Database Develop

Mystery storage memory bloat

My storage memory seems to steadily but significantly grow and grow. It is now at 98% full and I can't find any space. Normally after a hard reset and installing all of my data and apps this figure is in the 80% range. I do keep my temporary internet files cleaned out by removing everything from Windows\Profiles\guest\Temporary Internet Files which can generally free up a very large amount of space, say 10+ MB or so. The obvious additional pieces of information are:
-no new large files added
-quite a few SMSs - but not a thousand, maybe 50-200 total
-no new programs installed
-the mystery bloat seems to be in the Windows directory which is now 138MB (seems odd) as reported by Resco Explorer
I have used find large files feature and have thoroughly browsed my Windows directory and just can not find the large file(s) causing this. Could this be some kind of memory leak? This is the second time this has happened and the last time I resorted to a hard reset which drastically improved the problem (got rid of it and got me back down to the 80% level again which it seemed to stay at for quite some time). I really do not want to get in this mandatory endless hard reseting loop.
BTW: AT&T device and ROM, bloatware removed by reset during bloatware installation at start up. Any advice greatly appreciated.

you sure your removing the PIE cache by opening PIE and selecting to clear history and delete files by going to tools/options in PIE? thats the most common place you get internal memory getting eaten up. ive had 40mb go through PIe because i forgot to delete the files through the PIE settings

Thanks. Emptying that directory does the same thing. Just to be sure I did that anyway. No change. At 96% now. Ugh.

Give us a list of...
Device, is it a stock AT&T Tilt or one of the beta's we are hearing about?
Firmware, items shown on startup from soft reset!
Installed Apps/Cabs,
cause you could have something storing log files that you don't know about!
then we can have a reference of where to go!

OK here goes...
R 1.27.12.11 (std AT&T)
G 22.45.88.07H
D 1.57.00.00
Aps (in addition to std. ROM):
Opera
G Maps
Resco Expl+Today
TT6
iGuidance4
PC MAME
Calc98
Kaiser Notification (LED control)
TCPMP
World Card Mobile
Weather to Go (Tonaya)
MS Voice Com.
MS Live Search
Flash Video Bundle
Thanks again!

Look for a file named Today in the Windows directory. I noticed this on my Tilt ROM and it was steadily growing. It's safe to delete.

Also check your email, this can grow rapidly if you get attachments.
?Glitch

Does google maps save it's map cache to the storage card? I thought it didn't. If not, that would likely cause your memory to drop if you use google maps a lot.

Thanks so much guys.
@URPREY: The only file like that is Today_Order_23Jul07.cab and it is a whopping 3kB
@?Glitch: I only use SMS not MMS not e-mail, I think these guys are pretty darn small.
@snoogisnguy: I thought google maps downloaded everything it needed sort of in real time and cleaned stuff up in real time as well. Can you point me to a directory to examine for large files?

Bribe
OK hate to resort to a "bribe", but this problem is killing me. $25 to the person who can solve it. I'd be happy to simply make another donation to the forum as well.

Google maps keeps almost everything it downloads, if you use that a lot that would be my first guess.
check My device/application data/GoogleMaps and the file cashe-GLM.
Mine's about 2M and i rarely use it.

Try memmaid from Dinarsoft. It can evaluate your storage usage, including the google cache and tell you what is taking up the space. It's got a free 15 day trial.
http://www.dinarsoft.com/memmaid/

hard reset and start again... might be an issue that you may never find
on another note, why dont you sync up to windows and check the file/folder size of each one you have... theres not that many and so it should only take a few minutes
atleast that way you can narrow it down to what area of your phone is taking up so much memory... and then narrow it down to a file hopefully
just an idea

swamp2 said:
Thanks so much guys.
@URPREY: The only file like that is Today_Order_23Jul07.cab and it is a whopping 3kB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which file explorer did you use to check? The file that was on mine was a hidden file and had no extension so I only saw it with Total Commander. It grew very quickly and I had to delete it several time. I believe it was a cache file for the today screen. I use an RSS today plugin and I think that's what caused it. I have no issues after changing to a cooked ROM.

