HTC Mail Memory Leak/Bug ("Phone Storage Getting Low")

[rpfarrah]

My update after talking to Verizon, and then to HTC.

It looks like they, both Verizon and HTC, have no clue what the issue is with the low storage message... HTC requested that I re-set my phone and add email accounts and apps over a period of days and see when the issue comes up again. I guess that I am going to do the diagnostics. If you haven't call yet i would suggest you do so HTC can look into it themselves.

After I re-set my phone the Internal phone storage show 6.6 gb total 6.5 aval The same before I re-set the phone

Phone memory 748 total 719 aval

Set up my Google account and Google maps and the phone memory went to 748 total 711 aval

I set the camera to save pictures to the SD card
and because I am not setting up my other email accounts I am using Google to import them.

Before I re-set my phone I have Five email accounts "installed"

Google
Hotmail
Yahoo
Cox
Work(Exchange)

The Only Apps I had "Installed" after my re-set yesterday

Peep
Google maps
Google Skymap
Compass - Snapic
Barcode Scanner- ZXing Team
ShopSavvy- Big in japan, Inc

That's all i can remember... Probably all

So to recap I only installed Google mail and Google Maps today, tomorrow I will add something else... I'm to impatient to be a scientist...

Can anyone add their findings? Suggestions?

Thanks

Chuck

Let us know how ou come out at the end of the day - or the end of the next day... thanks!

 

[TucsonChuck]

Reset + 1 Day

Day after the re-set and the "Phone Memory" is holding at 711MB available. No change to the Internal phone storage. Still 6.6 Gb total/6.5Gb avail.

So I set up/added my Exchange account and there has been no change to the Phones Memory. Still holding at 711MB. If I remember correctly, when I needed to re-set the phone the memory stated 700mb available. Can anyone else confirm their readings.

Settings for my Exchange account Temp Attachment storage = SD card, Refresh mail when open = On, Mail size limit 10kb, Down load frequency = As items arrive, Include file attachment = Never. I guess if I need to see more of the email I can download it.

Using the heck out of the internet, both 3G and Wifi seems to have no effect on memory. Of the things I will not re-add is any twitter software to the phone, as I don't mind the interface on the phones web browser.

Anyone have a idea on saving bookmarks? Maybe a saved email in Google with all my favorites?

Using gmail and Google maps have not impacted the phone to much, just a 8mb drop in "Phone memory" and the Exchange account caused no change at all.

Boy this fun! It's driving me crazy not being able to install all the programs I want all at once.


Thanks,

Chuck

 

[DigitalGuru]

My phone just became unusable. Just did a factory reset via the privacy menu,

Storage info before reset:
SD Card: total 1.84GB, available .97GB

Internal: Total 6.6GB, Available 4.95GB

Phone Memory: Total 748mb, Available 683mb

Mail application: used 126mb

 

[TucsonChuck]

Guru,

Which mail Application was that? How many?
I'm showing Gmail 2.64mb, Mail(HTC) 1.94mb Info taken from the "Manage Applications" menu. Messages(Text?) 808kb

Thanks,

Chuck

 

[indianajonze]

i'll preemptively answer for him...$100 says its htc mail...

my question for guru is, what actions did you take to try to reduce that file size? can you detail the specific steps you took to try to reduce it?

so far i've determined the following as fact and i'll detail what i dont know:

1) significant bug/leak in htc mail app - what i don't know is what's causing it. many people use the htc app without this problem appearing. why?
2) errors are specifically tied to the size of the htc mail app. errors begin around 110 meg app size. at around 120 megs the phone begins to lock up and reboot. at this point it's unuseable
3) there is no way that i know of to reduce the htc mail app size significantly enough to stop the errors. deleting every shred of email and their accounts only reduces the size by ~3-5 megs. no idea why this is
4) the only way to stop the errors is a hard reset
5) since having the issue i have switched to k9 mail and have had zero issues. k9 file size (with the same account total) hovers between 4 and 8 megs. untouched htc mail app has not budged at 1.07 megs. this is after 5 days of use. at 5 days in using htc mail i was beginning to see the errors
6) neither HTC nor verizon admit to any knowledge of the issue from my discussions with them

 

[TucsonChuck]

Indiana

Do you know if it could be due to multiple mail accounts, does it matter if we have one or say ten? I HAD five accounts on my phone before i reset my phone, and am now adding one a day to see if it causes the issue again. Perhaps I shouldn't bother?

Thanks

 

[indianajonze]

well i had 4 pop3 accounts so its possible. for me, it wasn't worth it. like someone else said, i'm not patient enough to be a scientist, and i'd really rather not have to go through a reset again if i can help it. i've seen enough evidence to be absolutely convinced there's a problem specific to that app, so for me the options were easy. forward pop3 to gmail (too slow) or switch to another app. k9 gets tremendous reviews (and is open source in keeping with the android theme), so i went that route and havent looked back since.

please report your findings here as you progress. i have a feeling that this is going to be a very popular thread once enough units make it into the wild...

 

[TucsonChuck]

Thanks Indiana for your input, I'll keep pressing on with this experiment, and research K9, seems it's working well for you. I may hit you up for more info.

