Phone Storage Full? but It's NOT.

[heatherd]

Possible fix

I had the same problem pop up last night on my Droid Incredible. I couldn’t get mail or texts, though I had more than 6G free. This morning, I read up on this and cleared data from some applications. The problem went away when I cleared the data from the Facebook app. (Note, I deleted Pandora just before that, as that was the app I was running when the problem started last night, but I think it was the Facebook app that did the trick. I reinstalled and restarted Pandora with no problem. If it comes up again and clearing Facebook doesn’t work, I’ll try uninstalling Pandora again though.)

 

[LadyJ]

I finally gave up and went to the Verizon store to see if they knew of something else to do besides reset. Poor dude had not even seen the notice before. I gave my okay and had him to do the reset. Yeah I know I could have done it. But I was there so I let them. I am starting over. If it does it again, the guy suggested coming back in for a replacement. Here's to not having to do that.

 

[yojay]

Message returned...Rascal has the answer

Go to Market and D/L K-9 Mail. Load your Pop3 to it and use it. Do NOT load mail data to Mail app. Hide that app.
Proceed to load apps, bookmarks, and use Backup Assist to restore People data.

G-F-L.

After all my good intentions to not wipe my phone by backing out my Facebook app updates, etc... the low storage message came back a few days ago. I backed everything up, did a factory reset and installed K-9 mail.

If the native mail app is really corrupting memory, that would explain why people are having minor successes removing different apps and data. All is good now. Perhaps Froyo will solve this once and for all when it arrives.

 

[Rascal]

Yojay and LadyJ,
Still not having any probs after restore and using K-9 Mail since 28 July.
I hope the fix works for you, also.
The big question is whether to use the native Mail app after we install 2.2?

 

[funkpod]

have you guys considered the problem being facebook for htc sense, friend stream? sounds similar to a problem i was having, i'm not sure if i was having 2 problems, where i was getting the low storage notice AND facebook was super syncing my contacts, i'd have like 30 emails for the same person, etc. or it was one problem.

 

[yojay]

Friend Stream guilty?

have you guys considered the problem being facebook for htc sense, friend stream? sounds similar to a problem i was having, i'm not sure if i was having 2 problems, where i was getting the low storage notice AND facebook was super syncing my contacts, i'd have like 30 emails for the same person, etc. or it was one problem.

Good point. I don't remember seeing multiple emails but these problems did kick off after I randomly clicked on Friend Stream one day just to check.it out. I didn't find it all that useful so I never launched it again, but maybe the damage was done.

 

[beemerchef]

Wow... I might be getting too old for this kind of phone! But I am camping full time and this phone as I write a Journal is my Lifeline being 3G works in... incredible places.
I have penty of storage it says and yet I have two messages!
Both are for phone storage. I have no aps but FB and flashlight and all the ones that came with it. No Gogge Earth...
I am trying to delete my "phone call" history, but it is NOT doing it...
Call history... delete all... are you sure?... OK... and it is not happening?
Should I call Verizon?...
Thanks...
Ara

 

[albert752k2]

Removing Google Earth fixed my problem.

 

[DrCK]

Leave Facebook for your computer...

My Droid Eris had started showing the phone storage full message a few weeks ago. At first, I decided to go through and delete apps I was not using as much. The message went away, but sure enough, it came back. I went through and deleted some more. However, a couple days ago, it got to the point where there was next to nothing to delete. My phone started force closing constantly, and as I read this thread, it force closed HTC Sense non-stop to the point where the phone couldn't be shut off. Reading through the thread, I knew it was not the hidden files, because I had deleted all the hidden files earlier. After restarting the phone, the layout of my home screens was wiped from the phone. I immediately went into the application manager on the phone and uninstalled the Facebook updates as several people suggested. The phone storage full message disappeared, and I could now open and send messages. In order to be sure this was the problem, I downloaded the updates from the market. At first, there was no difference, but once I entered into the updated Facebook, my phone began to slow. I decided to check the numbers of the Facebook app in the manager. I found the data had jumped a large amount just by letting it try to load up my list of friends. If this small task bumped up the usage that much, I can guarantee doing any normal Facebook activities will undoubtedly fill the phone up in no time. This solution does make sense, being that the phone storage issue did not peak until I started using the updated Facebook app. My advice to anyone who has signed into the updated Facebook, as nice as it is, uninstall the updates if you want your phone to work as it should.

 

[Phil Loring]

Hello folks. I've been struggling to resolve this on my phone for some time. My phone thinks the SDCARD on my phone is full. Storage reports only 93 mb out of 25 gb free, but in Storage Analyzer app I only have about 1gb of files on the SD card.

I have looked for .trash and .trashes but found nothing. I never had google earth installed.

I am totally stumped. Thoughts?

 

[Mishqueen]

The problem with the HTC Incredible isn't one app or another. It is part of the original design of the phone storage software. You can temporarily solve the memory error problem by locating an app and deleting it, but you have suppressed a symptom, not the underlying cause.

The problem can be explained better with a little back history. The Incredible has 3 memory locations: the memory card (which you can access and alter on your pc), the memory where the new apps are installed (which you can access and alter on your pc), and the data memory (which you can NOT access nor view in any format, any place, any way you try on your original phone or computer). These are not the official names for the memory locations, but I've gotten so many different names from customer service that I'm calling them by their best descriptions instead.

This data memory location is not very big, and fills up easily. When it fills, regardless of how vacuous and empty the memory files are that you can actually see (card and app memories), you get the dreaded error message and the resulting dysfunction of the phone's functions. It holds 1) the system files, which they hide from you for good reason, so you don't crash your phone's operating system just diddling around by accident. 2) your texts, and I'm not sure why we aren't allowed access to our text files. Maybe a legal thing? And 3) app data files. Which apps? We don't know. Which data? We don't know. We don't know because we can't see inside that memory location. Some apps deposit their data files in this memory location, and other deposit them in the app's program folders where we can see them. There doesn't seem to be any restriction on where they get to store their data. Not all phone makes/models have this bug; many others don't allow anything new to be downloaded into their small data memory location.

Obviously some of the apps who deposit their data in the tiny memory location have been discovered by this forum (Mail, Facebook, Google Earth, etc.) By deleting the app, we make some space in that tiny folder and our phone works again for a while (maybe even forever!). So we think that the app was the culprit. But then for many of us, it happens again and we delete yet another app. I am to a point now where I have zero apps that do not come stock on my phone, and I delete all but 10% of my texts (the most essential ones). All stats I can see say that my phone is nearly empty. Yet the error message still tells me my phone is full. All I can do is try to keep my texts deleting right after I send them, because you can't access them again to delete one if the memory fills. Basically, if I forget, I can't fix it within the texting app because I'm locked out. So I have to delete another app in order to get back into the text app to delete more texts. But I don't have any more apps to delete. I only have the original apps which I'm not allowed to delete. Fairly soon, I won't have any more texts to delete either and my phone will cease to function for anything besides calls (and that has stopped once also, when I didn't find a way to delete something more).

I think my phone is a special case--one who takes this problem to a whole new level of sensitivity in the memory space. A lemon, if you will. I have heard that my only real option is to root my phone so I can finally have access to that elusive data memory location and clean it out well. I'm not a techie and I've never done it before, and there's a risk of accidentally bricking my phone. But, my phone is slowly but surely turning into a brick anyway (if I can't use it for apps, texts, or calling...). It is in my near future. Shall I return and report if I do this?