Full Memory; A little confused. I thought I had it and I dont.....

[Tank Girl]

OK, so I have a ZTE Racer, not the best I know, but it was the cheapest and I just wanted to see what the score was before I committed to something more expensive. I think this issue is applicable to any phone;

 

I have rooted it, I have busybox, superuser, a 16gb SD card (partitioned), app2sd, and Titanium backup. I have no other apps that can go onto the SD card that arent already on it.

 

I have removed google maps and some other junk that I wasnt going to use, but now it says that my memory is full if I try and D/L an app.

 

I dont get it. What is filling it up? If I look at task manager it will show memory useage but it varies with which apps are running, so that is no help. App2SD says that I have 162MB total with 2615MB available. How can I free up space? I am a bit confused

[Redemption]

You have the same problem I do. Your device has its own onboard internal storage and that is what is out of space. Basically there are 3 types of "memory" on the phone:

1. Memory (RAM), which has nothing to do with whether you have space to install apps
   
2. Internal storage, which is the determining factor for whether your phone is out of storage.
   
3. SD external storage (which is what App2SD is telling you has 2615MB available)
   

To see internal storage usage go to Settings > Application Settings > Storage Use.

 

I've already moved as many apps as I can to SD card and I only have 32MB free on my internal storage (the Nexus One only has 200MB of useable internal storage). As apps update they get bigger so even if I don't install new apps I often get told I'm running out of memory.

 

Really frustrating, and the only solution is to get a phone with larger internal storage.

 

My 32GB Sony S tablet has 4GB of internal storage and is nowhere near at risk for being out of space, and most higher end phones will have larger internal storage. So on any device with XXGB of storage, a certain amount is actually considered external. I'd definitely make sure any phone you get has a huge internal storage since that's the one thing that is never upgradeable.

[Tank Girl]

Oh! Well thanks for that. So basically the phone at 4 months old is as good as useless now and I cant get any more apps on it as it is 'full'? Thats a shame, I had presumed that app2SD would just keep using the SD card and that I could D/L as many apps as I wanted.

[Redemption]

It looks like your phone has the same amount of internal storage as mine. I think things like this are a major mistake on the parts of manufacturers, and one of the #1 complaints against last generation RIM devices, which I think contributed to people defecting from Blackberries.

 

If your phone is rooted you might want to uninstall any apps that you won't need. For instance, I uninstalled Youtube since I have Flash installed.

[Tank Girl]

I uninstalled all the rubbish I dont need such as youtube, google maps, etc. I even accidentally deleted the 'Settings' which was a pain for a few days. I cant see any other way of freeing up space. It's retarded. What is the point in being able to do all this funky stuff if the entire phone is full. I may as well not wasted my time rooting it and getting app2SD and a 16gb card. It is a real shame, and I know this sounds like pathetic moaning and it is...hahahaha.

[Redemption]

I think it's a pretty valid complaint, and my Nexus One didn't come cheap either. If you want to have games installed you do suffer more than I do. I currently have Google Maps, Flash, Wordfeud, Twidroyd, Catch, JeFit, several weather widgets, Google Docs, Aldiko, Aldiko Sync, WidgetLocker, WinAmp, Tape-A-Talk, a stopwatch/timer, SoundHound, Skype, My Tracks, a carrier usage tracker, Goggles, Gtasks, Multicon, Chrome to Phone, AudioManager, Astro, and a few other utilities installed, so its not like we're completely crippled. But I do feel your pain when I see iPhone users install tons of games and apps with impunity on their devices, and I'll replace my phone when the Galaxy SIII comes out.

[darkknightandy]

Hey guys, I'm reading this and it can be pretty frustrating... I'm the happy owner of a Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, but i just realized because of your conversation that i "only" have 1GB internal memory on my phone and I'm a bit worried right now. For now I can't say that it's going to be a problem because I'm still learning about Apps and getting to download them, but yeah I've got friends with iPhones and they have 1000s of games and of course you feel like you're missing out on something. Thanks for the valuable information though! Next time I'll upgrade my phone (which I hope not so soon) I will definitely check it beforehand!

[dominiquelang]

I guess when it comes to phones, you really do get what you pay for. Thankfully this has yet to happen to me, but I'm almost about to hit my limit! And I didn't even know. I'll start transferring as much files as I could. Thanks for the tip.

[Maciej]

Hello, if you need more megabytes you can try these tips:

 

1. Go to Settings > Application Settings > All, find "Internet" and clear app data and cache, sometimes it takes more than 10, 20, [...] megabytes. You can also check if any other apps took your internal memory.

2. Install "App cachce clean" - it will definitely help you to free a lot of memory. It's very easy to use.

3. Install Titanum backup, press menu button, choose "more" and then press second button "Clean cache (dalvik)" or something like this. I found additional 7MB :-)

4. Optionally you can install another rom, for example a year ago when I've had LG GT540 in stock rom I've had 98MB of internal memory, and after I installed Cyanogenmod rom it was 120MB of free internal memory. 22 additional megabytes. :)

 

I hope it will help you.

[APShipley]

Sprint does the same thing. On our HTC EVO Shifts, we have NASCAR, Sprint TV, NFL Football, and a host of other items equally useless and taking up space. When I called SPRINT, they said HTC did that and they were powerless. I called HTC and ( you guessed it) they said Sprint did it and they were powerless. Lol. When people get tired of this junk and a phone that continually sends advertisinfg messages as you walk down the street, and don't buy the drned things any more then it will change. And now there are strong rumors Google is abandoning Android.