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

[knarfmk1]

After a lot of research I think I finally solved this issue. I used HTC mail when I first got my Hero, but this storage issue kept popping up so I deleted my hotmail account from there and started using Droid mail. But there was 85m of data that I could never get rid of and the "low storage" warning kept popping up. No matter what I deleted it kept returning for months.

I committed an entire weekend to getting to the bottom of this and once I did I wanted to post something to help those who were as frustrated as I was in trying to find an answer.

First I had to root the phone which, after a lot of research, I found a relatively easy way to do (I am college professor and a programmer from long ago, but not skilled in the droid language and too old to learn). I went to the xda developer forum and to this link:

[APP]SuperOneClick v1.5.5 (Root, Unroot, Enable Non-Market App, Get UNLOCK code) - xda-developers

Here I got info on and downloaded the Superclick app and followed the instructions for rooting the phone.

Once the phone was rooted and I had "Superuser" status, I had to downloaded the Super Manager app from the android marketplace (free app) to use its file manager and gain access to the root folders. It took me a while, by I finally found the folder which held the 85m of data left over from the HTC mail app.

Once in Super Manager, I went to the following folder(s)

File Explorer> data> >data>com.htc.android.mail>
app_mail_temp

there were several other folders there like app_temp, app_mail, files, etc.

When I went in those folder there were hundred of files with sequential numbers. I clicked them all, deleted them and ... Surprise!!! There was my 85m of data. As soon the delete was done the "low on phone storage" warning went away.

I went back to Settings>Manage applications> HTC Mail

so I could check to see if the data had actually been deleted and the data size was down to 1.9m for the HTC mail app. The reason for this, I think, is because there were other folders with files that I did not delete because I wasn't sure what they were and didn't want to go too far and screw up the phone. Until I figure that out I can live with losing 83m of data though and no more warnings (and hopefully a faster functioning phone).

So far I think this solves the problem. I don't know why HTC designed the phone to store the email data like that and making it so hard to delete, but I won't be using that app any more.

I'm satisfied to finally get to the bottom of this, although I lost a lot of sleep this weekend.

Hope this helps those who were as frustrated by this as I was.

Thanks for your sollution!

only the way of rooting did not work for me, instead i used this link: How To: Root the HTC Hero (AndRoot Method) | TheUnlockr

and that worked much easier for me, also super manager wouldn't install correctly but i used root explorer, costs a couple of dollar but did the job for me! thanks for finding the location of the files!

 

[MartinDay007]

This worked for me

This may help others in resolving the Phone Storage getting low.

Synch the phone with a PC.

Settings | Manage Applications

Select All from the top

Menu button | Sort by Size

If it is the same as mine you will get Contact Storage at the top

Select Contact Storage and Clear Data.

Then Exit the Settings and Synch selecting Outlook overwrites phone.

When I did this it cleared the Contacts down from 75MB down to 2.0MB

 

[avu3]

i did the following

installed a term emulator
enabled root access using unrevoked3 (easy!)

dropped to a terminal using iddy bitty keys.


su
#
cd /data/data/com.htc.android.mail/app_mail
ls
rm * -rf
let the sucker run, its going to take a minute

rebooted, low space is history, screw that hard reset crap. may work on making a .sh script to do this in the future, ive been a incredible user on verizon for 4 months, blackberry for 7 years before this, and the dreaded windows mobile device user before that...

hope this helps others, if so, please post if this has resolved your issues.

-ohio

Outstanding. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

This is very similar to another solution proposed a few pages later on, but uses text in place of the GUI. ON my phone, the GUI kept crashing.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, and minute... yeah... a few of those!

Bam, phone is like brand new! Didn't even need a reboot!

S

 

[denalinea]

I have had this problem as well and as soon as I clear out some of my visual voicemails and text messages the message disappears. I believe it's linked to the voicemail and text messages. I had about 30 voicemails and about 400 texts.

 

[krubag]

I am having this issue too with my HTC Incredible. I've even gone so far as to order a larger SD card, move everything I could over to the card (mostly photos/vids) and still no happiness. WTF?

 

[Ferg]

You need to go to Setting/Applications/Manage

It's not so much the programs as much as it is the DATA from the programs that
causes the memory "shortage"
Go to an app and check out the DATA. Sometimes all you need to do is delete
the DATA of a few apps. For example, Dialer and Dialer Storage. You can delete
the DATA portion of those apps/ However, you might not want to delete the DATA
of your browser because you would lose your Favorites. Same as with some games.
If you delete the DATA portion, you might lose your settings or progress.
Unfortunately, you can move all kinds of APPS to your SD card but, the DATA is always
stored in internal memory. Just go through your apps and try to figure which ones you can
delete DATA from.

Hope it helps.

 

[DoubleD]

Thanks for the advice on deleting texts and clearing the data from applications. This seemed to work.

