com.htc.socialnetwork.provider using 40MB storage, low memory

[khlo]

I've been experiencing a lot of "Low on space" error messages on my Desire recently. The amount of free space seems to fluctuate in the range of 10MB to 20MB (sometimes changes on a reboot, etc.)

I've gradually been deleting apps over the last few weeks whenever it goes below 15MB (this is when it starts to be "Low on space" and lots of things such as Gmail, Talk, etc. stop working).

When I look at my list of applications, I have an application called com.htc.socialnetwork.provider which uses 40MB of data - by far the biggest there. I've been on Google and struggled to find information about what it actually does and why it might be using that much information.

It sounded like something to do with Facebook sync so I turned that off and disconnected my FB account from Sense... it dropped to about 39.5MB.

I was wondering whether anyone knew what com.htc.socialnetwork.provider might do, why it might be using so much data and whether it would be safe to "Clear data" on it? As it's an internal HTC Sense application, I don't really want to delete a vital database or something.

Thanks a lot!

 

[chadelliott2012]

I actually just joined this forum because I found somewhat of a solution.. This problem has been happening to me for a good week, with all the above described symptoms.. As normal, i deleted all my texts, cleared cache/history/cookies from browser, and deleted programs, still happened. Long story short, I went into the com.htc.socialnetwork.providers and it said 8.90MB, which had increased from the last time I was saw it.
Instead of un-syncing Facebook etc, I hit clear data to see what would happen.. Turns out, everything so far is still working the same, pictures from Facebook still within the contacts, tweets and Gmail syncing..

 

[Eris Ed]

I had the same problem. I added the Facebook Directory service to my Contacts and it added 57mb of data! The main problem is that I had 1500+ facebook friends for gaming and there's no way to select only the small number of people I want to add to my Contacts - it was all or nothing.

The solution was to delete the data in Contacts Storage:

Menu > Applications > Manage Applications

Look for Contacts Storage in the list, open it and select Clear Data. This will only remove the data from the facebook Online Directory, and will log you out of the Directory service to prevent it reloading again, and your existing phone/sim/Gmail contacts remain untouched.

 

[peter7769]

I had the same problem. I added the Facebook Directory service to my Contacts and it added 57mb of data! The main problem is that I had 1500+ facebook friends for gaming and there's no way to select only the small number of people I want to add to my Contacts - it was all or nothing.

The solution was to delete the data in Contacts Storage:

Menu > Applications > Manage Applications

Look for Contacts Storage in the list, open it and select Clear Data. This will only remove the data from the facebook Online Directory, and will log you out of the Directory service to prevent it reloading again, and your existing phone/sim/Gmail contacts remain untouched.

Just wanted to add my views on this, i did exactly this and everything was fine EXCEPT, it did remove all data from my Phone contacts, so all pics i had added to the phone contacts, custom ringtones etc had gone and all had to be redone, so please be careful.

Pete

 

[tomhunter]

as with all desire owners i've been in the same boat. i had ~17mb of DATA for 'facebook' and deleted it :O so far no problems, just had to sign back in again. tbh i dont have the balls to delete any data for 'facebook for HTC sense'. but since this is a much smaller amount of data i dont mind it being there.

i also dont wanna dick around with contact storage (its about 11mb).

im interested to see how everyone else treats the issue? cheers

 

[SUroot]

Many root tom

 

[tomhunter]

does rooting void the warranty? coz i pay insurance every month for peace of mind, and wouldn't like to jeopardise my cover.

 

[DC E1G]

does rooting void the warranty? coz i pay insurance every month for peace of mind, and wouldn't like to jeopardise my cover.

Yes it does. Although, with a restore to a stock ROM once an issue arose, some claim they've managed to get it returned under warranty.

 

[SUroot]

If you can successfully return it to stock, all trace of rooting will disappear.

However, it depends if its branded etc...

 

[DC E1G]

Ironically, shortly after reading this I accidently went into Facebook under directories. Can anyone confirm that clearing contact storage won't remove anything other than the directory and maybe a custom contact photo or ringtone? Because I'm cool with all the above. Mine is at 42 MB, which is a bit too much space for me honestly.

 

[incsmiro]

Ironically, shortly after reading this I accidently went into Facebook under directories. Can anyone confirm that clearing contact storage won't remove anything other than the directory and maybe a custom contact photo or ringtone? Because I'm cool with all the above. Mine is at 42 MB, which is a bit too much space for me honestly.

If you 'clear data' it WILL delete all of the contacts stored within your phone, 42MB is quite substantial though (mines 2.3MB) I would suggest synching all your contacts to google and then clear data, that way you can just re-sync back and you should be left with all your contacts and much lower memory usage. Be careful though, I can confirm that its quite annoying having to manually re-install all of your contacts!!

 

[DC E1G]

If you 'clear data' it WILL delete all of the contacts stored within your phone, 42MB is quite substantial though (mines 2.3MB) I would suggest synching all your contacts to google and then clear data, that way you can just re-sync back and you should be left with all your contacts and much lower memory usage. Be careful though, I can confirm that its quite annoying having to manually re-install all of your contacts!!

