Help System Storage Galaxy S3 filling up!

[ninkynonk]

Please help!!! I've scoured the web trying to find the answer, with no luck...
Problem: Galaxy S3 system storage keeps filling, until it reaches capacity & then of course starts giving me warnings that it has insufficient space to operate etc, until finally apps crash & I can't do anything with the phone.

I have tried removing all of my pics & videos (had very little effect) & finally did a factory reset. This immediately solved the problem... only to have it happen again. On the last factory reset, I made sure that I did not sign in to Samsung & I turned all synching off (thought this might have fixed it, but alas, no). I have not reinstalled any apps. There are only the pre-installed Samsung ones. As far as I'm aware, my phone is up to date with updates. Hoping it's a simple setting that needs changing!

Not sure if this is related, but occasionally it is also ceasing to make any sounds, either through the earpiece or speaker, even when making a call & despite checking relevant settings. Has only happened a couple of times & fixes itself on a reboot. Please help. The storage thing in particular is driving me batty!

 

[SUroot]

install an application called disk usage.

There is no way you can lose 11.35GB after a factory reset without installing any apps. We need to see whats being used.

 

[ninkynonk]

Thanks. I'll do that now & report back result...

 

[ninkynonk]

Result:
Apps:193.9 MiB
Media: 111.8 MiB
System Data: 3110 MiB
Free Space: 8206 MiB
Make any sense to you?

 

[SUroot]

System data seems high but you've 8gb free still

 

[ninkynonk]

I wish it stayed that way. It will whittle down to nothing in a couple of days, without me installing anything new, taking photos etc etc.

 

[ninkynonk]

What would cause the system data to be high?

 

[SUroot]

I dont know. It should be things like SMS / Emails, Wallpaper settings etc etc.

You dont have "Trash" full in your email client do you? That takes up space

 

[ninkynonk]

Sms pretty much empty. No full trash in email client.

 

[ninkynonk]

Here's an update: Went to bed & this is the new report. ..
Apps: 187.9
Media: 112
System Data: 5614
Free: 5708
Once again, this is after doing some basic surfing & only installing 1 Tap Cleaner & Disk Usage.

 

[SUroot]

Definitely something wrong there. I have 291 MB system data with 1.6 GB apps.

Please go into applications manager and see if you can wipe data on all your email apps and see if anything changes in Disk Usage?

 

[ninkynonk]

This may be on some sort of track... re the emails, on my old phone (same acct, ph no etc) I had a Hotmail account linked to my phone ages ago, but I haven't re linked that, so I don't think that's it.

To use Playstore though, I have had to use the Gmail account to download apps. (That I created for this purpose) I have checked the email on that account, just to make sure there's not a trash can full in there, as you suggested. All looks fine. On the last reset, I made sure I wasn't logged in to any outside sources, including Google, to try and make sure nothing was coming in from there. I had read somewhere that it's possible for phones to drag across Picasa files (full sized photos! ) through Google/Gmail, if you have something set up incorrectly. I THOUGHT I had all syncing turned off.

Obviously I downloaded the two apps mentioned previously, and to do so, I had to log in to Gmail. I had a look back through my settings just now, and lo and behold, it says (under Accounts, Google, Accounts, Last Synced: today!!! I didn't think simply logging in to Google would enable syncing. I am wondering whether files (perhaps such as those photo files) are being dragged into my System Data somehow? I'm not that technically minded, & what I said might not even be possible. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

If this is on the right track, the only other thing I can think of, is to do ANOTHER reset and don't download apps (and don't log into Google) just to see if it prevents the System Data filling up... and maybe pointing to Google being the culprit. Thoughts?

 

[dsmryder]

This may be on some sort of track... re the emails, on my old phone (same acct, ph no etc) I had a Hotmail account linked to my phone ages ago, but I haven't re linked that, so I don't think that's it.

To use Playstore though, I have had to use the Gmail account to download apps. (That I created for this purpose) I have checked the email on that account, just to make sure there's not a trash can full in there, as you suggested. All looks fine. On the last reset, I made sure I wasn't logged in to any outside sources, including Google, to try and make sure nothing was coming in from there. I had read somewhere that it's possible for phones to drag across Picasa files (full sized photos! ) through Google/Gmail, if you have something set up incorrectly. I THOUGHT I had all syncing turned off.

