Where's all the storage go??

[Peridric]

First, I'm sure the answers I seek are already out there somewhere, but I have been looking through threads for days and still can't find what I'm trying to figure out.

I'm getting the usual out of phone storage errors and unable to receive text messages. Read on before you say, "Duh, you're out of space, free some up."

My Morotola Triumph has 1Gb internal and a 32Gb sd card. When I got it I loaded a ton of apps on it and had no problems. Within a couple of months I started running out of memory. But there are a couple of things I don't understand about it:

1) When I first got the message, I was down to about 15mb free. Fine. I understand some apps are bigger than that. But then I cleared a bunch of space and the next time I got the error was at around 20mb. Then I cleared things off of it and the next time I got the message at 30mb free. Now I'm up to over 40mb free and getting the error constantly. Even my biggest app is less than 20mb. Why is 40mb not enough, and why does it keep requiring more and more free space when it worked fine before?

2) How am I running out of space constantly when I am not adding any apps? All I keep doing is deleting more apps every day when this comes up. I'm back down to barely more than was on the phone when I got it. I've literally gotten rid of about 50 apps since I first started running out of space. What's going on?

I have moved every app to the SD card that it will let me move and I even check them after updates. There's nothing left to move. I have to delete all of my texts (I'm using Handcent) a few times a day in order to get any to come in. I check my mail every day and delete anything I don't need on the phone. I've run the cache cleaner and the system cleaner in Android Assistant on a daily basis. I'm not getting multiple megs of texts and emails a day and I can't install anymore apps or I'm instantly out of space. (And who knows how much space I'm going to need on it to avoid the message tomorrow, anyway. Probably be 50mb tomorrow.)

All I can figure is that either data isn't getting deleted like it says it is, or there is something storing megs of files every day that I'm not aware of. I've tried roughly adding up all the space for my apps on their and it's nowhere near 1Gb. It's more like 200mb, if that. I installed a file explorer that lets me see what's on the internal storage, but I don't know enough about the OS's file structures to know what to look for in a search and destroy mission. Hell, even when I looked at how much space each directory was taking up on the internal storage it didn't look like it added up to 1Gb.

Seems like something hinky is going on here, because I know I'm not putting much data on this stupid phone myself. Not Megs of it every single day, to be sure. Can someone explain to me what might be going on here and how to clean up the internal storage for real? Thanks.

(BTW, I deleted all of my texts before I started writing this post because it was low again. I haven't touched the phone or received any e-mails, texts or updates that I know of while writing this. It ran out of space just now...)

 

[Peridric]

Tempted to just wipe it all out and start over. If I do a factory reset on the phone, do I have to reactivate it? That doesn't clear the SD card, does it?

 

[jefboyardee]

If I do a factory reset on the phone, do I have to reactivate it?

No, you just have to reestablish what gets synced.

That doesn't clear the SD card, does it?

No, but you might as well pull it before the reset just in case, or copy it your PC/Mac.

 

[fightnight909]

No, just take the SD card out before you wipe your phone.

 

[Hadron]

1) When I first got the message, I was down to about 15mb free. Fine. I understand some apps are bigger than that. But then I cleared a bunch of space and the next time I got the error was at around 20mb. Then I cleared things off of it and the next time I got the message at 30mb free. Now I'm up to over 40mb free and getting the error constantly. Even my biggest app is less than 20mb. Why is 40mb not enough, and why does it keep requiring more and more free space when it worked fine before?

The warning is set as a % of remaining storage, not an absolute value. So it's not a case of how big an app is, though there are apps bigger than that. It shouldn't be requiring more and more space though (in fact I don't see how that is possible) - may just be that it overshot the threshold by more the first time?

All application data, including system apps, goes to internal storage. Try looking at your apps sorted by size (the manage applications menu can do this) and see whether any are using unusual amounts of data or cache space.

 

[EarlyMon]

If you have had the phone a while and have been through a number of app update cycles, your cache areas may be getting a little bloated - the Store doesn't always clean up its temp files.

If you aren't rooted and able to clean those areas directly, then depending on your model, a backup and factory data reset may help.