Yeah, I backed up my contacts to SD (they were already on the cloud with Google), and cleared the data. It deletes all your contacts, and call history and removes all Facebook data. After resyncing with Facebook and importing my contacts from SD it is now at 12.11 MB, which while still being high, is much more reasonable leaves me with about 40 MB of space; more than enough until I root over the Christmas break and go A2SD+. The only thing that irks me is losing my call history, although it is stored on my Gmail with SMS Backup +, it just sucks that the restore function hasn't been implemented with call history yet.

On the plus side, I am now using, and loving, Swype with lots of free space to boot!

 

[incsmiro]

# On the plus side, I am now using, and loving, Swype with lots of free space to boot! #

absolutely love swype but disappointed that it takes up some 12mb of internal memory!

 

[DNick]

So only one person responded about the com.htc.socialnetwork.provider..... Has anyone else tried clearing data on it?

 

[psyxologos]

Yes, please say. I need to know too!

 

[jimdriver2]

# On the plus side, I am now using, and loving, Swype with lots of free space to boot! #

absolutely love swype but disappointed that it takes up some 12mb of internal memory!

Swype can be installed to the SD card and you can get it right down to 1.7 mb (or something low like that.) and it works perfectly.

 

[DC E1G]

Swype can be installed to the SD card and you can get it right down to 1.7 mb (or something low like that.) and it works perfectly.

Not for me. I have no such option; unless I need to force close it first to get the option to move.

 

[DNick]

YAY! Two more off topic posts.

 

[Jason71]

Swype can be installed to the SD card and you can get it right down to 1.7 mb (or something low like that.) and it works perfectly.

Make that 3

I moved Swype to the SD using the "unrooted apps to SD workaround" but every time i connected to a PC not only did it de select swype as the default keyboard but I had to go into settings and re-enable it as an option every time. Moved it back.

 

[LECTER]

Swype can be installed to the SD card and you can get it right down to 1.7 mb (or something low like that.) and it works perfectly.

No it doesn

 

[tomhunter]

i cleared the data from com.htc.social... and it didn't appear to have any adverse effect. all my contacts are still picture synced etc. all i had to do was retype my facebook password.

 

[shay.jay]

I cleared the com.htc.socialnetwork.provider data once and even though my FB contacts still appeared to be synced to my contacts, they really weren't. The profile pictures stayed connected, but if I actually went to a contact and clicked on the link button, the facebook connection was not there. Then when I clicked to link them together, I couldn't find the person in my FB contact list. It was like they were connected, but not completely. It prevented me from being able to pull up their profile from within contacts. That might not matter much to you, but just wanted to let you now thats what happened to me. I have an EVO, so it could just be an EVO issue.

 

[CalebJ]

I had this exact same issue and noticed lately my 'Social network' connections was downloading data (figured the 20MB file size comes from somewhere!)

Checked my contacts listings, none of them were sync'd with facebook though. Nor was my Facebook logged in.

I had a random idea (you won't believe where!) and checked the SMS application "Handcent SMS" - it allows you to send to 'social media contacts'

Well went in, un-ticked it and Viola, my 20MB of com.htc.socialnetwork.provider service dropped to 70kb!!! WOOT!
Now I can install applications again!

Have sent Handcent a little 'thankyou' note about it too

 

[Chilly McFreeze]

as with all desire owners i've been in the same boat. i had ~17mb of DATA for 'facebook' and deleted it :O so far no problems, just had to sign back in again. tbh i dont have the balls to delete any data for 'facebook for HTC sense'. but since this is a much smaller amount of data i dont mind it being there.

i also dont wanna dick around with contact storage (its about 11mb).

im interested to see how everyone else treats the issue? cheers

As you've discovered, "Facebook" is the standalone app, and FYI "Facebook for HTC Sense" is essentially Friendstream, I clear it all the time. It doesn't affect your contacts. As for the contacts themselves, the general consensus is you should store your contacts as Google contacts, and periodically delete them from your phone and re-sync them if they get too big. Doing this tends to bring the size down.

 

[paynekiller]

I cleared the com.htc.socialnetwork.provider data once and even though my FB contacts still appeared to be synced to my contacts, they really weren't. The profile pictures stayed connected, but if I actually went to a contact and clicked on the link button, the facebook connection was not there. Then when I clicked to link them together, I couldn't find the person in my FB contact list. It was like they were connected, but not completely. It prevented me from being able to pull up their profile from within contacts. That might not matter much to you, but just wanted to let you now thats what happened to me. I have an EVO, so it could just be an EVO issue.

Thought I'd be bumping this thread but apparently someone already did yesterday.
Just like to thank this person for finally giving an answer to the thread. com.htc.blabla is using up near 20MB on my EVO 4G, I was thinking of clearing the data but if it removes the link to my facebook contacts then I wont bother. I had a lot of linking to do when I initially got the phone and synced contacts so I dont really want to be doing that again.
That's what I feared would happen when I cleared data on the facebook app (or for HTC Sense one too) but all it does is make me have to log back in... nbd. Never seen them affect my contacts list.


My next biggest space hog is Plants vs Zombies, which I beat, and the data file only got bigger the further I progressed in the game. So I'm assuming it doesnt save data to the SD Card even tho thats where I moved the app to. Base app is only like 0.7MB, data has gone up to 15.46MB pushing my total for it on the phone to over 16MB. Next is fring (cant be moved, I use it for video calling) then Maps then Internet. If I clear data for Internet, will it delete my bookmarks too?