Database Develop

[Q] Couple of days in - a couple of Qs...

So after some great help by gregbradley and others, I have a rooted T and now have an OTA 195 update.
However I have a couple of questions (apart from my continued quest to find a way to get the phone to save camera output in less compressed fashion.
1) Is it usual for mediaserver to be the 2nd great drain on battery after the screen and ahead of android system?
(there appear to be many web discussions on this, but I could not find a definitive answer. Mine has always been like this even before I tinkered with it, or before I put the sim in (I didn't put the sim in until after I had rooted and updated. I do not have an SD card in there yet (64Gb on order) and I have not added any new pics or movies to the stock provided ones.
2) Can you change where apps are installed? Can this be changed for Google Play apps (like xda) Is the default to install to "phone memory" rather than "internal storage". Given that "phone memory" is only ~ 2Gb, it would be good to install to "internal storage"
3) Are apps on the home screens (eg Walkman) always running, even when not in use (the walkman example is the app 4x1 icons wide and has basic controls on it)?
Many thanks as always!
icstm

some clarification I should have added yesterday...
1) quite simply I would be keen to know what type of apps call on the mediaserver process
2) I know that from the "apps" in settings" some apps can be moved, but that appears limited and no default can be set
3) when I say apps, I mean widgets and the like, not the simply shortcut icons

icstm said:
some clarification I should have added yesterday...
1) quite simply I would be keen to know what type of apps call on the mediaserver process
2) I know that from the "apps" in settings" some apps can be moved, but that appears limited and no default can be set
3) when I say apps, I mean widgets and the like, not the simply shortcut icons
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Anything that needs to scan the sdcards for contents will call on the media server. After a fresh flash many apps will be collating their cache so the mediaserver may have a high battery drain, you should never worry about battery drain untill you have run a ROm for at least 3-4 days to let it settle
2) Yes, use apps such as link2sd or app2sd, free in the market. However I have not yet felt the need to do this with a 16gb internal memory
3) Thos e widgets are just shortcuts, e.g. I have a weather app set to refresh every 2 hours...it will be woring in the background whether or not the homescreen widget is on the homescreen or not.
However, do not worry about task killers, since android 2.1 the best task killer is the one that comes with the OS. The only other exception is if you install init.d scripts and supercharge scripts etc, but you may want to leave that for a bit and get used to the phone first.

So I am on the xda app, much better way to view the site than mobile browser .
However, I cannot see what you wrote when I reply.
But it relates to your last point on making customisations. And not just keyboard which prefers US spellings over UK ones .
I am thinking of tinkering with the OS files as I am very upset with the compression of photos. So I am keen by what you say just below number 3.
Sent from my LT30p using xda app-developers app

AW: [Q] Couple of days in - a couple of Qs...
Change your keyboard or even better your whole phone to UK in language and keyboard setting and it'll propose BE instead of USE.
Greg is correct, the media server goes nuts the first two to three days after (re)flashing or taking up a device. You can improve the situation by keeping your folder structure clean and neat and trash out left over files, old garbage and file system junk.

Thanks for your posts in both threads.
As for mediaserver, yes all is quiet now.
Not sure about which system files to delete at this stage, but I sure do keep a neat folder structure for my content.

[Q] DCIM thumbnails taking over storage - need a fix!

Ok so I have an SGS for over a year now, with an external sd of 16GB and cyanogenmod 10 installed (this one). It's fantastic. But, recently I started having some storage problems. I couldn't update anything or download any new app or even take a picture. This seemed odd as I don't have that many applications installed and I keep all my big files on the external sd. So I started clearing caches and moving applications to the sd. Those solutions didn't last long.
Worse, ther weird part was yet to come. When I checked my settings >> storage, I found that there should be more than a 1.5GB of free space. But, If I checked my settings >> Apps >> On SD Card, I could see that there was only around 5MB of space left. Still, I found some old backup that I didn't need anymore, so I deleted that. hooray, there were now 500MB free to use. That is, until the next day when again, there was zero space to be used. I was shocked because during that time I didn't install anything new, I only took a small video of less than a minute, which by itself didn't weight more than 60MB of space.
Something was definetly up. Using File Manager I tried checking where all the data is, and I found that, to my amazement, in the DCIM folder, there was a folder named ".thumbnails" which took up 2GB of space. That is a lot. seaching around the Forums here, it seems I'm not the first one to notice this problem.
And the solution always seems to be "just delete the thumbnails". To me that seems a bit crass and not really a solution. I'm not tech enough to know what are the implications of simply deleting those files, and I'm not sure how long it's going to last anyway, before I need to do it again. So I'd like to know if there's some kind of fix I can install or some configuration I can change that would make sure it doesn't happen again. Or, if anything, some explanation in layman's terms why it's okay to simply delete those files. I'd like to mention that my phone is rooted, and I have CWM, Rom Manager and Terminal Emulator so I can use those if necessary.

