RAZR Out of space for no apparent reason??

[MoreJoe]

I have the original Motorola Droid RAZR. The phone is on the Verizon network and is not rooted or anything out of the ordinary. Recently I have been getting the message
"running out of storage" some applications may not work etc.
I have deleted most of my seldom used apps, cleared all the cache that I can, and now the device has over 7 Gigabytes available in both the device memory and the SD card for available space totaling almost 15 Gigabytes.
The "running out of memory" message still persists and syncing has now stopped.
I have read most if not all the forum posts with varying levels of comprehension.
I am obviously missing something.
When I connect my razr to my laptop I am able to see three "drives" labeled F: G: and H:
none of which seem to be overly large or out of capacity.
Can someone please help me or point me to a simple step by step walk through of how to get my old phone working properly again? I only use it for calls, email and texting. No big data downloads like movies, no facebook, nothing beyond the basics.
I am truly perplexed.

 

[Ian Morgan2]

Are you running the Android Jellybean operating system ? If so, I'm not sure what it allows you to see. If you go to Settings and then Apps.....does it differentiate between Downloaded, System apps and Running ?
If you are able to look at Running apps.....can you see how much of the RAM is being used ? ( Memory used for processes as separate from that used for Storage ). I think Moto Droid RAZR came with 1GB of. As the phone is getting older, perhaps it's using more of.
If you are not able to get at the info.....you could download CCleaner for Android.....that would allow you to get at the details.

Hope it's of some help......regards......

 

[MoreJoe]

I am running Jelly Bean 4.1.2
When I check apps that are running the RAM says "495MB used 347MB free"
Sadly, since the device is claiming to be low on storage space, it will not allow me to download any more apps. It seems like I am between a rock and a hard place.
This is probably some cosmic plot from Verizon to jab me into buying a new phone?
Sad really because the RAZR did all that I needed until it stopped syncing and proclaimed itself out of space.

 

[Ian Morgan2]

Try cleaning the cache partition as per :-
https://motorola-global-portal.cust...162/p/30,6720,8112/session/L3RpbWUvMTQzOTgxMj
Extract :-
DROID RAZR.......
How do I clear Cache Partition on my device?
This will remove any temporary files that may be causing the problem, but will not delete your files or settings.

It may also be worth you taking a look at the following post regarding low memory warning in RAZR and how the 16GB is apportioned.....
https://forums.motorola.com/posts/9e15d62bb6

 

[MoreJoe]

I really appreciate your help in this! I tried and succeeded in clearing the cache partition however it made little or no difference since I had already gone through every application and cleared cache wherever possible. When I embarked on this I never wanted to become a "Telephone Techie" but circumstances are forcing me to learn things I never wanted to know. When I look into moving the apps that remain on my telephone the only option seems to be to move them to "Internal storage" or "Uninstall" I don't see any option to move to the SD card??
Since I have 7 plus gigabytes of available internal storage I may do that. I just wondered why there is no Move to SD card option??

 

[Ian Morgan2]

I think it may be worth trying to clarify how much space is available......and why you're getting the low memory warning.
From what I read in the motorola forum post.....RAZR comes with 16GB configured: ( forget about the external SD for a moment. ) That 16GB of internal storage, seems to be apportioned thus from the outset :-

8GB for general storage (music/Videos/pictures/files/text threads/call history/etc). This is known as "Media Memory" in Settings>storage.
2GB for application storage/app cache.
6GB for system use only, stock ROM, and device operation.

The error message apparently comes from you running low in the "2GB" set aside for app storage.
Even with Lollipop, all apps cannot be moved to the external SD if developers havn't configured them to do so. Even if they can be moved, the whole of the app isn't moved over. Sometimes, some apps don't perform as well either.....in my experience.

So....it seems that what you need to do is reduce the total figure of your apps. I hope I've got it right....hope that helps....

 

[MoreJoe]

Many Thanks Ian!
Your replies have been really helpful in both their content and their clarity.
I cannot state this for a fact but I have the impression that my Motorola Droid RAZR (original model) is actually configured with only One Gig for app storage. I say this because whenever I check the Applications Running the RAM numbers of Used and Free invariably add up to something just under One Gig. Perhaps that is a wild conclusion I am leaping to?
There are frequently numerous Google Services which each can contain one or two Processes and any number of Services up to as many as 5 or more. I don't launch them and whenever I open them to see if I can shut them down they threaten me with some unknown dark fate.
As a point of humor my non technical wife has an iPhone and often remarks that "I don't get all those problems with my lovely Apple phone". I just give her a deep sigh and go back to studying "Everything I Never Wanted to Learn About Android".
And so it goes.

 

[Ian Morgan2]

I get the feeling that what's happening is that the 7GB of storage free, is in "Media Memory".....you stated earlier, you don't download much media/vids/pictures/music etc.....You may be only using about 1GB of that.....
But you're up to the mark with the 2GB of app storage......it seems that you have no choice but to uninstall some apps in order to rectify the situation
Stopping processes decreases RAM usage....but Android manages that for itself....it will start them up again if it needs to; and that usurps the phone's resources.
My wife and I have identical phones but we still have disagreements over technicalities !!Ha !

 

[MoreJoe]

For anyone reading this thread I feel I owe the forum some conclusions from a non technical point of view. In my opinion there is some perverse logic in the storage file structure on my android phone. The storage is set up in several distinct partitions none of which are clearly labeled or simple to access. Thanks to the help from Ian I was able to finally crack the code at least a little bit. There is a partition for the android system and one for applications and application storage. There are (on my phone) two major chunks of memory, one internal to the phone and one on the removable SD card. When the phone starts to issue messages that you are running out of space, the last thing a non technical person would think of doing is moving any applications onto the phone, and yet this is precisely what fixed my storage issue. When faced with moving or deleting applications the choices are few. Typically I was offered two: "Uninstall" or "Move to Phone". Since I was running out of space move to phone seemed like a dumb idea and yet that is what I needed to do. I read about moving applications to the SD card but none of my applications seemed to offer me that option. I am a simple soul and use my phone for basic operations of voice, text, email and some minor web browsing. Because of the length of time I have owned my phone it had become "Full" and started to lose operations like "Sync". I read a lot of the forum notes but a lot is written in tech short hand and android speak.
I hope that anyone running into similar problems will derive relief and comfort from this note.
Thanks to Ian and all who sent me notes of help.