dunneldeen said:
Try memmaid from Dinarsoft. It can evaluate your storage usage, including the google cache and tell you what is taking up the space. It's got a free 15 day trial.
http://www.dinarsoft.com/memmaid/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks guys! All of the other suggestions, although great ideas, turned out to not be the culprit. The one above, with some more detective work was the winner. Memmaid located a folder called ~Recycled that was 15+ MB. It is a bug (or maybe even a "feature") in Resco Explorer that it does not show this directory ewven when you check show everything such as hidden, system, in ROM, etc. This directory held some files that were cached images from web browsing as well as other unidentifiable files. Memmaid also nicely deleted the entire directory. All was well until I got a bit too aggressive and used Memmaid to move all of the application caches to the memory card. This made my system very unstable, slow and almost unuseable. Luckily I could get back in Memmaid and undo those changes. Anyway a bit of a long struggle but finally this very annoying and crippling problem is solved. I really hope this thread helps out others with a similar problem.
As a follow up question does anyone know how to prevent such bloat in this directory in the first place? Seems like a very crippling feature of WM wihtout access to this directory.
dunneldeen: Was your suggestion enough of a solution that you want the "bribe" money? Thanks again either way!

You simply have to remove "recycle bin" feature from Resco Explorer settings, so your files will be deleted as soon as you do it and they will doesn't go to the recycle bin that in theory you have to empty manually, like your do with the one on your PC.

Tilt with no Bloatware and Portable sofware (kind of)

Hi there! This is my first post and, first of all excuse me for my english .
As a PC user, I always tried to have a good working PC, like all of us I like a smooth and fast performance, no errors, no spyware/virus, no registry issues, no useless hidden (or not)files/folders, no useless programs starting up with Windows, etc, etc. A year ago I started to experiment this: A clean Win XP installation and no more installations (except for an antivirus), but use of so called "portable software", many of them are .exe files only (you know, those created for use in thumbdrives). So no folders creation, no registry entries, no nothing. Perhaps I loose some system integration, but my Win XP installation keeps almost clean.
I tried to do in a similar way with my Tilt. Since I have no portable version of the phone software I decided to install the programs I use like audio players, games, utils., etc. in the micro SD card, then I do a hard reset to get rid of the bloatware, the folders (many programs even installed in SD card creates folders in the phone´s memory) and registry entries of the installed programs, once the phone is working properly I test the applications on the SD card (executing them from there), if they work ok I make the respective shortcuts in Windows/Start Menu/Programs, and that´s it.
I only want to share what I´m doing now, if it is good for someone, good.

Lost everything on SD Card

Sooooo I foolishly formatted my SD card from FAT16 to FAT32 without transferring any of my files over to my desktop, therefore, everything has been erased...the cabs I dont really care about as I can just add them again, however the pictures are a devastating loss, there were many pictures on that card which I loved and would like to see again. I am aware that there is a tool somewhere out in googland (and hopefully xdaland) that allows me to bring back image files. If anyone knows the name or location of this tool it would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Chris
(If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move, and sorry ;P)

I've used data recovery programs before but can't remember the name of which one i prefer. I'd recommend just doing a google search for either "data recovery software" or "picture recovery". There are many free ones out there so i wouldn't suggest buying one unless your too lazy to read up on which ones best.
If i remember the name of which app i've used before i'll post back,
Good Luck!

Solution is here
chrisrc1985 said:
Sooooo I foolishly formatted my SD card from FAT16 to FAT32 without transferring any of my files over to my desktop, therefore, everything has been erased...the cabs I dont really care about as I can just add them again, however the pictures are a devastating loss, there were many pictures on that card which I loved and would like to see again. I am aware that there is a tool somewhere out in googland (and hopefully xdaland) that allows me to bring back image files. If anyone knows the name or location of this tool it would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Chris
(If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move, and sorry ;P)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this
http://www.ufsexplorer.mobi/

if you format it i dont think you can recover it. formating wipes it clean. deleting simply deletes the address to where your data is located. recovery programs works by being able to relocate the data without the address.

@ denniegst: Somehow I don't think that formatting destroys data irrevocably. Otherwise utilities like Acronis Disk Director would be at least partly useless. And there would be no need whatsoever for things like DBAN, Eraser, Drive Cleanser... you name them.
@ OP: Provided you never saved anything on your newly-formatted SD card, there should be a very good chance of recovering your data.
At the time of typing this, I have a SanDisk-labelled RescuePRO mini-CD sitting on my desk. I got it with a memory card some time ago, never installed it, but it's supposed to save your bacon in situations such as these. Doubtless there are many others.

