UKH

Any Android gurus here?

My Android 6 phone seems to have a lot of missing memory.

I used to have three pages of apps installed, and it ran just fine. Now I'm down to two pages, and it still struggles with low memory.

Looking at the storage, of 8G, it's taking just over 3G for Android OS. Another 2G for apps, and a couple of 100MB for data files.

But it reports only 500M free. And that soon fills up with Chrome and other cached data.

I've tried some online suggestions, such as uninstalling apps and reinstalling (supposed to clear 'incremental cruft images'). No improvement.

Funnily enough, Google isn't very forthcoming about Android problems...

The phone works fine otherwise.

Any idea what is using this missing memory, and how I might get it back?

Nanobots have got into your phone  via your fingertips.

(I'm assuming you've been vaxxed)

This started long before covid...

I have had the same problem in the past, 8GB of free memory filling up very quickly even though I hadn't installed any new apps. Only solution is factory reset, which seems to solve the problem for a while.

I've never got to a definitive answer, but suspect the problem is caused by a badly written app, with an outside possibility that is caused by malware/virus

Sounds like you mean internal storage rather than memory; assuming that to be the case have you checked the user data and cache your various apps are using?  Chrome in particular tends to build up large cache and data files.  If you haven't checked then goto Settings then Apps, then See all XXX apps.  Should give you a list of apps and the data they're consuming.  If this doesn't work (I use a more recent Android version, it might work a bit differently on Marshmallow) then google "android 6 clear user data" for specific instructions. Might be something like Settings, Storage, Cached Data.

8GB isn't much for today's apps, so you're likely to always be short after a bit.

youtube.com/watch?v=E-La91wr8xw&

Poor thing !!!

It's not the cached data; the figures I mention are after clearing the cache. I'm having to do that regularly, just to keep the thing going.

Did make some progress yesterday by reverting to factory on the Google app...

I've also tried a factory reset. After all the associated pain, there was no improvement...

What are you using to check your memory?

I use an app called disk usage, which immediately told me "Downloads" had a massive cache of nearly 3Gb.

Other than that are you sure your phone isn't failing?

My space on my samsung galaxy tab 3's is dissapearing. An example of that is, I was trying to download an app but I had insufficient storage space so I deleted two apps and then tried to download the app but I still didn't have enough space so I tried to re download the apps I deleted but there was no space!

Android Settings/Storage. It gives a breakdown of those sort of things. Plus a file manager app that shows the same.

I don't think the phone is failing, as the poor performance recovers briefly if I clear cache yo get back a few 100MB. It also doesn't explain the gap between declared usage and reported free storage.

If you can I'd give DiskUsage a go, it's showed where the issues where on mine, allowing me to get rid of the offending data, quickly and easily. The Android /Storage didn't point to the area causing the problems.

It's identified a damned great block (2.5GB) of 'System Data', but I don't see any means of doing anything with that. I guess it gives me something to search for...

It correctly identified the 4.98GB of storage card space (8GB less 3.02GB for the OS), and gave very similar figures to the Android Settings/Storage&USB interface

A couple of things to try.... pop in a bigger memory card and move as may apps as possible to the memory card rather than internal storage.

Check key apps are using he memory card for storage and not internal storage -e.g. Camera, WhatsApp etc

Uninstall your oldest apps like social media apps, and reinstall - E,g, The Facebook app is not massive, but the App + 14 updates is huge.

Done all that, thanks. It's got a 256GB uSD card in it, but not all apps can be moved. All media is moved to the external SD card.

The Settings/Storage & USB is already clear that it isn't any sort of user data or apps, or cache. Those are the 'low hanging fruit' in this case...

The problem seems to be this growing System Data area; there are quite a few hits on Google about the same issue. Rather short on obvious solutions, though... It can't be managed by the tools on the phone.  Most suggestions seem to point to log files and dumps, and using root to delete them.

It's pretty rubbish that Android allows this situation to persist, without providing some means to manage it.

That's another crap feature of Android; it shouldn't leave update turds lying around.

I spoke to a mate who had the same phone; exactly the same thing happened to him. He got a new phone...

I had managed to get free space back up to 1G by uninstalling updates to the Google app (that I don't use, don't want and would prefer to disable).

I have apps set to never auto update.

Bloody thing has auto-updated itself...

Of course, every time you uninstall it, it trashed the home page, and you have to rebuild it.

Bastards.

Try searching "clear Android System Cache" for your model of phone.  There'll be a way of booting it in safe mode and clearing this.  Less brutal than a factory reset & may help for a while.

Thanks. That sounded promising. But didn't improve matters...

As I did it, it started looking familiar; I'm pretty sure I've tried it before.

One of the regular suggestions Google finds (other than the trite 'clear cached data and move media to an SD card, or delete videos of cats' is to move apps to the SD card. Sadly, Android 6 only lets you do this if you 'format as internal', at which point it becomes invisible to file manager apps. So my nice 256GB used card becomes largely unavailable...

Are you a high end phone user or a budget phone user?

If budget end then I'd suggest just forking out for a newer phone. Probably end up being much less stressful than what you're experiencing.

As for the actual problem, can't help you but I believe it's because the market for this kind of product relies on items becoming obsolete and being replaced. Therefore there is no pressure on manufacturers (i.e. producers of software, operating systems, etc) to sort everything out. They only have to be good enough to get the majority of users through to the replacement purchase. In fact, any "feature" that consumes resources unnecessarily is probably seen as a bonus.

This must be frustrating for those that actually write the software because software engineers (programmers, whatever the current in vogue job title is) tend to be the kind of people who really like things to be absolutely perfect and who struggle with the concept of "good enough" with respect to the software they write.

Not high end, certainly... But it worked perfectly well for a couple of years. There's no good reason for it not to continue working. I don't like this throwaway culture; apart from the shit garbage collection, it still works perfectly well. It's almost like it's deliberate obsolescence.

And yes, as an engineer (though not software), it is frustrating, because this shouldn't happen.

Couldn’t agree more.  Had the same problem with the last two Android phones I had.  Tried the SD card, clearing caches, etc.  In the end I got an iphone and store stuff in the cloud. 

Still doesn’t fix the planned obsolescence problem and I’ve run into that again as my phone, which works perfectly well otherwise, is now to old for some apps to update or run.

If anyone knows of a means to recycle old phones or some of the precious components within, please let me know.  I have a growing stack of obsolete devices in the cupboard and it vexes me greatly 

Apologies for thread hi-jack