Help Weird system behaviour, full storage? Please help

[andy517]

Hi guys,

please, please help. I must say that this is my second Redmi Note 5 with this exact problem after few months.

Redmi Note 5 Global 4/64, running official MIUI 10.0. Not unlocked or rooted.

**Problems**:

Photos taken with camera app are not shown in preview circle (it's grey) or are shown and can't be opened.

Google Photos don't show new photos and existing can't be edited.

Taken photos are sometimes lost, sometimes they appear after few minutes, sometimes everything works fine (minutes after reboot)

New apps are not downloaded from Google Play, it stays on download pending or Downloading with no progress. Then sometimes GP crashes.

Not able to delete files from storage via various apps

**Storage situation** Used / Free

Cache 13 / 234 MB
Data 24 / 25 GB
System 2.5 / 2.9 GB
External SD 109 / 119GB

So no shortage of storage anywhere except System (?).

**Cause**

I think most symptoms correlate with full storage, some kind of system storage not shown without root?

Once there was very brief system message **"usb storage is running out of space"**. I saw it only once.

Last time I thought it is a corrupt flash memory and I got rid of the phone, but now?

**Already tried**

Factory reset - tried on previous phone, after 10 minutes problem was back.
Cleaning cache etc. (SD Maid)


Please, give me ideas how to repair this.

 

[Adjei Samuel]

Hi guys,

please, please help. I must say that this is my second Redmi Note 5 with this exact problem after few months.

Redmi Note 5 Global 4/64, running official MIUI 10.0. Not unlocked or rooted.

** Problems**:

Photos taken with camera app are not shown in preview circle (it's grey) or are shown and can't be opened.

Google Photos don't show new photos and existing can't be edited.

Taken photos are sometimes lost, sometimes they appear after few minutes, sometimes everything works fine (minutes after reboot)

New apps are not downloaded from Google Play, it stays on download pending or Downloading with no progress. Then sometimes GP crashes.

Not able to delete files from storage via various apps

** Storage situation** Used / Free

Cache 13 / 234 MB
Data 24 / 25 GB
System 2.5 / 2.9 GB
External SD 109 / 119GB

So no shortage of storage anywhere except System (?).

** Cause**

I think most symptoms correlate with full storage, some kind of system storage not shown without root?

Once there was very brief system message **'usb storage is running out of space'**. I saw it only once.

Last time I thought it is a corrupt flash memory and I got rid of the phone, but now?

** Already tried**

Factory reset - tried on previous phone, after 10 minutes problem was back.
Cleaning cache etc. (SD Maid)


Please, give me ideas how to repair this.

Have you tried resetting the phone??

 

[andy517]

Hello, yes as I say in the end the factory reset doesn't help.

 

[Dannydet]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redmi_Note_5
What country are you in?

 

[andy517]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redmi_Note_5
What country are you in?

I am in the Czech Republic.

 

[mikedt]

Hi guys,

please, please help. I must say that this is my second Redmi Note 5 with this exact problem after few months.

Redmi Note 5 Global 4/64, running official MIUI 10.0. Not unlocked or rooted.

**Problems**:

Photos taken with camera app are not shown in preview circle (it's grey) or are shown and can't be opened.

Google Photos don't show new photos and existing can't be edited.

Taken photos are sometimes lost, sometimes they appear after few minutes, sometimes everything works fine (minutes after reboot)

New apps are not downloaded from Google Play, it stays on download pending or Downloading with no progress. Then sometimes GP crashes.

Not able to delete files from storage via various apps

**Storage situation** Used / Free

Cache 13 / 234 MB
Data 24 / 25 GB
System 2.5 / 2.9 GB
External SD 109 / 119GB

So no shortage of storage anywhere except System (?).

**Cause**

I think most symptoms correlate with full storage, some kind of system storage not shown without root?

Once there was very brief system message **"usb storage is running out of space"**. I saw it only once.

Last time I thought it is a corrupt flash memory and I got rid of the phone, but now?

**Already tried**

Factory reset - tried on previous phone, after 10 minutes problem was back.
Cleaning cache etc. (SD Maid)


Please, give me ideas how to repair this.

Is the default storage that external 128GB SD? Possibly a problem with the SD? Try another SD?

 

[andy517]

Is the default storage that external 128GB SD? Possibly a problem with the SD? Try another SD?

