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Help "Low on space" phone/application storage notification

The "Low on Space" notification hit me two months ago. As many have, I tried everything from deleting apps, cache, etc. Eventually, as the first poster said, my phone BRICKED. It looped in a constant startup mode. Called VZW and they led me through the buttons to stop it and hard reset. And then of course the day it takes to reload everything the way ya like it.

Everything was fine for 6 weeks. Then, while listening to music on it, surfing the web and downloading, it suddenly appeared again. I checked with my apps ATK and SYSTEM and indeed my memory was low. I killed all running apps and the warning disappeared.

There are many posters here who slam Task Killers, but the bottom line with me is if you've had a Low On Space warning...use a task killer to keep track of what is running/not closing on your phone...because many apps do NOT have EXIT options and just keep running and soaking up memory until...crash.
 
I keep getting the little notification that my phone storage space is getting low, but when I go into Settings > SD card & phone storage, the SD card, internal phone storage, and phone memory are all well above critical levels (they're all like 70-90% free space). What could be the issue?
 
super common issue with the incredible. i've been having it too. it's always hard to tell if i've fixed it...minor deletions/cache clearings seem to take care of it for a day or two, then it comes back.

i'd been using gReader as a google reader client - i recently deleted it and haven't had the error message come back in awhile (several days).

it's considered a valid reason from verizon to get your phone replaced. i'd guess froyo will fix this issue, but who knows.
 
task killer is not the fix for this i assure you. You can get the message and reboot, the message will still be there even if you havent opened a single app.
 
well, i called about this. verizon tech support suggested a factory reset, then connected me to HTC tech support, who suggested the same thing. after telling them that i'd tried that a couple times, they offered to send me a new phone.

this is the 3rd or 4th dinc issue i've called verizon about, and each time, i've found them really eager to please. i can't guarantee everybody will have the same result, but so far, they've done right by me.
 
howarmat said:
task killer is not the fix for this i assure you. You can get the message and reboot, the message will still be there even if you havent opened a single app.
Click to expand...


That WAS certainly the case with me the first time I had the warning message. No matter what I did got rid of it. This past time, what I noticed was that many of the aps that I used over a period of time, did not close. (As we know, many have no exits so they really keep running). It was this second time that I used a task killer. I regained my memory, the warning went away and hasn't returned in a couple of weeks. BUT, I do keep using ATK...as I AM fearful of running low on memory. I know not every DInc has this problem. And I'd love to hear a real explanation of why task killers are bad to kill apps you don't want running forever. OR I wish every app had an "exit"!
 
I've had a couple of experiences with Verizon being overly willing to satisfy me. But should it really come to getting a new phone? I mean, it doesn't sound like its too big of an issue, and it'll just happen again on a new phone.
 
I was reading through this thread experiencing the same symptoms on my HTC Incredible with Verizon. Phone was sluggish and reporting "low space" even though storage was fine. Also, applications were not updating.

I almost skipped over it but somebody said they uninstalled swype and that fixed it for them. I had installed swype but never really used it. Uninstalling it worked like a charm and my phone is back to normal without having to do a master reset.

This is officially the last time I use beta applications.

Hope this helps!
 
Most apps arent running. They are in cached state. Download system panel and it will tell you what apps are running and what are cached. The list of running apps actually taking up CPU cycles will surprise you. task killers kill them off cached or not. So no you have to open up the app from scratch again which takes longer and doesnt have the previous state saved sometimes. Unless you know what you are doing you kill tasks you NEED. like the clock, message service etc sometimes.

Bottom line they just are not needed to make this phone run as it should. My battery runs the same with or without one running. 2.1 and 2.2 are huge steps up from 1.6 in this dept and i think this is why alot of people still use the task killers, habit, and that is it.
 
Here's a possible solution to the low memory issue that will keep you from having to hard-reset the device.

There is seemingly a few issues leading to the warning, and this is the second time that I have experienced personally: the first was related to HTC Mail, the 2nd time it was in fact my contacts.

The first time I did a hard reset, because I did not know of any other potential solution. Yesterday I tried another with very good success.

