why is google play services using so much internal memory every day?

[AC Question]

My phone has 2.4GB free of internal memory at this moment. However, by this time tomorrow, it will be down to 350MB of free space due to google play services app data. Every day I have to clear it's data, which gets really annoying. This started about a week ago. I can't figure out what's going on. I thought at first it was play music caching data but that's turned off. All of my google play apps are set to not cache or download anything. I can't, for the life of me figure out what's going on. None of my friends phones are doing this. I want to avoid a factory reset if possible. My phone is not rooted & I don't want to root it. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[alloalooo]

Had a similar problem going back a couple of months, also with an LG phone. I've tried a bunch of different options, and the problem seems to resolve itself only to come back a few days or weeks later. It's an older phone but I just rebel against the idea that a software problem means buying new hardware. Aside from you and me, this just isn't an option for millions of users in the world.

The last two days have been pretty bad, though -- Google Play Services is eating into upwards of 1.5 gb (10 times normal) and I'm waking up to warning messages from my phone running out of hard drive space and the battery being down to 20%.

In the past I have:

1. Cleared the data from Google Play Services settings.
2. Uninstalled updates and installed a fresh version from the Play Store when prompted
3. Deleted unused Google apps (almost all of them other than Gmail, the Play Store, Messenger, Photos and Chrome)
4. Deleted other apps that could have been causing the problem, one by one.

Sometimes this fixed things for a week or more. After the last two days (probably the worst it's been), I went to Settings -> Location and turned it completely off (it had been on Networks Only). At least for the last 12 hours, Google Play Services has been "normal" after this.

 

[bjphilp]

My wife's phone has the same problem. Its a Sony E4.
I have dealt with it by completely disabling Google play services.
The phone can't get email directly now but can through Chrome.
It now has 1gb (of 2) free.
Phone, texts and Whatsapp all work fine. Just keep getting warnings which just need clearing.

 

[DigiShaman]

LG Volt user here with the same problem. @B. Diddy any solution for this? I have used this phone for years with no problems. Something has changed to cause this issue.

 

[dougaldan]

Hi,
I've the same problem. I don't think its phone related. I have a Sony Xperia E3 and the issue just started a week or so ago. Play Services just munches up my memory to the point that nothing will run and I can't receive texts. I don't recall installing anything new so it must be related to an update that has been installed. I've just stopped Play Store so will look at whether that helps.

 

[dougaldan]

That seems to have fixed Play Services memory problem. Google app is till a bit of a problem. You can only force it to stop for a moment and if you blink it uses ~50Mb data.

 

[Desinia]

I've been having the same issue on a Straight Talk phone - LG31G which I guess is their re-branded European LG F70. Google Play Service -DATA- storage starts growing by the beginning of the day and by lunch time, it's stuck at 2.2gigs which is all the free memory I have left. If I delete all data, it just starts all over until the next morning when the phone is again completely filled. Email won't work, messages won't work. Phone jammed up. Nothing else seemed to stop it so I got desperate. The file that grows is located in /data/data/com.google.android.gms/databases/context[gmail account address].db

Since my phone is now rooted so I can GET to the file system, I went ahead and deleted all google play services data, left it sit for a few minutes to rebuild itself, and then I changed ALL the file permissions on that file to read only. In effect, google play services simply can't make it keep growing because it can't keep writing more garbage to it.

So far, I haven't run in to any problems as a result. Everything keeps working the way it's supposed to. It's been a week now and I'm hopeful.

 

[LudditeNana]

I did this and it worked. I wonder if it will affect my phone working though?

 

[Selgovae]

I've been having the same issue on a Straight Talk phone - LG31G which I guess is their re-branded European LG F70. Google Play Service -DATA- storage starts growing by the beginning of the day and by lunch time, it's stuck at 2.2gigs which is all the free memory I have left. If I delete all data, it just starts all over until the next morning when the phone is again completely filled. Email won't work, messages won't work. Phone jammed up. Nothing else seemed to stop it so I got desperate. The file that grows is located in /data/data/com.google.android.gms/databases/context[gmail account address].db

Since my phone is now rooted so I can GET to the file system, I went ahead and deleted all google play services data, left it sit for a few minutes to rebuild itself, and then I changed ALL the file permissions on that file to read only. In effect, google play services simply can't make it keep growing because it can't keep writing more garbage to it.

So far, I haven't run in to any problems as a result. Everything keeps working the way it's supposed to. It's been a week now and I'm hopeful.

I also found this post very useful. I followed the instructions from Desinia to the letter and so far it seems to have worked.
It's now 2 hours later and the Google play services data has stopped growing too big.

 

[Desinia]

Happy to report that after five weeks, no apparent problems with this fix. Google Spray Services continues to inform me of needed updates and all other programs seem to be working without a hitch. Google Spray Services does seem to be -slowly- using more data again but the database file remains on my phone at 62k size so I'm not sure where it's storing the extra.

 

[perfectlygoodink]

The file that grows is located in /data/data/com.google.android.gms/databases/context[gmail account address].db

Since my phone is now rooted so I can GET to the file system, I went ahead and deleted all google play services data, left it sit for a few minutes to rebuild itself, and then I changed ALL the file permissions on that file to read only.