AW: [Q] DCIM thumbnails taking over storage - need a fix!
That really is weird. Did you try to fix permissions in cwm recovery? I'm not sure it would even check that directory but it surely doesn't hurt.
Even if it works it will not cure your immediate problem. You will need to delete the thumbnail folder or the files in it. And here is why you don't have to worry.
Thumbnails are small files that store a preview of your images. They get created by your image viewer and are updated whenever it detects a change in the image file. When your viewer doesn't find a thumbnail it needs to read the whole image file, create a preview and show this. The created preview is then saved as thumbnail so it can be loaded next time the program needs to show the image.
In short: if you delete the thumbnails then they will be recreated next time your image viewer shows the images. So there is nothing to lose. You can safely delete the thumbnails.
JUST BE SURE THEY REALLY ARE THUMBNAILS AND NOT THE IMAGES THEMSELVES!

[Q] 32gb storage almost full droid turbo

I have been reading other phone forums, looking for a possible solution to my problem. Attached is a screenshot of my storage screen and it shows almost 21gb of Misc and overall my phone is almost full. I have no movies or videos on it, just my apps that I had on my HTC Rezound with the additional apps of Disney parks and gsm battery monitor. I cannot download anything, was trying to get a file manager app to see what the Misc is, but despite deleting apps I keep getting the no storage error from play store. Anyone have an idea of what is in Misc and how I regain my storage space?

Yensid eno said:
I have been reading other phone forums, looking for a possible solution to my problem. Attached is a screenshot of my storage screen and it shows almost 21gb of Misc and overall my phone is almost full. I have no movies or videos on it, just my apps that I had on my HTC Rezound with the additional apps of Disney parks and gsm battery monitor. I cannot download anything, was trying to get a file manager app to see what the Misc is, but despite deleting apps I keep getting the no storage error from play store. Anyone have an idea of what is in Misc and how I regain my storage space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not just tap "Misc" and see what it is?

Yensid eno said:
I have been reading other phone forums, looking for a possible solution to my problem. Attached is a screenshot of my storage screen and it shows almost 21gb of Misc and overall my phone is almost full. I have no movies or videos on it, just my apps that I had on my HTC Rezound with the additional apps of Disney parks and gsm battery monitor. I cannot download anything, was trying to get a file manager app to see what the Misc is, but despite deleting apps I keep getting the no storage error from play store. Anyone have an idea of what is in Misc and how I regain my storage space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Miscellaneous file directory are app files or data like app backups and so on.. it's more like a directory I keep my main files in there. Like my documents pictures and music, I don't use android file placement. Edit: You can delete it you might lose personal stuff but the app stuff should place it back that's on your phone, there are many threads about this as well. Just have to look

I have been looking at the different forums on this but I never found a definitive answer on whether it could just deleted. I never had this problem with any of my other androids. I have looked and my photos and videos are saved elsewhere. I click on it but it just lists a couple smaller folders and a "vault" at about 20gb. I have never seen this before, never load games, and I just received this new replacement phone less than a week ago do I am very confused where it all came from. I have not even reloaded all of the apps yet. I will just delete it all. Thanks.

Is this a typical amount of usable memory?

With around 22gb of memory tied up in system/miscellaneous files (which I assume I have no control over without a root, i can only delete a few mb of the miscellaneous files ), is 10gb the typical amount of free memory available on this phone? Hopefully this is a memory leak thing, but I haven't seen any positive results since the new firmware upgrade.

thahue said:
With around 22gb of memory tied up in system/miscellaneous files (which I assume I have no control over without a root, i can only delete a few mb of the miscellaneous files ), is 10gb the typical amount of free memory available on this phone? Hopefully this is a memory leak thing, but I haven't seen any positive results since the new firmware upgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
10gb seems to low for free space

That's abnormal unless you've got loads of games or media.. Check to verify that you have no archived backup from recovery. Those take up gb's worth of space.

