Internal phone storage is getting low

[2468]

Hi guys, I recently bought a galaxy ace. Now, I only have 4 or 5 apps on my phone so far and already I am getting a persistent message popping up saying my 'phone storage is getting low' despite the fact I have barely anything on the phone! Also, my messages seem to be affected as well because I am also getting a notification saying 'message memory almost full' and that is after I have deleted every thread in my inbox. The most annoying thing is that i have a 2gb card in the phone which has barely been touched due to the fact that i cannot transfer any files from my phone to the memory card for some reason.

Having been back to where I bought it they recommended I downloaded samsung kies but that doesn't seem to be relevant?

Any helpful but understandable advice would be appreciated . Thankyou

 

[KENNECTED]

Hi guys, I recently bought a galaxy ace. Now, I only have 4 or 5 apps on my phone so far and already I am getting a persistent message popping up saying my 'phone storage is getting low' despite the fact I have barely anything on the phone! Also, my messages seem to be affected as well because I am also getting a notification saying 'message memory almost full' and that is after I have deleted every thread in my inbox. The most annoying thing is that i have a 2gb card in the phone which has barely been touched due to the fact that i cannot transfer any files from my phone to the memory card for some reason.

Having been back to where I bought it they recommended I downloaded samsung kies but that doesn't seem to be relevant?

Any helpful but understandable advice would be appreciated . Thankyou

how much memory does the device have?

 

[2468]

180mb or there abouts

 

[rui-no-onna]

Can't you use Apps2SD or something to move your apps to the SD card?

 

[nickdalzell]

Let me guess, running Android 2.3 right? I get this often but you have to be rooted in order to disable this annoying, 90% false-positive alert and restore your sync/sms reception (it kills sync and texting for some reason, normally the threshold is set to enable the alert at less than 25% of your phones internal storage remaining. On a large-capacity device this can be as high as 150MB or less. On smaller, more entry level capacities it is around ~15MB)

You also need to be rooted to use app2sd or link2sd (I recommend the latter)

 

[rui-no-onna]

You don't need root for App2SD as long as you have Froyo or newer. However, without root, it only works on some apps.

 

[nickdalzell]

And it is likely those few apps that it will let you transfer won't bring back enough space either. The alert will show again one or two apps later

 

[Bytheseaside]

I have an HTC Wildfire S. This too is always showing Low Phone Memory. The Wildfire forum suggests the only solution is to root the phone.

Is this low phone memory problem a feature of mobile phones in general? Are there any Android phones out there that don't have this problem?

 

[nickdalzell]

There is a way to disable that alert via SQLite Editor but it requires root and the app isn't free. Worth it to disable that annoying alert and restore the sync though. It is used to add a value known as sys storage threshold you can google it, 'change system storage threshold android'

Unfortunately it will not disable the insufficient storage error during install once you reach another threshold where the package installer refuses to install even the tiniest app if space remaining is below it

 

[rui-no-onna]

I have an HTC Wildfire S. This too is always showing Low Phone Memory. The Wildfire forum suggests the only solution is to root the phone.

Is this low phone memory problem a feature of mobile phones in general? Are there any Android phones out there that don't have this problem?

It's more a problem with older low-end to mid-range Android phones. Since NAND flash is expensive, older Androids tend to have almost the bare minimum amount (512MB-1GB with only 150-300MB user accessible). Another issue of old (Gingerbread and older) is that even if your phone has 16GB of NAND, it's carved off into two so you might only have 1-2GB available for apps, etc, with the rest partitioned as storage so it's accessible to the computer as a USB Mass Storage Class device.

Most newer Androids (even entry-level ones) come with at least 3-4GB nowadays with around 2-3GB user accessible. Google's move to Ice Cream Sandwich and use of the Media Transfer Protocol instead of USB Mass Storage also means the entire phone storage can now be used for apps if you want (minus space used by OS of course). With 2GB available for apps, I haven't had any issues with low phone memory messages. I believe I still have around 700MB free.

 

[nickdalzell]

Is there any way to bypass that low space limit? I was able to disable the low space alert but I still cannot find a way to force install any APK if less than 15mb remains. I feel that I have a right to use any and all space on the device I bought and own

 

[James_Bond]

Rui-no-onna is right; some phones just don

 

[nickdalzell]

from my own reading into it, Android has a block on the install of any app when the internal memory is less than or at 15MB free. it will always claim 'insufficient storage available' and the installer will exit. unlike the 'internal storage is running low' notification which I have long disabled via SQLite hacks, I have not found any means to disable the install block. the usual recourse is to force install into /system/app which has a different amount of free space there than in /data/app (I got Accuweather and autostarts to install there even though the APK wouldn't install on its own) but that does not solve the actual problem--15MB unusable to the user, no matter how large or small the app. try installing something less than 50KB from the Play Store, and it will give you 'insufficient storage' and won't install. even if there is plenty for it to use. I am sure there is a solution other than 'moving to SD card/clear cache/uninstall apps/install to /system/app' but so far I have not found it. not sure why I cannot use the last 15MB of internal. I rooted thinking I could but I still lack that ability. seems stupid