Optimus V running out of memory

[mdhirsch]

I've had my Optimus V for a month, now, and am very happy with it. One thing that still confuses me is the way memory is used.

I have a notification that "Phone storage space is getting low." This seems reasonable as superbox reports that I have 15MB of phone storage left. 15MB is not much for installing apps, and I appreciate the warning. But what also occasionally happens is I am told by, say, the messaging app that there is no memory left and I have to clear out my old messages. I don't text much, so I have maybe 20 texts, call it under 10K of text. No picture or video texts.

Why do I get this message when there is still 15MB available on the phone memory and multiple Gig available on the SD card? Or is it RAM that is getting low?

Thanks,

Michael

 

[pbailey212]

Its talking about ram, you probably have a rogue app running, gallery will cause this alot. Download app watchdog, and it will show you when an app is going crazy, you can also see if an app is consuming a huge chunk of your battery. That would be a good indicator too

 

[ceejay83]

yes that's the phone memory. you need to uninstall apps or send them to sd card to free up memory

 

[Whyzor]

The Optimus V has:

512 MB RAM (used by active OS & apps, reset when phone is off)
512 MB ROM (persistent between reboots, taken up by OS, swap, & internal app installations)
2+ GB SDcard storage (for app data, music, video files, etc)

I believe the 15 MB is how much space is left to install apps. the Optimus V only has about 170 MB usable for installing apps (without using 'app2sd' feature. If using something like 'apps2sd', you can move most of the apps to the gigabyte SD storage, but some of it will still remain on the internal storage.

 

[ceejay83]

Its talking about ram, you probably have a rogue app running, gallery will cause this alot. Download app watchdog, and it will show you when an app is going crazy, you can also see if an app is consuming a huge chunk of your battery. That would be a good indicator too

it's not the ram, he says the notification says "phone storage space is low"

 

[pbailey212]

You right, I missed that part

 

[androidsamurai]

The message you are getting is relating to the fact that you are almost out of App Storage space... Basically, just like your Hard-Drive was full...

Go into Settings/Applications/Manage Applications and select an app(A game for instance) and select Move to SDcard... Just take a look at the screenshots I just took for ya.

 

[Ticojpunk]

The Optimus V has:

512 MB RAM (used by active OS & apps, reset when phone is off)
512 MB ROM (persistent between reboots, taken up by OS, swap, & internal app installations)
2+ GB SDcard storage (for app data, music, video files, etc)

I believe the 15 MB is how much space is left to install apps. the Optimus V only has about 170 MB usable for installing apps (without using 'app2sd' feature. If using something like 'apps2sd', you can move most of the apps to the gigabyte SD storage, but some of it will still remain on the internal storage.

Do you need root to install and use app2sd?

 

[zires]

Yes and I would recommend move to sd enabler as well.

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk

 

[kcls]

Do you need root to install and use app2sd?

Nope, just go to your settings, click on the app you want to move, then click "Move to SD Card". If it is grayed out, that means you can't move it. It is something that needs to be enabled by the developer of the app, so if the app hasn't been updated in a while, it probably won't have the option.

 

[Ticojpunk]

Nope, just go to your settings, click on the app you want to move, then click "Move to SD Card". If it is grayed out, that means you can't move it. It is something that needs to be enabled by the developer of the app, so if the app hasn't been updated in a while, it probably won't have the option.

I've done that with Every app possible. The bloatware obviously can't be moved because I'm not rooted. But does the App2SD app actually let you move this stuff? Or is it the same as the app manager that already comes on the OV?

 

[androidsamurai]

Its basically the same... it is just more difficult without the app...

Sent from my LG-VM670 using Tapatalk

 

[mdhirsch]

I believe the 15 MB is how much space is left to install apps. the Optimus V only has about 170 MB usable for installing apps (without using 'app2sd' feature. If using something like 'apps2sd', you can move most of the apps to the gigabyte SD storage, but some of it will still remain on the internal storage.

Yes, that is right. I understand why I might get a warning that my memory is running low--15MB is not a lot for apps. And I've used apps2sd to move everything I can to the sd card. (Why doesn't google make any of it's apps movable? They are the primary offenders--they are big and unmovable. )

My question is why do my apps start refusing to store data that I know would fit in the 15MB easily.