So I've scoured the settings and backup definitely isn't enabled

thahue said:
So I've scoured the settings and backup definitely isn't enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Backups made in recovery will NOT show up in folders.. Try wiping backup archives in recovery.

Go to my files, device storage, click more and click show hidden files. Check to see which folders are using a huge amount of storage

The easiest way to see what's taking so much memory is with the free program DiskUsage. You can download it from the Google Play store - it's small and very easy to use. Just start it and it'll show you what's what
LINK
thahue said:
So I've scoured the settings and backup definitely isn't enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

lirex said:
The easiest way to see what's taking so much memory is with the free program DiskUsage. You can download it from the Google Play store - it's small and very easy to use. Just start it and it'll show you what's what
LINK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ballin, yea so a while back I attempted to run a GameCube emulator and downloaded like 3 games for it..thought I cleared everything but I guess quite a few gigs were still hidden in unknown territories...
Miscellaneous files down to 711mb, thanks guy(s)

deleting unnecessary stuff out of system folder - Android 11

greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance

You can delete some apps using root file manager. I've use root explorer and have for years but nowadays there are times where it will not allow me to delete some apps (YouTube, chrome are a few this has happened to me on..) that my phone will NOT allow me to. And yes I have magisk and root explorer pro has root permission when this has happened. One way to get these apps off when this has happened to me is use another root file manager. Amaze file manager did the trick. I was able to delete apps I could not with root explorer. I'm BIG on not having useless bloatware on my phone so disabling apps is NOT my style. I usually save a copy by making backup and throw the backed up apks on my laptop or a USB thumb drive and delete whatever in case I end up deleting something that messes with my phone...Far as what can be deleted and what can't you can just discover for yourself. That's what I've done. I'm currently on a custom rom and I normally don't do much deleting unless I'm using the Google stock rom. If and when I do wipe more off stock I'll return and give you a list of what I did clear out. Just look in /system/app, /system/priv-app, product/app, /vendor/app with a root app and go to town. That's what I've always done. I believe TWRP for Android 11, the test build that bigbiff dropped about a month ago works now to make backups so that would be something to maybe do before hand in case you end up needing to restore your rom. On a few other devices I've owned people would sometimes make a thread on here for apps that can be removed and all and then list what they took off and what not to. I believe this Is what you are talking about.. If so hopefully it helps
Far as making system folder smaller and not meaning apps I believe it's possible but I think maybe you would have to repartition your device to do that and although it's possible it's dangerous. One wrong move and you have a paper weight doing that. I messed up my original Pixel XL because power went out while I was doing it before I was done and it was a goner. If anything I say here isn't right or there is more information about this please someone share who has more knowledge of this sort of thing. I would love to know as well. Good day/night to all. Cheers.

100kaa said:
greetings community,
i have tried to search it, but being pro newbie, I found nothing. Is it possible to make this folder little bit lighter it takes 22gb of space, and my poor phone has only 64gb
I have rooted devices
thank you in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@100kaa
You would be better off deleting excess files, trash, and photos that are already backed up. The system partition can be mounted and some files removed, but for the most part it is a minefield. Google has a fantastic new tool (since changing Photos retention rules) called "Takeout" that allows you to back up the contents of many parts of your phone and allows you do d/l it in compressed format directly to your PC. Check it out. OTHERWISE- If you simply must carry large files like movies, music database, pictures etc. then consider getting a USB-C OTG drive.
https://takeout.google.com/

This is why you get a phone with an SD card slot.
You then use the SD card as your data drive.
Only the apps and temporary folders go on the internal memory.
Next best thing is a flash stick or use cloud based storage which has downsides to it. Even if your internal storage is huge you don't want to store critical data there. I use about 64 of my 500gb of internal vs 340 of 500gb on the data drive.
If a large data base is on a large internal memory a data restore takes... forever. Most times the SD card is spared in OS crash and burns. Plus it can be used to restore the OS drive apps and settings.
Much of the above doesn't help you now but it could with future devices. All my PCs even my laptop are configured as dual drives. I learned a long time ago it works well, saves sweat and data.