Obviously I downloaded the two apps mentioned previously, and to do so, I had to log in to Gmail. I had a look back through my settings just now, and lo and behold, it says (under Accounts, Google, Accounts, Last Synced: today!!! I didn't think simply logging in to Google would enable syncing. I am wondering whether files (perhaps such as those photo files) are being dragged into my System Data somehow? I'm not that technically minded, & what I said might not even be possible. Am I barking up the wrong tree?

If this is on the right track, the only other thing I can think of, is to do ANOTHER reset and don't download apps (and don't log into Google) just to see if it prevents the System Data filling up... and maybe pointing to Google being the culprit. Thoughts?

My daughter has a Galaxy Tab 2 and she seems to have the same problem. And she doesn't want to do a factory reset. I rooted it and haven't been able to trace down the cause. I have been installing apps manually because I can't do it through the play store.
If I figure my side out I'll post back and maybe it will help.

 

[Szadzik]

Use Storag eAnalyzer and see what takes up the space.

Trash is not stored locally in GMail.

 

[ninkynonk]

dsmryder: I will definitely be interested in any solutions you find!

Szadzic: Is Storage Analyzer the same as "Disk Usage"?

 

[Szadzik]

dsmryder: I will definitely be interested in any solutions you find!

Szadzic: Is Storage Analyzer the same as "Disk Usage"?

Have not tried Disk Usage, but find Storage Analyzer very useful.

 

[ninkynonk]

Interesting... I installed Storage Analyzer & here are the 3 different bits of data I can report:
Storage Analyzer tells me I have 113.73 MiB in 213 files & 11.14GiB free. It breaks down the used data into 94.1 MiB for Samsung, 13.63 MiB to Android & 3.33 to Apps. From there, significantly smaller amounts of data are allocated to various things. This is much more in line with what I would expect, knowing what I have installed on the phone since the last reset.
Disk Usage & Task Manager tell a different story.
Disk Usage: System Data: 5695 MiB. Free Space: 5612.
System Storage under Task Manager: 5.87/11.35. Does this shed any light on things to anyone?

 

[Szadzik]

Interesting... I installed Storage Analyzer & here are the 3 different bits of data I can report:
Storage Analyzer tells me I have 113.73 MiB in 213 files & 11.14GiB free. It breaks down the used data into 94.1 MiB for Samsung, 13.63 MiB to Android & 3.33 to Apps. From there, significantly smaller amounts of data are allocated to various things. This is much more in line with what I would expect, knowing what I have installed on the phone since the last reset.
Disk Usage & Task Manager tell a different story.
Disk Usage: System Data: 5695 MiB. Free Space: 5612.
System Storage under Task Manager: 5.87/11.35. Does this shed any light on things to anyone?

Storage analyzer does not take into account some stuff that is assigned to the OS itself, I think.

On mine Storage Analyzer shows around 300MB used space and 11.06GB free.

Task Manager shows 1.31GB used and 11.3GB free.

This would imply that Storag eAnalyzer does not look at the OS portion of memory, which is logical as we cannot use that memory anyway.

 

[ninkynonk]

So do you think then that indicates that there is something going haywire in the OS? What sort of things would use that space?

 

[Szadzik]

So do you think then that indicates that there is something going haywire in the OS? What sort of things would use that space?

Might be. Might also be a defective phone. Because if you have not installed any apps and it says out of storage, there must be something wrong.

Do you reboot it on a regular basis?

 

[ninkynonk]

Pretty often and more so with this problem.

 

[ninkynonk]

For anyone else following this issue, I just found this in an older thread about a different phone: http://androidforums.com/t-mobile-mytouch-4g/278837-low-space-system-data-huge.html
FYI my System Storage is up to 9300 Mib this morning. Grrr.

 

[dsmryder]

Use Storage Analyzer and see what takes up the space.

Trash is not stored locally in GMail.

Thank you. There is an option to look at the /system and other partitions. I'm playing with it now on my phone and I'll force feed it to the tablet next.

 

[dsmryder]

For anyone else following this issue, I just found this in an older thread about a different phone: http://androidforums.com/t-mobile-mytouch-4g/278837-low-space-system-data-huge.html
FYI my System Storage is up to 9300 Mib this morning. Grrr.

This might be my biggest clue. My daughter ran the battery down so I have to charge it just to boot it and check.

ninkynonk, if you are rooted you could check. If not, I would put it on my consideration list as this is one of the reasons I got into this stuff myself.

 

[OutOfPhase]

If you are rooted download try an app called cache mate and see if that clears up the issue.
I am going to try a cache cleaner that you dont need root.