1) when you get the warning, click on the icon in order to access the "application manager." (you can also do this by menu/settings/manage applications
2) when you are on the "manage applications" screen, hit menu, and sort by size. This will reveal your problem area (again, mine was contacts storage at 60mb)
3) clear the data of the problem area (if it is an application, remove it.)
4) restart device
5) connect device to computer and when prompted select "mount as disk drive"
6) go to computer and you will notice two drives for your Droid Incredible. One will be for the internal memory of the device, the other for the SD card
7) right click on one of the drives, click on properties, then tools
8) click on "defragment now"
9) You will then be prompted to select which drive to defragment. I chose to defragment both the sd card and the internal storage of the device.
10) Allow defragmentation to complete, and restart device
11) once device has restarted, again mount as disk drive (you may receive warning stating that there is problem with drive - don't panic)
12) right click on the device memory drive (you can verify by double clicking and seeing files including device software), properties, tools, then "check now" under error checking
13) click "continue" and then choose both "automatically fix file system errors" and "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"
14) after completion (which will take several minutes) restart phone
15) re-install problem area if vital to the phone. if an application, re-install at your own risk

Hope this helps. It seems like an extensive step-by-step approach, but is much less time consuming than hard-resetting the device.
 
^^Thanks for the info.

My contacts storage is at 30 MB. If I clear the data, does that mean I will lose all of my contacts?

I assume that's what will happen.

And does anyone know what clearing the data from Facebook for HTC Sense will do?


Those are my two biggest apps, but I don't know if I should clear them or not.
 
TeddyHeisman said:
^^Thanks for the info.

My contacts storage is at 30 MB. If I clear the data, does that mean I will lose all of my contacts?

I assume that's what will happen.

And does anyone know what clearing the data from Facebook for HTC Sense will do?


Those are my two biggest apps, but I don't know if I should clear them or not.
Click to expand...

you will lose the information for all your contacts. However, if you have it backed up via Google or on a software such as Outlook on your computer, you will have no problem retrieving that information. As for your Facebook problem, particularly with contacts - this may actually be another way to solve your problem.

Once I cleared the data from my contacts and re-connected my phone with HTC Sync, all the contact information I originally had on my phone transferred back from the computer. I did have to re-link a lot of my redundant contact files, but that took no more than a few minutes, and was much better than having to configure the entire device as if it were straight out of the packaging.

The one thing I happened to notice is that the Facebook links for my contacts were all lost, of which I had to manually go in and play around with some Facebook settings because my view was actually showing "0" for Facebook contacts.

I think there definitely is a bug in the Sense overlay, or the overlay causes the internal storage to fragment, causing the warning a lot of us have been seeing.
 
Low space notification has popped up yet again.

Question:

When I check my apps, I have a Facebook for HTC Sense and a Facebook app.

HTC Sense one has 22.6 mb of data. Should I delete this?

I have no idea what that will do.
 
TeddyHeisman said:
Low space notification has popped up yet again.

Question:

When I check my apps, I have a Facebook for HTC Sense and a Facebook app.

HTC Sense one has 22.6 mb of data. Should I delete this?

I have no idea what that will do.
Click to expand...
clear the data since you cant delete it i think
 
I am running into this issue and I can't seem to clear the mail data. I went to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications->Mail. It show data use of 43.61MB but doesn't offer a Clear Data button and the Clear cache button is disabled.

Is there another way to clear the mail data?

FWIW, the mail app show 2,000+ messages but I can't seem to erase them once they are downloaded unless I actually delete them from the server too because I am using IMAP and not POP3.

[Edit]Using the fact it was IMAP I went into the email account (yahoo) using a browser and just removed the messages and got mail to sync. This removed the cached copies on my phone. What is interesting is that the phone storage before and after showed 491mb. However the mail app dropped to 3.5mb from 40+mb before. It really seems that the phone is not reporting the phone storage correctly. [/edit]
 
TeddyHeisman said:
Low space notification has popped up yet again.

Question:

When I check my apps, I have a Facebook for HTC Sense and a Facebook app.

HTC Sense one has 22.6 mb of data. Should I delete this?

I have no idea what that will do.
Click to expand...

that is an absolutely huge amount compared to what I am seeing. My Facebook app is showing 3.01mb, and Facebook for HTC sense is showing 896kb.

If it is in fact that Facebook for HTC app, mine does still give an option to clear data and cache.

If it is the regular Facebook app, there will be an option to uninstall updates. That may be a good option to try.