Chuck, the Impatient Scientist

 

[DigitalGuru]

Chuck-
Indiana is right, I was using HTC Mail. I had two accounts in the HTC Mail, my comcast, and work. Both POP3. I deleted all of my messages, sent, trash, and drafts. And still no reduction in file size. When it got up to 110mb, it was showing the "low storage" message and when it got to 126mb it couldn't launch any apps, but could still navigate menus and wasn't rebooting itself. I'm now using Gmail for these two POP3 accounts and it seems to be working well. I'm testing the lag in between sending a email (on another computer) and have my phone receive it thru gmail, last night it was only about 5 min. I'll look into K9 if its too slow.

 

[TucsonChuck]

Indiana, Guru

It looks like, after reading your comments that I will be doing nothing more than re-creating the same outcome with HTC mail. But I guess that is what this experiment is all about, lol. Actually I'm crying a little...

So here's this mornings update.

Added a POP3 account(Cox) making it a total of three accounts.

Gmail, Exchange, pop3

Phone Memory still holding at 748 total, 711 avail
Internal Phone storage total space 6.6, 6.5 avail
Gmail 764kb ( I cleared the cache, skew the results? ) down from yesterday @2.64mb
Mail(HTC) 2.58mb up from yesterdays 1.94mb
Messages still 808kb

OK this confuses me, Obviously the mail programs are using more "Storage" of some type, but the phone memory has not changed.

Thanks

 

[TucsonChuck]

A mid- day update.


Phone Memory still holding at 748 total, 711 avail
Internal Phone storage total space 6.6, 6.5 avail
Gmail 1.55mb up from 767kb this morning (Can't forget I cleared the cache)
Mail(HTC) 6.65mb up from 2.58mb this morning
Messages still 808kb


This with three email accounts still (Gmail, exchange, POP3) the POP3 I've stopped having it go to the gmail account.

Just installed ShopSavvy, and the Phone memory dropped to 709mb Avail

 

[twoowheeler]

what do you guys have your "Download Options" (in HTC Mail app>menu>more>settings>send & receive>download options) set to in your POP3/IMAP/Exchange accounts? Default is 3 days. I had mine set to previous 14 days and got the low phone memory notification two days later. hard reset and now running k9 but even that is going up (day 2 and at 46.60Mb). I was curious if the problem occurs when changing the default settings. In theory HTC Mail should expunge any mail older than 3 days and therefore keep memory freed up?

As bad as my BB Storm was it never had any issues with the massive amount of emails....BUT i'd do snail mail before i get another Storm...

 

[krelvinaz]

Set to 3 days... I think that is the default.

I only use HTC Mail for my Exchange mail though. Use K-9 or gmail for others.

I don't need to keep mail long, I just need access to new messages when they arrive. So I don't see much point in storing large amounts of email that I can access via a desktop when I have access. A vast majority of the mail I get I don't need to read at all.

 

[TucsonChuck]

Two wheeler

I don't know what my setting were before the reset, but now it's set for 3 days. Size limit 25kb. Temp storage SD card.

This afternoon I installed Compass by Snaptic and my Phones memory is down to 708
Mail(HTC) 6.99 up from 6.65mb at mid-day. Same three accounts.

 

[TucsonChuck]

Reset + 3 Days

Added another email account (Yahoo), for a total of four, last night and this morning I'm showing
HTC mail 7.16mb up from 6.99 yesterday
Phone memory is the same at 708mb
Internal phone memory still at 6.6gb total, 6.5 avail

 

[TucsonChuck]

Reset + 3 Days End of day update

Added another email account (hotmail, for a total of five, today and this PM I'm showing
HTC mail 10.76 up from 7.16mb this morning.
Phone memory is 707 down from 708mb this morning and after installing Google Skymaps
Internal phone memory still at 6.6gb total, 6.5 avail

 

[indianajonze]

now it will get interesting. for me, it really began to multiply in size starting around days 6-10, and i started getting that damn error message around day 12

 

[TucsonChuck]

Reset + 4 Days

I don't know if this is related to the memory issue or not, but as I was checking my email, I clicked on a link, and was give the "Black Screen of Death" (For lack of a better term). The screen went black/dark, the four button icon still were lit up as was the status bar at the top of the phone, ie time, battery etc... I was unable to turn off the phone with the power button, and had to pull the battery. I re read that email with the link, and re clicked it and all was fine after that...

Internal phone memory 6.6 total, No change. 6.5 avail No change
Phone memory 748 total, 707 avail, Both no change
HTC mail 15.5mb up from 10.76 up last night. (Part of me hoped that the battery pull would clear this, I could live with a battery pull once in a while vs. reset)

I do not keep a lot of emails on my phone, most once read are deleted.

 

[iaknown]

This sucks, same problem here. My HTC Mail is sucking up 128mb even though I've deleted all accounts and due to the low phone memory I'm even having trouble with texts and getting on the market to get a file manager app. I really don't want to hard reset, am on vacation and have no way to backup my contacts....anyone make any progress on this??

 

[indianajonze]

there is nothing you can do other than a hard reset. as for the contacts though, can't you sync them with your gmail account ota?