THANK YOU FOR THIS! Oh my god, I've struggled with trying so many different things in the past couple of weeks, but this was the one that worked for my LG Tribute (LS660). I guess I was a bit reluctant to root the phone, but after receiving absolutely abysmal support from Google, Virgin Mobile, and LG, I decided I had absolutely nothing to lose.

My experience was pretty rocky, though. I highly recommend NOT using KingRoot, as it installed a battery-charger screen that served up ads and was very difficult to remove. I ultimately used method 2 from these instructions to remove all traces of KingRoot and replace it with SuperSU. I believe you can use a SuperSU apk to root the phone more safely from the start.

For anyone not technical enough to understand Desinia's instructions, after rooting the phone. I installed Terminal Emulator by Jack Palevich. I used UNIX "cd" commands to navigate to the above directory, and then used UNIX "chmod" commands to remove the write permissions from the db files. I recommend just Googling those commands to find out how to use them. Note, if you need to change into a directory name that is very long, you can use the "*" wildcard to match any string, but it needs to be a unique match. The chmod command is also a bit weird. You'll end up doing something like:

chmod 440 <filename>.db

Google Maps was a bit wonky at first, but settled down after a reboot. The only weirdness I see now is that, if I download an app from the Google Play Store, it seems to hang up right before it's completed. But all I need to do is close and reopen the Store for the app to install successfully.

And my phone is now back to being useful again. Thank you again, Desinia!

 

[kudtzu]

The latest LG software update and google play services conflict. Both try to eat up all of your internal memory because of a conflict between the qualcomm accelerated location snuck into the last update and latest version of google play services. If you just turn on the qualcomm accelerated location switch and set it to gps only then clear google play services memory, it will stabilize at it's old 109-110MB size . I'm not sure about other phone brands but I'd look for it. On the tribute they both just kept redownloading and filling all available memory until turning on hardware gps.

 

[Desinia]

I'm not sure this is viable. I checked mine and it was already set up this way when the problems started. What version android are you using?

 

[uabass]

I've been having the same issue on a Straight Talk phone - LG31G which I guess is their re-branded European LG F70. Google Play Service -DATA- storage starts growing by the beginning of the day and by lunch time, it's stuck at 2.2gigs which is all the free memory I have left. If I delete all data, it just starts all over until the next morning when the phone is again completely filled. Email won't work, messages won't work. Phone jammed up. Nothing else seemed to stop it so I got desperate. The file that grows is located in /data/data/com.google.android.gms/databases/context[gmail account address].db

Since my phone is now rooted so I can GET to the file system, I went ahead and deleted all google play services data, left it sit for a few minutes to rebuild itself, and then I changed ALL the file permissions on that file to read only. In effect, google play services simply can't make it keep growing because it can't keep writing more garbage to it.

So far, I haven't run in to any problems as a result. Everything keeps working the way it's supposed to. It's been a week now and I'm hopeful.

Hi Desinia, how is your solution working so far? Any updates or other viable solutions? I am having the same issue with my rooted Volt LS740 and just want to check out how others are dealing with this issue. Thanks.

 

[Desinia]

After about seven weeks trial, still no problems found except when you update google play service, it changes the file permission back and then the whole mess starts again and I have to go reset the file permission. There are lots of free, rooted phone capable file explorers on the play store that allow you to mess with all sorts of things both handy and dangerous. The ONLY advice I give on which ones to try is to avoid CM File explorer due to numerous complaints that it does other things than what you wanted it for ( extremely unwanted things). Having had problems with other CM apps, especially one called CM Security, I believe it's a good bunch to stay clear of. Right now, I think I'm using one called "Total Commander" which is both free, easy to use, and does everything I needed. I used that one to scan my phone for overly large files when this whole mess started. When the phone memory starts disappearing in gigabyte chunks overnight, it shows me where it went and then changing the file attributes to read only is as simple as checking a couple of boxes and done.

The only thing I'd still like to know is WHAT is actually writing to the file: /data/data/com.google.android.gms/databases/context[gmail account address].db and why, after all this time and attention, Google STILL hasn't gotten their act together and fixed their mistake. The file can jump by two gigabytes of size overnight on my phone and there's no flow of data that large going either in or out.

 

[uabass]

After about seven weeks trial, still no problems found except when you update google play service, it changes the file permission back and then the whole mess starts again and I have to go reset the file permission.

I see. OK thanks.

 

[uabass]

Desinia, how about setting the Location Mode to "Device sensors only" as opposed to "High accuracy" as suggested by Kudtzu, have you tried that?

 

[Desinia]

Fine location was switched off as soon as I got the phone.

 

[Desinia]

Latest version of Google Pray Services may have FINALLY fixed the problem here. It updated again and I left it alone until it screwed up. It's been running at least 2 days with no issue yet. Keeping fingers crossed.

 

[Desinia]

Just a followup to end(hopefully) my part in this thread.
A:Fine location setting had nothing to do with the problem.
B:As of Jan 2nd,2017, google play services as supplied by google seems to have the problem fixed.
C:I sincerely recommend installing a free file explorer like "total commander" or similar on your rooted phone to find out where and what happens when your memory vanishes. If your phone isn't rooted, you're basically at google's mercy when it comes to the file system - and they don't seem to know what the word means.

 

[uabass]

Yes it appears it's fixed now.