Ok, thanks for the posts guys, I believe I recovered the pictures. I used the RDMobile, thanks for the link!
slight problem, I ran the recovery, found the files, but when try to open it a pop up comes up saying;
There is no application associated with "Deleted SD Files"(what i called the backup) Run the application first, then open this file from within the application.
A bit confused on how to open the file to view my recovered files. any pointers
( I apologize for being a pest ;] )
...After looking through the settings, I thnk the problem might be where it asks me to define the file i saved...I am not quite sure what to define the file as?

sorry for the delay
I have not check these posts in a while sorry, the program you need is EZRecovery Pro, it will restore just about anything, deleted, formatted, raw etc.. do a Google/torrent search, by far the best and easiest recovery program I have found. And don't worry if you have written file to your card over the past few weeks, you would be surprised at how much data can be recovered even after a long period of write and rewrites. As always, if you like it, buy it.

try badcopy its good for memo cards and usb devices

Tilt memory is full?

So the main directory on my phone has a total of 124 mb of space but my phone says i only have about 8 mb of space left. I connected my tilt to my pc and opened my tilts root directory and checked the size of all the files in it and only got about 32 mb of data. So what am I missing? If my phone can hold 124 mb and im using 32 mb y does it say I only have 8 mb of space left? Also i keep all of my apps and progs along with all my pics, music, .cab files and all other stuff on my 4 GB sd card. Can anyone give me an idea whats going on?

Do you have a bazillion text messages saved on it?

still not enough space.
soooo... yeah i did have a **** ton of txt measages, but i stil have about 60mb of missing space anyone have any other thoughts?

And it's not a cache used by the OS?

Amorphous86 said:
soooo... yeah i did have a **** ton of txt measages, but i stil have about 60mb of missing space anyone have any other thoughts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have subtracted the space taken up by your rom ?
Try these.

all good now.
thanks a ton man that clear temp app did the trick. now i have plenty of free space

i have a similar problem. I have deleted everything i can think of, but the more stuff i delete, the less space i appear to have. I have removed all the programs i could as well, but now it says i have less that 856K storage memory. I had over 5MB full earlier today, but as i was deleting stuff, and removing programs, my free space kept going down. Is windows making copies and storing these items somewhere?
I tried downloading both of the cabs above but it told me a message about an invalid header, so i was unable to try them.
When i look in my "windows" folder, under "My Device" i see a lot of the old programs that i supposedly deleted. I am unable to delete them from that view though. I cant even restore from my Sprite Backup because there is not enough space to restore. I reinstalled my PHM Registry Editor but i am not very familiar with it. Is there a way to delete unneeded things from there?
I dont have a ton of texts messages, but i do have quite a few image messages. I was in the process of sending them to my email, and deleting them when i ran out of space to even be able to open them.
Any suggestions? BTW, i have Windows Mobile 6.0

Last time I ran out of memory it was due to a voice recorder running until there was no room left.
I also had an issue with memory on SD card.
Stylez posted me this handy cab - will let you see what is where
There is also the 'find large files' under the memory tab for a starting point.
Good luck

brandall said:
Last time I ran out of memory it was due to a voice recorder running until there was no room left.
I also had an issue with memory on SD card.
Stylez posted me this handy cab - will let you see what is where
There is also the 'find large files' under the memory tab for a starting point.
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will give it a try, if it lets me even install it. Last two Cabs it wouldnt allow me to install because of space. I took out the 1 gig SD card i have in the slot, and checked under the memory tab with the "find large files" and only came back with like 4 files, all around 200-300k.
UPDATE: Wouldnt even allow me to install cab file

loyolacs said:
I will give it a try, if it lets me even install it. Last two Cabs it wouldnt allow me to install because of space. I took out the 1 gig SD card i have in the slot, and checked under the memory tab with the "find large files" and only came back with like 4 files, all around 200-300k.
UPDATE: Wouldnt even allow me to install cab file
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you remove some other programs you have installed to make space? You can always put them back on once you've solved the problem....
Emptying your deleted items might help too...
Drag your pictures and videos over to your pc via activesync....
Did you run Cleartemp? Clearing cache etc ?
If it was me I'd be backing up what I need and doing a hard reset - When the phone gets laggy and clogged up it's the sure fire way to get things running smoothly again...... It would be a must for me!

