Strange storage free space issues - G 2014 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm very confused about the storage on my Moto G 2nd Gen 2014, running stock KitKat.
If I look at System Settings - Storage, for the Internal Storage it shows Total 5.51GB, Available 1.08GB, Apps 6.06GB (what!), Pictures 7.09MB, Audio 220KB, Downloads 24.49MB, Cached data 389MB, Misc 316MB.
Link2SD - Storage Info shows the same 5.51GB Total, 1.08GB Available for Internal /data and SD Card /storage/emulated/legacy.
When I look with ES File Explorer, it shows 5.51GB Total and 4.43GB Used for my internal SD (/storage/sdcard0 or storage/emulated/0). However, checking the properties of the folders, they don't add up to anything like that and if I run SD Card Analyst with Root Explorer and Show Hidden Files enabled and tap Directory Analyse it finds a total of 735.78MB, with Apps being only 42.30MB, Others 460.79MB, Audio 194.90MB, Picture 15.19MB, Document 17.79MB and Video 4.82MB. In the folder view sorted by size it shows Android 402.12MB, Recordings 109.34MB, voix 82.82MB, TunnyBrowser 50.58MB, com.alk.copilot.mapviewer 27.20MB, Download 24.41MB, six more folders under 10MB and 40 more under 1MB, with about half of those showing 0.00B.
So can anyone explain what's going on here, as I'm completely baffled?

Just bumping in the hope someone will see this who can help me.

Depending on how an app works when it stores it's data on the microSD it can still show in the Settings>Storage as on the internal memory (WoT Blitz did this when I had that installed) so that can make your apps look like you have 6.6GB on the internal memory, also in a file explorer the directory in which Android, DCIM, Music, Ringtones ect. is not the 'top most' directory, in ES File Explorer you can hit the '/' (also called Device) in the top bar and there are a load more files there. If you do a 'Select all'>Properties does that come close to the 4.4GB space used?

jay2the1 said:
Depending on how an app works when it stores it's data on the microSD it can still show in the Settings>Storage as on the internal memory (WoT Blitz did this when I had that installed) so that can make your apps look like you have 6.6GB on the internal memory, also in a file explorer the directory in which Android, DCIM, Music, Ringtones ect. is not the 'top most' directory, in ES File Explorer you can hit the '/' (also called Device) in the top bar and there are a load more files there. If you do a 'Select all'>Properties does that come close to the 4.4GB space used?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, I am using Obb2SD to move all my game data from Android/Obb to the external SD card, so maybe that's confusing it but that seems like it could be a problem as if it think the internal storage is full even when there's really plenty of space free, I imagine it will start throwing up errors and won't allow me to store anything else on it, which rather defeats the point of moving the games in the first place.
If I do select all->properties from / that includes my external SD as well and totals 46.42GB. Even if I unselect /mnt and /storage it still comes to 8.03GB which can't be just the internal storage as that's only 8GB in total and I supposedly have 1.43GB free on that. Just /data is 6.21GB.

You do know that your internal storage is a combination of your phone storage and internal storage right?
In case you didn't know just open root explorer and go to data folder (long press and select properties) and calculate how much storage it use...then do the same things with systems folder...then combined data storage + system storage + internal storage used and you will get almost the same amount like in settings/storages show you...
Sent Using My Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G