Good suggestion but no, everything is set to internal.

Anyway - now when taking pictures I get always error message "USB storage is running out of space" when saving to internal or "SD card is running out of space" when external SD is set.

30GB free on internal, 9GB free on external, 362MB free at root folder.

.

 

[svim]

https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_note_5_ai_dual_camera-9120.php
Your phone model having very solid hardware specs, it is puzzling you're seeing those popup messages since they don't appear to even represent the actual state of your phone's storage. But the fact that this has happened twice on two different phones might point to just some other issue. You refer to having the SD Maid app on your phone. Did you install this on both your Redmi phones? Do you have other such third-party 'system clean-up' apps installed on your phone? Just hypothesizing but that could be part of the problem, especially you've installed more than one. Something is preventing your phone from being able to use its own storage media, and triggering those misleading error messages.
Try booting your phone up into its Safe Mode:
https://www.getdroidtips.com/boot-redmi-note-5-pro-safe-mode/
While running your phone in Safe Mode, no third-party apps get pre-loaded during startup, your phone is just running the Android operating system as is. Keep in mind when in Safe Mode, because no apps get pre-loaded into memory they all appear to start up slower but they'll run normally once they are in use. The point of this though, is to see if you still have problems just taking a picture or if any of those error messages show up. (To exit Safe Mode just restart normally).

 

[andy517]

https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_note_5_ai_dual_camera-9120.php
Your phone model having very solid hardware specs, it is puzzling you're seeing those popup messages since they don't appear to even represent the actual state of your phone's storage. But the fact that this has happened twice on two different phones might point to just some other issue. You refer to having the SD Maid app on your phone. Did you install this on both your Redmi phones? Do you have other such third-party 'system clean-up' apps installed on your phone? Just hypothesizing but that could be part of the problem, especially you've installed more than one. Something is preventing your phone from being able to use its own storage media, and triggering those misleading error messages.
Try booting your phone up into its Safe Mode:
https://www.getdroidtips.com/boot-redmi-note-5-pro-safe-mode/
While running your phone in Safe Mode, no third-party apps get pre-loaded during startup, your phone is just running the Android operating system as is. Keep in mind when in Safe Mode, because no apps get pre-loaded into memory they all appear to start up slower but they'll run normally once they are in use. The point of this though, is to see if you still have problems just taking a picture or if any of those error messages show up. (To exit Safe Mode just restart normally).

Hello svim,

thanks for very insightful post. Unfortunately it seems that phones with MIUI don't have safe mode, the article you linked is almost the only one existing, no YT videos etc. There is only recovery mode with possibility to wipe data and connect Mi assistant.

 

[mikedt]

I can confirm that Xiaomi devices do NOT have safe mode. Read about that on Xiaomi's China forums. http://bbs.xiaomi.cn

 

[svim]

OK, no access to Safe Mode. Looking up more on MIUI it is its own, separate firmware (tenuously based on the Android platform), I mistakenly assumed MIUI was just more of a Xiaomi launcher/interface thing, so interesting.
Anyway, reading back through this thread, you initially posted some 'Storage situation' numbers, with 'Data 24 / 25 GB' standing out as an issue. If that's a reference to your phone's user data partition that's an indicator of part of the problem. Could you elaborate on this some more? Are those numbers taken from Settings >> Storage (a menu in Android, don't know if similar with MIUI) or some third-party app (like SD Maid)?

 

[Flying_Roger]

I have exactly the same problem.
Since the recent MIUI 10 update, I had an application waiting for an update and reporting that there was not enough space, although I have 6GB internal memory available.
I just remarked that the camera always report "USB storage is running out of space" when I take a picture.
Another problem is that when I reboot, my µSD card is tested for a while for errors and when completed, the µSD card is still not visible in Android settings, although I can see and use it with Total Commander.

But the Swiftkey keyboard reports that it cannot run because there is no SD card.​

For that problem, the workaround is to insert the µSD in standby mode when the reboot is completed and then it is tested for errors and finally available in Android.

 

[andy517]

Hello Roger,

unfortuantely I didn't solve it. The only thing that helped for a while was deleting cache partition in Recovery mode. I suggest you try it.

 

[Flying_Roger]

Thanks.
Could you please explain what should be done exactly?
I am not aware of a recovery mode on the MiMax running MIUI 10