Have you tried defragmenting your phone storage yet?
 
greggds said:
that is an absolutely huge amount compared to what I am seeing. My Facebook app is showing 3.01mb, and Facebook for HTC sense is showing 896kb.

If it is in fact that Facebook for HTC app, mine does still give an option to clear data and cache.

If it is the regular Facebook app, there will be an option to uninstall updates. That may be a good option to try.

Have you tried defragmenting your phone storage yet?
Click to expand...

Ya, HTC Sense Facebook has 22.7 mb....the other Facebook one has 10.84 mb total (7.89 of that being in data). I have the option to clear data on Facebook for HTC Sense. I just don't know if doing that will cause any problems. I honestly have no idea what clearing the data will do.

If I go to the regular "Facebook" app, there is no "clear data" option. Uninstall updates is the only option I'm seeing.


I have never degragmented my phone storage. Should I? I don't know what that means or if it's something I need to do.


I am not very tech savvy :cool:
 
Low space notification has popped up at least ten times since yesterday.

So frustrating.
 
The first time i got this message, I had to do a hard re boot. That was about 1 month ago.

I figured it was my mail filling up my memory. So after I got my phone running again, I went into Mail-Settings-General Settings, and set Temporary attachment storage to SD card.

I just got the low memory message again. I connected my phone to my pc to preview the files in my mail folder. I found thousands of copies of identical image files. Image files such as the company logos included on incoming emails. I'm talking 15 thousand copies of the same file. I have no idea how they could be so many copies of the same file. I deleted them out of that folder and all is well. Go to Settings - SD card & phone storage and see that the available space on the SD card is better.

By instructing my phone to place those files on the SD card, I avoided the hard re boot and loosing my apps.

Now I need to figure out how to avoid the thousands of copies of logo files filling up my card again. Until then, at least I know a fix to the low memory issue doesnt require a hard boot.
 
Tvon76 said:
The first time i got this message, I had to do a hard re boot. That was about 1 month ago.

I figured it was my mail filling up my memory. So after I got my phone running again, I went into Mail-Settings-General Settings, and set Temporary attachment storage to SD card.

I just got the low memory message again. I connected my phone to my pc to preview the files in my mail folder. I found thousands of copies of identical image files. Image files such as the company logos included on incoming emails. I'm talking 15 thousand copies of the same file. I have no idea how they could be so many copies of the same file. I deleted them out of that folder and all is well. Go to Settings - SD card & phone storage and see that the available space on the SD card is better.

By instructing my phone to place those files on the SD card, I avoided the hard re boot and loosing my apps.

Now I need to figure out how to avoid the thousands of copies of logo files filling up my card again. Until then, at least I know a fix to the low memory issue doesnt require a hard boot.
Click to expand...

When I go to my apps, my mail one says I have 2.08 mb of data, and there is no option to delete the data.

I just don't understand what the hell is going on with this since I still have plenty of memory left.

Maybe I should just be patient and see if the update to 2.2 will fix this issue.
 
Two months ago my "Low on Space" error notification came up and eventually bricked my phone so I had to do a hard reset...a pain in the butt. Yep, two months later it came back on tonight, so I went through the forums again. I did the connect to the computer and DEFRAG method...no help. Then I went into the phone Manage Apps area and deleted the data for Facebook For HTC Sense...and the notification quickly went away....for now I suppose. I have 46MB in Contacts storage but don't have it backed up in Google to fall back on.

Once you get that notification...it sort of stays on my mind that it could, and likely will, happen again no matter what you do. It's the biggest drawback of the DInc for me.
 
DroidRocker said:
Two months ago my "Low on Space" error notification came up and eventually bricked my phone so I had to do a hard reset...a pain in the butt. Yep, two months later it came back on tonight, so I went through the forums again. I did the connect to the computer and DEFRAG method...no help. Then I went into the phone Manage Apps area and deleted the data for Facebook For HTC Sense...and the notification quickly went away....for now I suppose. I have 46MB in Contacts storage but don't have it backed up in Google to fall back on.

Once you get that notification...it sort of stays on my mind that it could, and likely will, happen again no matter what you do. It's the biggest drawback of the DInc for me.
Click to expand...
Can you or someone else tell me what deleting the data for Facebook for HTC Sense actually does?
 
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