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error: insufficient storage available?

Double44

Double44

Member
I'm trying to update a 4MB sized app called Tapatalk, but everytime I try to I get an error message (above). The app has always updated problem-free before, but I have no idea why it is refusing this time.

I've got nearly 6GB of SD space available and 128MB of System Storage left. Please help me make sense of this one.
 
Thanks for your response, well it seems the error isn't unique to Tapatalk.. I'm getting the error message on every other app that needs updating.
 
What type of device are you running? some devices, like Samsung, have a dedicated space for apps. no matter how much space you have left on the drive or the sd card, once that dedicated space is used up, no more apps :( What I do is clean out the caches and histories and can usually squeeze another app on there (or update). Also, I clean out my app drawer every so often, removing the ones I never use.
 
Thanks, Jeff! That really freed some space :-) I never would have thought about updates to apps I don't use.
 
shelliewnj said:
What type of device are you running? some devices, like Samsung, have a dedicated space for apps. no matter how much space you have left on the drive or the sd card, once that dedicated space is used up, no more apps :( What I do is clean out the caches and histories and can usually squeeze another app on there (or update). Also, I clean out my app drawer every so often, removing the ones I never use.
Click to expand...
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S, and it seems a little hard to believe that Samsung would limit the amount of apps people can use, System Storage should be the only threshold preventing a new app from installing, and I've got plenty of it. I'm not even installing a new app, I'm just updating (more like replacing) what has already been installed.

How do you clean out histories? I've cleaned out cache before, but I don't remember that doing anything special. If I'm not mistaken, the data in there is replaced when a new version has been downloaded..?
 
shelliewnj said:
Thanks, Jeff! That really freed some space
Click to expand...

Very welcome. That trick occurred to me in my early droid days, when I was installing everything that caught my eye and never considered their sizes to have the potential to interfere with my mighty Optimus.

We just have to remember, when visiting the playstore, to not tap their update pleas and to never tap Update All.
 
I've run into this a couple of times on my Galaxy S (Captivate). The problem seems to be caused when the installers in the data folder don't get deleted. So, the "insufficient storage" is actually at the OS level, not user storage.
 
Italo said:
I've run into this a couple of times on my Galaxy S (Captivate). The problem seems to be caused when the installers in the data folder don't get deleted. So, the "insufficient storage" is actually at the OS level, not user storage.
Click to expand...
hmm.. how do you fix something like that? is it as simple as digging inside some hidden folders and deleting some stuff?

I really want to fix this error, it's quickly cutting down on the Android experience :(
 
jefboyardee said:
You could Magically Create Space, works for me.
Click to expand...
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by 'Magically Create Space', uninstalling an app isn't exactly the answer I was hoping for? I guess it makes a good temporary fix, but that really shouldn't be needed unless you've completely ran out of storage space?

Google Play Music (17.61MB) and Google Drive (16.59MB) are the two highest and largest items on my Applications sort list, and I'm looking at the System Storage count which shows 386MB being used, with 128MB free. Uninstalling an app such as Google Drive would free some of that 'space', but I really shouldn't need to uninstall anything, because I've still got 128MB of available space.

I've got 105 apps on my phone, about 20% of that came with the phone from Tmobile. I know, I know... I'm unrooted, but that's more a matter of personal preference, and to save myself from a brick (I don't think there is a ROM for the Galaxy S anyway). I've always had automatic updates turned off since the very beginning, not for memory purposes, but to avoid a bad update. I still update my apps manually as they come, mainly because I hate to play around inside an old version, and doing this has never given me any trouble until recently. If there is indeed an app limit that I don't know about, why am I not shown such crucial information?
 
Italo said:
I've run into this a couple of times on my Galaxy S (Captivate). The problem seems to be caused when the installers in the data folder don't get deleted. So, the "insufficient storage" is actually at the OS level, not user storage.
Click to expand...

thanks alot. it worked for me
 
shelliewnj said:
What type of device are you running? some devices, like Samsung, have a dedicated space for apps. no matter how much space you have left on the drive or the sd card, once that dedicated space is used up, no more apps :( What I do is clean out the caches and histories and can usually squeeze another app on there (or update). Also, I clean out my app drawer every so often, removing the ones I never use.
Click to expand...


Thanks! That solved the problem for me. I have a Galaxy Note I and I never knew about the dedicated app storage on Samsung devices. What a dumb design! I have several gigabytes of available storage and I can't update a 200kb app because I don't have enough storage?! I also didn't know that emails were stored in the app space. I use K9 Mail and I had almost 500 messages stored on my phone. I moved those to my external SD card and deleted a few apps that I seldom or never use and voila! Problem solved. Thanks again!
 
there used to be a parameter sys_storage_threshold_percentage at the settings.db table, but it seems to be gone in "new" devices.

the default value for this parameter was 10%, and you could get it either by rooting your device and directly access to this table, or via android sdk, Settings.Secure object.

if anyone knows where can i find this threshold value in new devices i'll be happy to hear from you :)
 
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