Thanks for the suggestions. I was able to clear up a decent amount of space by deleting a punch of MMS messages i had. I had been in the process of sending them over to my email because i was at work and couldnt try synching the phone and moving them. I didnt noticed in the settings that it was creating a copy in the "sent" folder, as well as keeping it in the "delete" area. After clearing that up, i saved a bunch of space.
I am still noticing in the Windows folder of My Device that there are a lot of older programs taking up a bunch of space. These are all programs that i deleted or removed at some point. Not sure why they are hanging around.
I have tried using the two cab files posted by denco7, but i am unable to install them. Just tells me they are unsuccessful. Are they specific to a certain version of Windows Mobile? Is there any message logging that would tell me why they failed?

loyolacs said:
Thanks for the suggestions. I was able to clear up a decent amount of space by deleting a punch of MMS messages i had. I had been in the process of sending them over to my email because i was at work and couldnt try synching the phone and moving them. I didnt noticed in the settings that it was creating a copy in the "sent" folder, as well as keeping it in the "delete" area. After clearing that up, i saved a bunch of space.
I am still noticing in the Windows folder of My Device that there are a lot of older programs taking up a bunch of space. These are all programs that i deleted or removed at some point. Not sure why they are hanging around.
I have tried using the two cab files posted by denco7, but i am unable to install them. Just tells me they are unsuccessful. Are they specific to a certain version of Windows Mobile? Is there any message logging that would tell me why they failed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try doing a soft reset to kill all processes before installing.

Main Memory Low

I save all my programs and install them on the internal drive. I am still getting a low memory warning. Are there any specific places I need to look , i.e Windows folder, etc.., where I can remove useless files? I'm afraid to delete some important things.
I have an Alltel Touch Diamond. Thanks in advance.

Low memory warning is not about the storage where you save your stuff & apps. Its the RAM of the diamond. To solve the issue you'll probably have to install another ROM with lower mem usage or close TF3D before running your heavy apps.

HI THERE
the program pocket mechanic solve me a lot of that issue .
after installing the prog. i removed some what of files to the intenal storage .
it did work for me just great /

windows folder/directory
open windows directory. goto Opera folder. goto images folder. any files that aren't jpg or png (meaning files that will have an opera logo in front of them) are deletable. If you use opera a lot and have never done this, there may be many. Also Windows/Messaging. this stores info from all emails, even when you delete, info is left here- delete all old stuff. If you feel iffy about trying any of this, create a folder in your internal storage to cut these files into, and if you have any trouble or do something wrong, you can cut/copy them right bsck (but these sre things i do to keep memory clear). Also, ClearTemp is an AWESOME HELPFUL program (and free). I think v1.21 is the latest, but after 3rd day of using it, it had recovered about 10mb of storage memory. (set it up properly, din't just hit 'clean'). good luck.
Lastly, some early diamonds (roms) had a known issue with unrecoverable storage memory, so last case scenario, update to newest official rom.

nickschot said:
Low memory warning is not about the storage where you save your stuff & apps. Its the RAM of the diamond. To solve the issue you'll probably have to install another ROM with lower mem usage or close TF3D before running your heavy apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
au contraire. memory on diamond is partitioned 3ways (storage memory, program memory, internal storage)
when you get a 'main memory low' msg, it's usually because your storage memory (not RAM), and not program memory, has dropped to <1mb. not your operating memory or program memory.

UgXvibe said:
I save all my programs and install them on the internal drive. I am still getting a low memory warning. Are there any specific places I need to look , i.e Windows folder, etc.., where I can remove useless files? I'm afraid to delete some important things.
I have an Alltel Touch Diamond. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dealt with this on my first diamond. Had to return it - it is an issue on early diamonds, known by htc (storage not erasing things it should, regardless of user settings). A search will turn up a handful of other threds on this topic.

Thanks for all the replies.. here are screens of what I'm talking about.
As you can see I have a ton of storage on the Internal but 1Mb left on Device... If you still agree that I should follow the advice above I will do that. Just wanted to clarify what I was talking about.

thank you scottspa74
I have exactly the same problem with storage memory and what scottspa74 proposed just gave me the solution to my problem .
Thank you very much

Well, I also found that if you have taken a lot of pictures and video with the phone it takes up a ton of device storage. Try deleting big video files or transferring them somewhere else.