discovered this yesterday lunch time and have since spent a few hours on here and other forums across the inter-webs trying to get to the bottom of the issue. To try and discount and head off any none relevant data/answers related o the issue below is a list of what I have done so far -
Its no app cache related, because wiping the delvic and data cache from TWRP did nothing to change the other storage figure.
I deleted every scrape of data from the internal Storage/SD manually and also wiped internal Storage/SD from TWRP and no effect.
Its not app related and I have checked all my app caches and the 10 largest don't account for a fraction of the 13.85GB.
Auto update in the Google play has always been set to disable since I installed the ROM, so it not caching anything
I type *#9900# and deleted the dev/cat log, and this made no difference.
I tried SD maid, It found 2GB which I removed, didn't effect the internal storage and just broke google play services causing to it to constantly FC - utterly pointless app.
I have tried several other SD tools (SD tools, OneTool, CCleaner and numbers our SD manager type apps from the playstore to name a few) to try and ascertain what exactly is using the space in the internal storage and nothing so far has shone any light on the subject.
I have manually rum TRIM via Lspeed app and that made no difference.
DiskUseage (see screenshot) is showing it as 'System Data', but I am unable to browse or select it - and it doesn't make any sense its called that either.
My knowledge of linux is limited, but I am wondering if the internal storage is an actual drive and not a symbolic link to another location, if that's the case where is the other location so I can see if I can clean out the phantom data from there.
Doing a factory reset does indeed remove the 'phantom' 13.85GB of data, but I absolutely do not see why this extreme measure has to be taken. There surely has to be a reasonable explanation and fix for this?! As I would prefer not to have to spend a chunk of my weekend setting up my bloody phone all over again due to have to factory reset.
So while doing another search on the playstore for tools to help me, I found a tool called 'Diskinfo' and this showed one of the mount names for the internal storage as /Data. I then reinstalled TotalCommander, did a properties check on that folder and found 17.GB of data in that folder. So am gonna painstakingly go through that folder to see if there is one that roughly matches the 13.85GB mentioned in the OP.
I then found the mysterious phantom data, it was all the files I have placed into 'privatemode' So as I now understand it (privateMode), instead of just encrypting the data where it was on the external SD card, it moves the data to the internal storage/SD card. So I will be looking for an alternative app to private mode.
Hey. I'm having that issue with a costumer. I would like to know how you erased and/or solve that problem. Thank You and very helpful info.
Eventually found file '0' using an app called SD Card Manager - Samsung Tab A Android 5. Removed 4gb of data. Excellent!
I seem to be having a similar issue on my s9, I've only had it since early February this year. My apps is only 10gb, and I have ~34gb of files that on there, yet my 60gb is nearly full
Can someone help me, please??
I have an Edge phone that has almost all of my Internal Storage gone!
I have 64.00 GB and 19.62GB is taken up by "Apps", how do I fix this??
I'm not using that many Apps, so I don't understand why this is happening....please help!
Ok so what if you are not using private mode? How do you remove this data without doing a hard reset? I can see it on my disk but can't get rid of it? I have never used private mode on my phone before, used CCleaner and there is still about 17 gigs worth of **** stuck on my phone.
b1k3rdude said:
So while doing another search on the playstore for tools to help me, I found a tool called 'Diskinfo' and this showed one of the mount names for the internal storage as /Data. I then reinstalled TotalCommander, did a properties check on that folder and found 17.GB of data in that folder. So am gonna painstakingly go through that folder to see if there is one that roughly matches the 13.85GB mentioned in the OP.
I then found the mysterious phantom data, it was all the files I have placed into 'privatemode' So as I now understand it (privateMode), instead of just encrypting the data where it was on the external SD card, it moves the data to the internal storage/SD card. So I will be looking for an alternative app to private mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, i have the same problem. Have you been able to recovery/find that data from the privatemode? My brother's S7e is on some Note8 rom and i can't find anything 'private mode' in the Settings. He has 300mb free of 24gb and literally not a single picture on his Internal storage.
Imotep95 said:
Hello, i have the same problem. Have you been able to recovery/find that data from the privatemode? My brother's S7e is on some Note8 rom and i can't find anything 'private mode' in the Settings. He has 300mb free of 24gb and literally not a single picture on his Internal storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just do a search in setting for 'private mode' and disable it, at some point your brother has enabled to password protect some files on the device.
More relevant info here - https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/what-is-private-mode-and-how-do-i-use-it/
All this is happening to me and my private mode is off. I literally copied and pasted all of my files from my phone storage onto the computer to relief the size, again, plus the CClear app, and the dent released around 2gb.
12gb is used on a 32gb phone, removing everything it is at 29.2gb maxed out.
This is nuts...
I clear my phone out every couple of months. Images to keep on the computer, removing unnessisary things. Private mode has always been disabled... What do I need to do?
Rrutwi363o said:
All this is happening to me and my private mode is off. I literally copied and pasted all of my files from my phone storage onto the computer to relief the size, again, plus the CClear app, and the dent released around 2gb.
12gb is used on a 32gb phone, removing everything it is at 29.2gb maxed out.
This is nuts...
I clear my phone out every couple of months. Images to keep on the computer, removing unnessisary things. Private mode has always been disabled... What do I need to do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sounds really familiar, any progress?
Is anybody know how to recover deleted files,images/photos?
My photos/images got deleted by SD maid
So when i use it i accidentally clicked something in SD maid that delete all of my images and photos
-My photos is gone
-whatsapp images is gone too
-photos , images is gone
Are they deleted permanently?
i tried recover apps in my phone , but all of that apps dint work..
Is there anyway to recover it??