Out of space issue

W

world outside my window

New member
Hi - I've got a weird issue on my Desire running 2.1

I had 27mb of free internal space, so decided to install google earth using htc sync & the apk.

It failed for some reason, and now the phone is showing only 11mb free, and google earth is not there!

Now when i try to install anything (lets say a 3mb game or something) it gives me an Out of Space error.

What has happened to all my free space?
 
I'm not sure of the exact location in the Sense UI menus, but you're looking for Applications -> Manage applications. On normal Android Home it's Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications.

In there, you'll see all your applications. You can uninstall them by pressing on an application and using the option to remove it on the screen that appears. Also in that screen is a useful tool for freeing up Memory... try this on the Browser. If you go to Applications -> Manage applications -> Browser, you see the Clear Cache button? Hit that. In that same list of applications you can see which apps are using the most space. Go into the bigger ones and see if they have a Cache you can clear. The Market and Browser are usually the biggest two, but also look in the likes of Google Maps, Street View, etc.

Hopefully you can either remove Google Earth from that menu, or if not you can free up enough space to install it again properly.

If I recall correctly, 10MB of your free space is reserved for system use. So, if you have less than 10MB free you can't install anything.

Also, try powering off and on your phone. One startup, Android performs file system checks (a bit like the old Scan Disk or chkdsk on Windows) that might find your free space.
 
That's the weird thing - i went into the manage applications menu after the failed install & google earth is not listed there.

But my free space went from 27mb down to 11mb - so where did the 16mb go? I went straight to the settings after the failed install so nothing was done inbetween, and i tried rebooting the phone to no avail.

After uninstalling another small app it will now let me install apps again, but the 16mb is still missing.
 
That's why I suggested freeing up some space and installing Google Earth again. One possibility is that the files are there taking up space, but the installation has failed. The app folders are not deleted on failure in case you have settings/data in there that you want to keep. So, if you install Google Earth again then uninstall it, that may free up your space.

Alternatively, it's pretty easy to lose 16MB in stuff like Browser cache. But if you didn't run any apps between trying to install Google Earth and checking our free space it can't be that.
 
Ah ok i get it - will give it a go. Is there any way of browsing the data folders on the phone (not rooted)?

I was premature on the app installation capability - it did work via htc sync, but i still can't install anything from the market - just keeps saying "Starting Download" & nothing happens.

Guess Froyo will solve all these issues with inbuilt A2SD
 
Not unless you're rooted unfortunately. But you can try if you want - different versions may be different. Download Astro File Manager and see what you can browse.

The "Starting Download" thing with the Market is quiet common. Try cancelling and restarting. It's usually due to Google's servers being busy (sometimes), or a bad internet connection (common), or firewall, etc. Cancelling and restarting the download is the solution.
 
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