I mentioned the texting app. It told me I was out of space and I doubt if I could have had more than 20K of messages--probably less. And just yesterday I was trying to put in an ID picture for a phone contact. The photo was already in my gallery, but when I tried to get the small pace picture into her contact, I was told I was out of space. Huh? That is perhaps 5K and I had 15MB free in the persistent phone memory, and lots of RAM free.

Michael

 

[ceejay83]

are you rooted? you can try link2sd. you can move everything to sd card.

 

[tcat007]

Other suggestions:
1. If you use an app's widget you shouldn't move the app (but if you don't use the widget then move it) Example Business Calendar, it's much smaller moved, and you can use "Smooth Calendar" as a widget which is much smaller than keeping BC on internal.
2. Look for similar apps (or "adequate" apps) that do what you want. I use Weather Buddy and Instant Radar, rather than Weatherbug. Weatherbug is nice, but adds a couple megs. There are many examples like this that will save a lot. I decided the default messaging app was good enough for me rather than adding a "prettier" app (I don't sent many texts). A small app like "SD Watch" is nice for checking new apps.
3. How many Angry Birds do you really need?
4. Uninstall Amazon apps (or any apps) you don't use much. If you have the app backed up to SD (or even if you don't) you can reinstall in a minute or two.
5. Find a good cache cleaner (I use "App Cache Cleaner"), The Market and your Browser can build up 10mb real fast.
6. Or root and do what others say.
I have 40mb left, I try to keep it 30-40.

 

[mdhirsch]

Thanks for the suggestions. On your recommendation I've uninstalled WeatherBug and am trying Weather Buddy.

Unfortunately, the biggest culprit seems to be Google. Most of the google apps seem to install to sd. I've removed Goggles and Sky Map, but still have Voice, Google+, Docs, GTasks, Music and Gmail. I may have left some out. Music along uses 7 MB of phone memory!

You would think that Google would know how to make apps that can install on the SD card.

I think I will look into rooting and using link2sd.

Michael

 

[Eollie]

Thanks for the suggestions. On your recommendation I've uninstalled WeatherBug and am trying Weather Buddy.

Unfortunately, the biggest culprit seems to be Google. Most of the google apps seem to install to sd. I've removed Goggles and Sky Map, but still have Voice, Google+, Docs, GTasks, Music and Gmail. I may have left some out. Music along uses 7 MB of phone memory!

You would think that Google would know how to make apps that can install on the SD card.

I think I will look into rooting and using link2sd.

Michael

The highlighted is the best idea.

 

[pbailey212]

I have more space than I will ever use, with link2sd I practically have1.2 gigs of free space just for apps

 

[shmutt1980]

I ran into this same issue a couple months ago and it was really annoying. I also didn't want to root my phone either.... As others mentioned - watchdog really helped me in closing apps that were running in the background. I also used it in conjunction with history eraser - which quickly frees up a ton of cache. Even after haveing these two apps, I received that "phone running low" and couldn't receive text - even after I cleaned everything. After that I got rid of my Facebook app - that thing took up WAY too much space - and I don't miss not having it, using the m.facebook.com works fine for me - except that you no longer have your FB contacts listed in your android contacts (i dont need those 300+ in there anyway). Havent had the problem since.

 

[mdhirsch]

Thanks everyone for your advice. I still don't understand how android is using memory--why it won't open the browser when I supposedly have 17 MB of phone memory free, but I think I'm past that.

I used gingerbreak to root my phone this weekend. I had to reboot a coupe of times, but then it worked very nicely. link2sd is installed and many large apps moved to the sd card, now. gparted worked well for repartitioning my sd card without losing and data.

Strangely, last night as I was moving apps around I started getting the "phone is low in memory" notification. I figured that I should have more memory, not less, but the claim was that I was under 12 MB. So I gave up and put the phone down and went to sleep.

This morning, the low memory notification is gone and the phone claims I have 58 MB free! Huh? Does the phone clear cache overnight, or only updates its stats every few hours?

Anyway, I'm rooted and have lots more space, now. Maybe I can make my kid happy and put Angry Birds back on.

Thanks all,

Michael