When I say Internal storage I simply mean that which is not the external SD card. I don't know what the difference between phone storage and internal storage is though, as far as I'm aware there's just 8GB internal storage.
Checking the properties for /data shows it as 6.21GB (6.31GB Used), so I suppose with 1.08GB available that totals 7.39GB which could be close enough to 8GB to be correct. /system is 1.17GB. Still doesn't make any sense that Settings - Storage and Link2SD shows Total 5.51GB, 1.01GB Available but Apps as 6.06GB. Nor does it make any sense that the Homepage in ES File Explorer shows 4.28GB used on 0 but tapping that, which takes me to emulated/0 and selecting everything, Properties only shows 700MB used.
Doing directory analyse on /data shows the majority in Others 3.70GB, then Apps 1.95GB. It's a pain there's no way to see how much storage is used by each folder without checking Properties for each one individually but if I untick all the folders starting with a then the total is 4.06GB (4.15GB used), so there's about 2.15GB in those folders. Unticking all the folders starting with b through d drops it down to 2.07GB (2.12GB Used) so they account for another 2GB. Digging deeper I can see that /data/app uses 1.73GB, /data/app-lib uses 432.15MB, /data/data uses 1.25GB, data/dalvik-cache uses 717.77MB, /data/media/ uses 554.41MB, /data/sdext2 uses 272.20MB, /data/user uses 1.25GB and everything else is inconsequential. Adding those up comes to roughly 6.2GB, which exceeds the Total 5.51GB that Settings - Storage shows, even without adding the 1.17GB from /system.
None of this helps me understand what in those folders is using up all the space though, so does anyone know of an app that will show the space used by folder, like Treesize for Windows?

Can no-one help me make sense of this? The weirdest thing is that 0 (Internal storage) in ES File Explorer's Home screen shows 4.28GB but opening that folder and selecting all the folders gives a total of only 700MB, which doesn't make any sense.
I see that Titanium Backup can produce a list of apps sorted by space used, so I'll try adding those up manually and see what they total. I have linked a few large apps to the external SD with Link2SD though, so they shouldn't be using any internal storage and I'll have to subtract their amounts from the total.

Well I decided to wipe data and dalvik-cache (i.e. factory reset) from TWRP and start again, to try and get to the bottom of this.
TWRP showed about 370MB out of 5.51GB used after wiping. After booting, this was about 560MB (I guess due to the dalvik cache repopulating, currently 258.98MB) and by the time Google Play had finished updating the pre-installed apps, this had risen to 1.27GB.
The majority of this, 1.17GB, is in /Data. Settings - Storage shows 4.24GB out of 5.51GB available. ES File Explorer is a bit stupid, as it shows the same in the Homepage the same for 0 (i.e. 1.27GB used out of 5.51GB) but tapping that links to emulated/0 (which is just an alternative path to /storage/sdcard0), which only has a total of 4.32MB in it. What the Homepage shows is actually the used space from root (i.e. /) so it should show and link to that, not /storage/ emulated/0.
Another anomaly is that /data/data and /data/user are alternative paths to the same place, containing 230.99MB, which results in it getting counted twice, so really there's only a total of 965.51MB of files in /data, not 1.17GB. Obviously as /data/data grows, that's going to result in even more space being doubly allocated and thus unavailable, i.e. if I have 1GB in /data/data, it's going to reduce my free space by 2GB.
I also notice that /data/app contains all the apks for the apps that are installed. I thought apks were just install packages, like Windows msi or exe installs and that when installed they unpacked to somewhere, so isn't it just wasting space keeping all of the apks here? It's only 357.19MB at the moment but when I checked it before I factory reset it was 1+, maybe 2+ GB, so that's obviously a lot of space to waste out of 5.51GB.
Hopefully someone can help me clear up these questions, as I don't want to start reinstalling all my apps yet if I might need to wipe it all again to reset it. I've backed up everything with Titanium but it's still quite a hassle, as there doesn't seem to be a way to make a list of installed (as opposed to backed up but not installed, or frozen) apps before wiping and then restore just those afterwards, so I'll have to go through the list and try and remember what I didn't have installed before and de-select those.

Related

[Q] n00b question: internal SD card - what's safe to delete..??

