Why is the system storage taking all available space ?

JustTired

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• Type of device; One Plus Nord N200 5G

• Whether a carrier/network device, or SIM-free; Fiz

• Whether bought new or used; Bought new last december

• Whether the device may have incurred damage, such as from impact or water; Nope shouldn't have any damage

• What version of the OS; Android 11

• Whether the trouble is on Wifi, mobile data, or both; I'm not totally sure

• The source from which any troublesome apps or software were downloaded; all apps were downloaded in the google play store

• What you’ve already tried to fix the problem; We did multiple factory reset, we sent it to oneplus twice and nothing is fixed. System storage just gradually grow until it takes all the free space. At that point if you delete an app it will grow to take the space you just freed. The bug can appear rapidly (24 to 48h after the reset) or it can take up to a few weeks. We also tried to unlock the phone and test it with a different sim. the problem didn't appear but 3 days after we lock the phone back and set it with the owner sim card the bug reappeared : system storage went from 13gb to 23gb to 25gb and to 28gb in the same day. I tried to make it grow again since and I can't figure it out.

• What message appears if you try to do something, but are unable; If we let it take all space it will say : stockage almost full, some system fonctionnality may close. Free some space to use messenger and apps will start closing or not opening or crash.

• What you were doing before the problem occurred; I wish I knew, I'm trying everything to trigger it c_c it just does it but I can't figure out why.

• Whether you are using an SD card; At first yes but then we tried without it and it didn't change anything.

• Whether the device software has been modified or customised; Nope we tried to keep it as simple as they are

• Whether there were recent repairs; So like I said we sent it twice de Oneplus repair center. the first time they changed the motherboard the second time they only did a customer system update. they then asked me to make logs and a post on their community which have plenty of cases with the same issue but no anwser. I'm getting desseperate please help. (link of the oneplus post with pictures : https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/storage-taking-up-all-free-space.1575850/)
 

B. Diddy

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Welcome to Android Central! Yeah, that sounds like an insidious bug that seems to affect OnePlus phones only. Javier P knows the most about that amongst the Ambassadors.
 

Javier P

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Welcome to the forums. I couldn't open your link, it seems that thread doesn't exist anymore. That problem has been reported in different OnePlus devices, mostly Nord and OP 9. Unfortunately there's not a definitive solution and many users are furious with OnePlus. It seems the cause could be a software or hardware problem that generates log/dump files that don't stop growing. These files are accessible only with root.

My only recommendation is getting in touch with OP support, I know, again :( , and insist that they should give you a new phone. I'll let you know if someone find a solution but I'm not very confident that will happen. In some cases the dump files were created by a camera failure, in others by the modem. As you already know changing the motherboard doesn't fix the issue. Sorry.
 

mustang7757

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Welcome to the forums. I couldn't open your link, it seems that thread doesn't exist anymore. That problem has been reported in different OnePlus devices, mostly Nord and OP 9. Unfortunately there's not a definitive solution and many users are furious with OnePlus. It seems the cause could be a software or hardware problem that generates log/dump files that don't stop growing. These files are accessible only with root.

My only recommendation is getting in touch with OP support, I know, again :( , and insist that they should give you a new phone. I'll let you know if someone find a solution but I'm not very confident that will happen. In some cases the dump files were created by a camera failure, in others by the modem. As you already know changing the motherboard doesn't fix the issue. Sorry.
Hopefully software side :(
 

JustTired

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Well thank you all for the nice welcome ! That's more then what I got from OnePlus so far.
My thread still there maybe I took the wrong link sorry my bad ! : https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/storage-taking-up-all-free-space.1575850/
But yeah as you see many people reported that issue and no one is near of getting any solution from what I've seeing...I asked many time for a replacement or a refund and they refuse every time saying the delay for this is past. What really pissed me off is that by the time we saw the bug for the first time the 'delay' was already passed so there was no way we could have seen it before unless we knew about it...

