Getting "not enough space" errors when there is plenty

[elupin]

I'm running stock NC5 with SafeStrap 3.72 installed and getting the oddest problem which presents as not enough space to write into the internal SD card (/storage/emulated/0). A bunch of apps start reporting that they have stopped and clearing cache is only a temporary fix. Multiple disk usage tools and commands (Settings->Storage, df, ES File Explorer, DIskUsage) all show gigabytes of free space on the internal memory, and yet, when this problem crops up, I can't do the simplest thing, e.g.,

> cd /storage/emulated/0
> echo x > xyz

/system/bin/sh: <stdin>[7]: can't create xyz: No space left on device
If I follow with a df command I get:
> df .
Filesystem Size Used Free Blksize
. 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 4096

I'm a computer engineer, but not an Android developer, so I've researched and tried a bunch of things such as clearing Dalvik cache, using various commands in DU Speed Booster, etc. but every time it's just temporary.

I've concluded this isn't a space issue, at least not in the internal SD card. I'm guessing it's a space problem elsewhere that manifests itself for some reason as errors trying to write the internal SD card.

df output
You can see that nothing is full, especially not /data/media:

System Tuner (terminal)
========================
=======================
su (su)
=======================

=======================
busybox df -h (su)
=======================
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs 908.7M 140.0K 908.5M 0% /dev
none 908.7M 12.0K 908.7M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 908.7M 0 908.7M 0% /mnt/secure
tmpfs 7.4G 924.3M 6.5G 12% /mnt/secure/asec
/dev/block/vold/179:33
7.4G 924.3M 6.5G 12% /mnt/secure/asec
tmpfs 908.7M 0 908.7M 0% /mnt/asec
/dev/block/dm-0 2.0M 632.0K 1.4M 30% /mnt/asec/com.cjb.listmasterpro-1
/dev/block/dm-1 10.0M 8.4M 1.6M 84% /mnt/asec/com.rerware.android.MyBackupPro-5
/dev/block/dm-2 9.0M 7.2M 1.9M 79% /mnt/asec/com.snoggdoggler.android.applications.doggcatcher. v1_0-19
tmpfs 908.7M 0 908.7M 0% /mnt/obb
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/system
2.7G 2.1G 647.6M 76% /system
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata
9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 55% /data
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/cache
2.0G 39.0M 2.0G 2% /cache
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/efs
13.4M 4.5M 9.0M 33% /efs
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/persdata
8.8M 4.2M 4.7M 47% /persdata/absolute
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/apnhlos
86.0M 11.5M 74.4M 13% /firmware
/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/mdm
86.0M 49.8M 36.2M 58% /firmware-mdm
/data/container 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 55% /mnt/shell/container
/data/media 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 56% /mnt/shell/emulated
tmpfs 908.7M 0 908.7M 0% /storage/emulated
/dev/block/vold/179:33
7.4G 924.3M 6.5G 12% /mnt/media_rw/extSdCard
/mnt/media_rw/extSdCard
7.4G 924.3M 6.5G 12% /storage/extSdCard
/data/media 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 56% /storage/emulated/0
/data/media 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 56% /storage/emulated/0/Android/obb
/data/media 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 56% /storage/emulated/legacy
/data/media 9.7G 5.4G 4.3G 56% /storage/emulated/legacy/Android/obb

 

[alicia78]

I thinks its apps, which are causing this problem.

 

[KaosMaster]

This sounds like an issue with safestrap. It could be an allocation issue when you have plenty of space

 

[elupin]

I installed SafeStrap after this problem cropped up. I also have tried removing some of the last apps I installed. I don't install very often so that took me back at least to a state two or three months previously, when things were fine. Are there any tools to analyze the allocation?

 

[elupin]

It just occurred to me that installed apps update all the time, and an app originally installed months or years ago may now have some kind of problem. How can I decide in what order I should try unistalling?

 

[leeshor]

I suggest 2 things. Install CCleaner and run it. Also install DiskUsage which will allow you to dig pretty deeply to see what is taking up space.

 

[elupin]

For no apparent reason things got much worse with the phone rebooting every two minutes or so. I couldn't get ccleaner installed. I went into Recovery and tried to restore a backup from last week, when things weren't so bad, but the restore failed after running for about 2 hours, leaving the phone in no man's land, partly reset but with some of my apps installed. I had to perform a factory reset from SafeStrap, which I had hoped to avoid.

Next came hours of restoring apps, which would have been a lot worse without MyBackup Pro. So now we'll see how things go.