So, I had my Raider for about a month before rooting and installing the rumraider beta BUT...my internal SD is showing very little free space, and all I can think of is that I used to have a few gb of vids & pics in one of the folder hide apps, and they were stored on the internal SD. All that ever showed in any explorer app was an empty folder, even though that's supposedly where the files were hidden. Anyway, I deleted the folder manually, just to see if 3gb or so would magically free up.. but that didn't happen. There are also a bunch of no longer installed apps' data folders kicking around I'm quite sure.. so the questions are:
(a) what does the format internal SD card option do in the raider's system menu..and will it wipe out anything important to the function of my phone?
(b) is it safe and/or advisable to manually browse & delete unnecessary folders?
(c) if I've already used SD Maid and see no real noticeable difference in free space, are there any other apps which might do a better job?
..I have only a few dozen apps installed since flashing the rumraider rom, but the phones internal storage was pretty full beforehand.. I just assumed that the whole wipe process prior to (and during, if I read the progress right) the flash would clear all that data out. Its got 16gb internal storage in total.. partitioned, true.. but still.. i have almost nothing free. I find that odd.
'lil help? LOL!
bproulx said:
So, I had my Raider for about a month before rooting and installing the rumraider beta BUT...my internal SD is showing very little free space, and all I can think of is that I used to have a few gb of vids & pics in one of the folder hide apps, and they were stored on the internal SD. All that ever showed in any explorer app was an empty folder, even though that's supposedly where the files were hidden. Anyway, I deleted the folder manually, just to see if 3gb or so would magically free up.. but that didn't happen. There are also a bunch of no longer installed apps' data folders kicking around I'm quite sure.. so the questions are:
(a) what does the format internal SD card option do in the raider's system menu..and will it wipe out anything important to the function of my phone?
(b) is it safe and/or advisable to manually browse & delete unnecessary folders?
(c) if I've already used SD Maid and see no real noticeable difference in free space, are there any other apps which might do a better job?
..I have only a few dozen apps installed since flashing the rumraider rom, but the phones internal storage was pretty full beforehand.. I just assumed that the whole wipe process prior to (and during, if I read the progress right) the flash would clear all that data out. Its got 16gb internal storage in total.. partitioned, true.. but still.. i have almost nothing free. I find that odd.
'lil help? LOL!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 using holiraider
your internal sd is only 9.48gb(ish). on that, you can delete anything you want. whether any apps use any of the data in there is dependent on the apps you have installed. there is nothing there that is */required/* for your rom to function correctly
after backing up all your pictures/music/titanium backup files/clockworkmod backups/etc to your computer or all on an external card, you can safely format the internal sd. the system will recreate any files/folders it needs.
personally, i would just back EVERYTHING on the internal sd up to my computer, format the internal sd from the system menu, and if anything doesnt work properly after that, you always have the files handy.
I have a 32gb sd card so i backup the internal to sdcard2 into a ".No Media" folder. I hate duplicating images.. But this way i always have a back up with me since i like to flash roms while im at work (to impatient to wait till im home).

[Q] Gallery - not enough memory

HI, first of all thank you for a great forum that i have visited a lot of times the last 5 years.
I have one major problem with my samsung galaxy note. I can't run gallery because then i get 'not enough memory, Delete some items'.
If I start camera and then click on one image gallery starts without any problems.
Storage on my note:
SD Card: Available 11,40 GB
USB storage: 0
System memory: 1,47 GB
Please tell me how to fix this. I have tried a few memory optimizer apps from the marked but nothing...
Regards
Noeinstein
After 2-3 days of experimenting and studying loads of internet posts I finally managed to solve this problem:
Your Gallery needs space on ur internal SD-Card to work, even if you store all ur videos and photos on the external SD-Card. And as you posted there is 0 kB Space on your USB-Storage and thats the point.
Go to Menu - Own Files and find the largest Files and Folders. Now you have to find out, which Files may be deleted. For example I deleted Game Folders that took up to 0.5 GB and also deleted some old BackUp Files of CWM.
Be careful with this deleting and watch out not to delete any system relevant files!
I did not deleted them but moved them to my external SD-Card so I could move them back if my Android would be messed up afterwards.
I hope this helped you and others!
as said it more than likely because you have no free space on your internal memory, free some up and im sure it will start working
Hi everyone,
I have issued the same problem newly on these days with my SGN. But on the contrary, when I look at my storage levels:
Storage Name: Used / Total
System storage: 0.92GB / 1.97GB
USB storage: 1.42GB/11.07GB
SD card: 8.00GB/14.89GB
I'm using Android version 4.1.2 with N7000XLSA Baseband and the device is rooted. I have deleted some files to free up more space in internal SD (which is denoted as sdcard0 in JB) but it seems that it didnt work out, because the problem continues. Am I doing smthg wrong or is there another solution or workaround for this?
Regards,
Same problem here
I have same problem. Almost same memory usage. I mean lots of megabytes exist on every unit (phone, phone sd, ex t sd)
But cannot open gallery, s note, etc with same "not enough memory" message.
N7000/4.0.4
Just clear cache from in gallery app from settings>application and reboot. Also you need some minimum space in your internal sd storage. Also do not install unnecessary apps. Try to uninstall the apps that you don't use. Some apps tend to use more ram & storage.