I'm trying to reproduce the bug to make a logs for them but honestly I tried every app my mom use on her phone and I couldn't really find anything...

I say about the camera failure, but well at this point I just don't really know what to do x_x

Apps my mom use are :
life360
Ring
Facebook
Messenger
E-mail

That's pretty much all of it.

At some point she made 2-3 calls and the system storage grew from 23gb to 25gb, but I tried to reproduce it with my sim (my mom using her old phone since the issue started) and the calls were fine storage didn't move. My brain is starting to melt trying to figure out this damn issue for real.

Thank Javier I'll try my best with them, although their customer service is mhmmm *insert unsatisfied terms* (let's keep it polite)

If I find anything on my side I'll keep you guys posted
 

Javier P

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Well thank you all for the nice welcome ! That's more then what I got from OnePlus so far.
My thread still there maybe I took the wrong link sorry my bad ! : https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/storage-taking-up-all-free-space.1575850/
But yeah as you see many people reported that issue and no one is near of getting any solution from what I've seeing...I asked many time for a replacement or a refund and they refuse every time saying the delay for this is past. What really pissed me off is that by the time we saw the bug for the first time the 'delay' was already passed so there was no way we could have seen it before unless we knew about it...

I'm trying to reproduce the bug to make a logs for them but honestly I tried every app my mom use on her phone and I couldn't really find anything...

I say about the camera failure, but well at this point I just don't really know what to do x_x

Apps my mom use are :
life360
Ring
Facebook
Messenger
E-mail

That's pretty much all of it.

At some point she made 2-3 calls and the system storage grew from 23gb to 25gb, but I tried to reproduce it with my sim (my mom using her old phone since the issue started) and the calls were fine storage didn't move. My brain is starting to melt trying to figure out this damn issue for real.

Thank Javier I'll try my best with them, although their customer service is mhmmm *insert unsatisfied terms* (let's keep it polite)

If I find anything on my side I'll keep you guys posted
I've found a report that getting a new SIM card fixed the problem for one user. Worth a try. You'll probably need a factory reset, though.
 

JustTired

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Interesting...that would explain why we can't reproduce the issue with our sim card...I'll check this out. I wonder what in a sim card could trigger this weird behaviour.

Thanks for the information Javier P and thanks for the trick B.Diddy I'll keep it in mind if storage grow some more.

In the mean time, I'll see if I can get an hand on a new sim for my mom. Fingers crossed
 
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Javier P

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Interesting...that would explain why we can't reproduce the issue with our sim card...I'll check this out. I wonder what in a sim card could trigger this weird behaviour.

Thanks for the information Javier P and thanks for the trick B.Diddy I'll keep it in mind if storage grow some more.

In the mean time, I'll see if I can get an hand on a new sim for my mom. Fingers crossed
Who knows. Apparently it could be related to the 5G capability and some error with an old/bad SIM card. Just in case, make sure to disable 5G while you wait for the new card.
 

JustTired

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Hi,

I managed to recreate the issue and made a logs while doing it (will see if Oneplus can fix it...). It seems like the mobile network isn't stable at my mom's place, it would sometimes pass from 4G to 4G+ to crashing. About everytime the mobile network was lost (crash) and came back the system storage seems to grew. It passed from 28 to 30gb in less then an hour I think. I also tried switching my sim card instead and the same happened with my sim card it grew another 2 gb in about 15 mins.
 

JustTired

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Ok so now their developper team are working on it. Finger crossed ! I hope they find something fast.

I saw a lot of OnePlus devices affected by this but it seems to have some other phone too (Realme, Redmi, Pixel 5)

I'll come back when I get anything new
 

Ckur6

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Ok so now their developper team are working on it. Finger crossed ! I hope they find something fast.

I saw a lot of OnePlus devices affected by this but it seems to have some other phone too (Realme, Redmi, Pixel 5)

I'll come back when I get anything new

Anything new on this? OnePlus threads galore. Still no real answer, though this thread was the most promising found.