 

[vipergtsrz]

I have been having this issue for a while with my phone and I can't seem to fix it. When I go to the manage applications page, it says I have 220MB used and 528MB free of internal storage.

My contacts storage is 21.64 MB, but when I do a "clear data" on that, it erases all my contacts. My dialer storage is 19.39 MB. Flash is 17.36MB. Those are my top three applications that are using the most memory.

I don't really have that many apps installed. I only install apps that I use often.

Is there any way to get rid of this?

 

[ulnek]

since the gingerbread update, i cannot get rid of this phone storage low. before the update all i had to do was clear a few data, now even with all those data cleared it won't go away. i've even gone as far as deleting apps and putting some in storage but it still won't go away.

 

[ctychick]

since the gingerbread update, i cannot get rid of this phone storage low. before the update all i had to do was clear a few data, now even with all those data cleared it won't go away. i've even gone as far as deleting apps and putting some in storage but it still won't go away.

Interesting, since Gingerbread seems to have eliminated the low memory issue for me. So far anyway.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[dbrickel]

I too am having the same problem, I called sprint and they suggested a reset, I then called HTC thinking they would know what they were talking about, my low space error is due to the Mail program holding onto 127 MB of DATA, I too removed all e-mail on the phone and still no change to the data space usage, in talking to HTC I thought they would know something about the phone and the file structure and tell me where these files are kept and I could delete them using something like astro, no one there knew anything about the O/S of the phone and it's file structure to know where to go and remove the data files, they also suggested hard resetting the phone or even to call Google since they said it was their mail app. You would think someone out there knows how the file structure works on these phones.

 

[gdobson56]

I have the exact problem... have u had any luck with resolution. i hate to have reset..

 

[ulnek]

Interesting, since Gingerbread seems to have eliminated the low memory issue for me. So far anyway.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

you're lucky. then again i did have a stalled 2.3 (vers 4.08) update which i never saw again. my phone still says 4.06 version but keeps saying it's up to date. i wonder if the 4.08 version is somehow stuck in phone memory that's using up my storage because i added up all the data used by my apps and they add up to only around 100mb (since i clear pretty much everything on a daily basis except my mail which uses under 30mb) and the phone has 512mb? so somewhere somehow the rest of the phone memory is tied up.

 

[merighthere]

I'm having the low memory problem worse since 2.3 update than I ever did. I couldn't find anything online like a year ago about the mail folder and if I should delete the conents. I did and that helped every so often. But since the update, I see no mail folder on phone or SD that has more than a few things in it(mine used to have over a gig in it often.) I also had the problem of the DATA button in mail bein grayed out, but deleting some apps so I could get the update seemed to fix that. Now I can delete the data and that clears the warning, but then I have to redo both my email accounts and all the settings. That wouldn't be a big deal till I noticed and noted this today:
Cleared data and then redid 2 email accounts (POP-Hotmail & Verizon) then
MAIL DATA = 1.89M
30 min. later= 5.09M
45 min. later= 7.02M
55 min. later= 8.94M
1h 45min. = 14.70M
2h 35min. = 21.79M
3h 15min. = 27.11M
3h 40min. = 30.33M

I noticed this because I cleared data on mail early this morning and then got a "space is getting low" this afternoon. Don't know what is causing it, but it's never been more than easy to clear stuff and not often till after the recent updates. Any ideas?
THX,
Ken

 

[superbeav]

HTC released an app that may help, checkout Low Memory Fix by HTC dev in the Android Market. [too new to link, sorry]

Let us know if it works for you

 

[Fletch75]

What version android you using as Im still using froyo on my Rooted eveo but that doesnt show up in my market..

 

[PeninaD]

Of course, it says not to install Low Memory Fix unless instructed to by customer support.

 

[L2TheE]

HTC gave me a very bad Christmas gift! As it hit midnight, Christmas morning, guess what showed up even after the 4.08 update fix!?!?! Yup, you guessed it.....Low Phone Storage!!!!! Grrrrrrrr.........The phone was working great for the past few weeks. I'm just over it. Did it hit anyone else?

 

[markanderin]

Here is a "low on space" notification solution that worked for a lot of people. This is only for the notification, not for issues in installing the gb update.
SOLUTION:
- go into your app settings page> manage applications
- use the next steps on the following apps: Adobe Flash Player, Facebook, Google Earth, Gmail, Yahoo Mail
- one at a time, click on the app> then click uninstall updates (not to worry, this will not uninstall your app)
- next if not already done, click [Move to SD Card] ... some of these do not give this option, but some do.
- Do this for all the apps listed above. Upon completion of these steps you should notice the "low on space" notification disappears. Your phone should be as good as new.

For me, the Flash Player is the main culprit. Any time i get the "low on space" error, i do the above on Flash Player, and poof, it's gone.

 

[oldslick]

thanks for the tip, this seems to have solved the issue for mine as well