[Q] Storage Space Running Out

Guys,
Recently i have received a notification from my galaxy note says, "Storage space running out".
I see in the application manager in the "All" tab, the memory usage is 1.8GB used and 200MB free.. The interesting part is, if i sum all of the application listed, it hardly reach 800MB. So there are arround 1GB lost space.
I opened the Setting>Storage there is also a surprising thing. Under Device Memory there are 1.9 GB Total Space, Application 860MB, and the available space is 200MB !!!.. So where is the 1 GB lost? i believe its being used by some sort of logging program. Because the space is keep decreasing by time, even when i don't install anything new.
Do you guys experience the same thing? Or how can i list the usage of this 2GB Device storage space? or what is the folder to check?
I'm running on RR JB v3
Thanks in advance..
Regards
Try to check if you have corrupted files in the lost+found directory (if it exists). Your SD card might be going bad. Other option is to use another file explorer like ES File Explorer, which has lots of options. You can use it to calculate the usage, and if it matches, investigate each directory. One tip: with ES, you can long-press over a directory and select Properties, to get the usage for that particular directory. It can help you narrow-down the investigation.
dbolivar said:
Try to check if you have corrupted files in the lost+found directory (if it exists). Your SD card might be going bad. Other option is to use another file explorer like ES File Explorer, which has lots of options. You can use it to calculate the usage, and if it matches, investigate each directory. One tip: with ES, you can long-press over a directory and select Properties, to get the usage for that particular directory. It can help you narrow-down the investigation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the reply. But ES file explorer is not helping. it can't detect circular dependency. For example, in the /system/xbin there is a folder called "bb" this folder has no physical memory. Its just a pointer to /system/xbin which in this case is his parent. This create circular dependency, when i click properties in that xbin folder, it show me like 8GB of data and keep increasing.. its impossible right? because the xbin is mounted on a 2GB partition.
yesterday after learn about android partition, i have an idea to monitor /data partition using x-terminal. But i can't find the problem, because i have factory reset my device.. ahahah... lets see.. if this problem happen again, i already know where to start..