 

[zuben el genub]

I just found Google services itself doesn't clean up. 4 albums with thumbnails that had been on Picasa before I deleted pics from Picasa via computer.
They have been on the phone through updates and rooting. I installed Gapps from the link provided by CM. The stupid thumbnails were still there. Could not delete via Gallery. Went looking using ES file explorer - thumbnails were not there. Google simply would not let me delete the things. The thumbs don't show up with any other picture viewer - they are stuck in Gallery somewhere in limbo. I'd had a Blogger account which I cleaned out (no posts) but I'll bet those are kicking around in limbo, too.

I had tried Picasa on the phone, but I rooted it after I tried Picasa. I had deleted Picasa before rooting using Titanium. Google should have let go.

How much else gets stuck that way?

If I use Dashboard on the PC, stuff is still listed in Blogger and Picasa. It doesn't show up if you open either program on the PC.

 

[Joelgp83]

I just found Google services itself doesn't clean up. 4 albums with thumbnails that had been on Picasa before I deleted pics from Picasa via computer.
They have been on the phone through updates and rooting. I installed Gapps from the link provided by CM. The stupid thumbnails were still there. Could not delete via Gallery. Went looking using ES file explorer - thumbnails were not there. Google simply would not let me delete the things. The thumbs don't show up with any other picture viewer - they are stuck in Gallery somewhere in limbo. I'd had a Blogger account which I cleaned out (no posts) but I'll bet those are kicking around in limbo, too.

I had tried Picasa on the phone, but I rooted it after I tried Picasa. I had deleted Picasa before rooting using Titanium. Google should have let go.

How much else gets stuck that way?

If I use Dashboard on the PC, stuff is still listed in Blogger and Picasa. It doesn't show up if you open either program on the PC.

This is a random shot in the dark, but....perhaps you need to go into CWM and wipe the cache partition? The thumbnails could be stored there for some ridiculous reason.

 

[zuben el genub]

Everything was wiped when I installed CM9. Thumbnails were in Gallery with CM 7.1, 7.2. Each install of CM said it was wiping everything. Thumbs appeared again when I installed GAPPS. Doesn't show with anything Non-Google.

I think some were in Gallery on the SGS4G. I never switched all the pics over to the Nexus. I backed up on the computer and installed only the pics I wanted from the computer. I don't back up on Google. The thumbs appeared after I put in Gmail account. These were only thumbnails of pictures I had resized on PICASA. These recurring thumbnails are somehow connected to Picasa and Google through Picasa.

I have nothing security wise - but if this was happening with any item that I wanted deleted permanently, I'd be pissed. All the stuff I deleted with the pc was just about nature walks and very generic. But still - we've had posts from those with jealous partners. If a thumbnail like this couldn't be deleted-----

I just installed an ICS gallery app from Play. Those thumbs are gone. There was a blank space where they should have appeared, and the new Gallery App let me delete them. The original Gallery is disabled.

There was another rather interesting problem with Gallery. It would NOT pick up the name for the photo. I'd rename the photo using ES File manager, and Gallery would still say xxxxxxxx.jpg. Image Shrink would see the new name - not the original Gallery.

 

[Peridric]

OK, this is getting ridiculous.

I'm still losing megs of space every day and I am almost out of apps to uninstall.

I went through and added up how much space every app on the phone is taking up. Came out to 238megs. Nowhere close to the 1.05Gb my phone has for internal storage. I looked at every app. Not one is showing it's using more than 22megs and none show they are using some crazy amount of space for data.

I highly, highly doubt that the OS itself is taking up 750mb of space and needs a few megs more every day to run.

Since no one could point me to any areas in the file structure to look for what might be taking up space, I did some searching around and found out that the only place using a ton of space is the /sys/dev/ folder. It got up to over 600Mb before I stopped it counting.

There are two directories in there named block and char. They each contain hundreds of folders named things like 179:10 and each of those folders contains quite a few folders. Checking the timestamps, it looks like it's adding a few of these (xxx:yy) folders every day.

Anyone have any ideas what these folders are and if they can be deleted? Do I have some runaway app creating these folders every day?

Never mind about those folders. They seem to be symbolic links.

The only other candidate I've found for all of the space being used is the /proc folder. From what I've read, I probably shouldn't touch this because it has to do with all the processes currently running on the phone. Problem is, it has about 3000 numbered folders in it. There can't possibly be 3000 processes running on my phone at a time. If I try to delete these folders, will it simply not let me delete files that are actually in use at the time?

Starting to think the only thing I can do at this point is reset the phone, but without knowing what is causing the problem, I'll probably have to keep resetting it periodically.