[Q] KitKat Partitioning Issue

At the risk of sounding like a complete n00b, I come to you all with an issue I'm experiencing. I know it's an operator error, so bear with me;
I just recently flashed Milaq's KK build. I increased the /system partition using the new CWM w/ data/media to 512 mbs. Everything is running well, but all the apps I install are installed to the internal memory, which maxes out around 1.4 gbs. My question is, how do I make the default install location the virtual ext SD card?
I hope this makes a bit of sense to you all - because I'm about to pull my hair out here.
Thanks for any/all input on my current situation.
I understood the partition/directory structure in my previous CM7/CM9 installs.
But with the new datamedia storage configuration I'm confused to all the various labels for the memory storage areas.
I've read the document at http://teamw.in/DataMedia
but the situation is still not very transparent.
• Under Android settings I see "Internal Storage" and "SD Card" and "USB Storage".
• In ES File Explorer I observe:
/sdcard ->
/external_sd -> /storage/sdcard1
/usbdisk -> /storage/usbdisk
/storage/emulated
/storage/sdcard0 ->
/storage/sdcard1
/storage/usbdisk
• In X-plore I also observe:
/storage/0
/storage/legacy
• CM File Manager app top level directory is labeled as "0":
It appears there is various crossover in directory mappings. Is there a definitive guide as to the partitions, directory structures/mappings and symlinks that apply to the above memory areas. There is already enough contradictory posts in various development threads on this so not asking for assumptions/presumptions. Hoping to hear from an expert/developer who knows this stuff on back of their thumb.
And what controls/manages where new apps are installed?
Good Question I also would like to know
While looking around the internet, I found this as a potential option;
In terminal;
su
pm set-install-location 2
I attempted it, but haven't noticed any difference.
/bangshead/
Stryeguy said:
While looking around the internet, I found this as a potential option;
In terminal;
su
pm set-install-location 2
I attempted it, but haven't noticed any difference.
/bangshead/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you are looking at this wrong. Instead of making Android use the external storage by default, you just need to make the data partition bigger and use that as your default storage. Milaq himself suggested this partition layout:
system - 600mb
cache - 200mb
media - 400mb
data - [remaining space] (i.e. ~11.5gb for 16gb TouchPads)
If you are going to go with Milaqs builds, The best way to do it is to move all your stuff from your sd card to your computer, wipe your sd card, use tailor in webOS to repartition to match what Milaq suggested and move all your stuff back onto your device in, I think, the sdcard0 folder (which should now have the majority of the space).
jsgraphicart said:
I think you are looking at this wrong. Instead of making Android use the external storage by default, you just need to make the data partition bigger and use that as your default storage. Milaq himself suggested this partition layout:
system - 600mb
cache - 200mb
media - 400mb
data - [remaining space] (i.e. ~11.5gb for 16gb TouchPads)
If you are going to go with Milaqs builds, The best way to do it is to move all your stuff from your sd card to your computer, wipe your sd card, use tailor in webOS to repartition to match what Milaq suggested and move all your stuff back onto your device in, I think, the sdcard0 folder (which should now have the majority of the space).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your response - it was exactly what I was looking for. I knew I was overlooking a step.
I'll get around to doing that tonight.
Again, thanks so much.
:cheers:
I had the same question. But I just used tailor to resize the partitions. If it says file system error, let it fix it. As long as there are free space, all your files will stay.
Just posting a follow up;
Installed Tailor and repartitioned as per Milaq's instructions, and everything is working as it should be.
Thanks for the help, guys. Glad to know it was just my reading skills that were lacking.

Storage issue (Phantom partition?)

So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
jmalone1187 said:
So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you go between AOSP/Sense roms? I don't see it anymore but it used to happen back when AOSP first starting coming out for the phone. It had to do with the multiuser support. It would leave all your Sense files but it would move the AOSP folder so you couldn't access them. Flashing a sense rom would let you access those files. I believe you can also access them by using a root explorer (es file also has a root option) and going up to /data/media you should be able to see those files and /data/media/0 should be the AOSP files.
jmalone1187 said:
So my One has been well above 20gigs of used space for some time, With an average of about 3 gigs of free space at any given time. I've checked my sdcard folder and it is about 5gb of space total (with downloads and everything else). There have been occasions where I plug the phone into USB and go to a folder quick and the files are ones I've never seen before (example in downloads folder the files are different then my actual downloads folder). I also have a directory 0, emulated, and legacy inside of Storage. These are exact synced copies of sdcard. Each taking up the same space (so 4x the actual amount of used space) and if I delete a file/folder for anyone of these directories it removes it from all including the sdcard.
Has anyone experienced this? is there a way to fix this without wiping the entire phone clean?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2158466 here is some info
Thanks for the replies! Will give this stuff a shot. Thank you

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