Develop Bugs

Available RAM

So when I first got my HTC Desire and installing some applications I of course came across the annoying message telling me I am running low on space.
So I rooted and installed a ROM with AppstoSD, and was happy again. Now I am back to the same issue, keeps telling me I am low. Which is true because after rooting I installed a bunch more applications lol
So my phone says I have 147MB total to use for Applications and such. Currently around 13 to 16MB. Quite annoying.
So with future Android updates or even hacks will applications ever install and run and store everything from an SD card? Because this expensive device I am locked into for 3 years is going to get pretty crappy and annoying if I have to uninstall applications I want to install other ones...
Comments?

Well as a2sd just works by creating a symlink to the ext partition on the sd-card, yous should be able to simply create one for /data/data as well. Because those data foleders are still stored on the data prtition, and those are the ones taking up space.
I Found a guide at some point, but i can't seem to find it now, but try searching around.

I have been looking around, and no luck. Why I started this thead
Anyone else, ideas, know a way?

to make app2sd work you need an ext partition. to do that download rom manager for free from market and create one. i suggest if use to install lots of apps select 512mb partition, set swap to 0mb. but keep in mind before creating the partition you should backup all data from sdcard because it will be formatted to create the partition.
and by the way please edit title cause this is Nand memory that you are refering to.
regards
Marios

mariosraptor said:
to make app2sd work you need an ext partition. to do that download rom manager for free from market and create one. i suggest if use to install lots of apps select 512mb partition, set swap to 0mb. but keep in mind before creating the partition you should backup all data from sdcard because it will be formatted to create the partition.
and by the way please edit title cause this is Nand memory that you are refering to.
regards
Marios
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cant edit title.
And I clearly said I have AppstoSD working, it's just not enough.
My main question was simply, will in the future, apps2sd or whatever it will be called allow for applications to be installed, stored and run from the SD. If not my nice new phone is going to get quite annoying and useless.

if you say that you started with 147mb and now have 13-16mb and have app2sd, it means that you have a rom that supports app2sd but not aproperly created ext partition. that is why you are running low.
for example if you have a working EXT and still having left only 13mb on phone it means that you have installed aboout 300to500 apps. that is because although apps get installed on EXT but always leave a trace in phone memory(something like a shortcut).

mariosraptor said:
that is because although apps get installed on EXT but always leave a trace in phone memory(something like a shortcut).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not always just a trace!
/data/data is left on internal memory (for stability reasons) and some apps, for example Google Earth, take up an awful lot of space there.
Regards,
Dave

mariosraptor said:
if you say that you started with 147mb and now have 13-16mb and have app2sd, it means that you have a rom that supports app2sd but not aproperly created ext partition. that is why you are running low.
for example if you have a working EXT and still having left only 13mb on phone it means that you have installed aboout 300to500 apps. that is because although apps get installed on EXT but always leave a trace in phone memory(something like a shortcut).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you are saying I formatted wrong when I did created the ext partition originally?

That's an exaggeration although on AOSP ROMs, same everything except HTC additions (mainly Sense), I have 35-40MB free while on HTC 2.2 ROMs I'm always juggling between 15-20MB free. I have A2SD fully working, 112 apps on. I don't see it as a big issue for me because I only need approx 85 of them from day to day, but to have the rest on and not have to worry and keep deleting things to keep the phone working would be very handy. Nearly all the quality apps with great features require much memory (don't even ask me about Rockplayers update). Most of them are still using a good chunk of the internal memory even after being "installed on SD card" for some portion but the killers are apps like Adobe Flash, Maps, HTC_IME, Earth, SMS/MMS, cache, emails, bookmarks, widgets and so forth. In fact, I only keep 2-3 emails and a few bookmarks stored in the default applications for this reason.
-----------------------------------
- Sent via my HTC Desire -

So can someone show/link me to the correct settings with creating that ext partition, just incase I did do it wrong. Thanks
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

i have an aosp rom. about 120 apps and still have 95mb of free space in phone memory. i have an ext partition of 512 mb.
That's an exaggeration although on AOSP ROMs, same everything except HTC additions (mainly Sense), I have 35-40MB free while on HTC 2.2 ROMs I'm always juggling between 15-20MB free. I have A2SD fully working, 112 apps on. I don't see it as a big issue for me because I only need approx 85 of them from day to day, but to have the rest on and not have to worry and keep deleting things to keep the phone working would be very handy.

So no ideas, anyway to edit an ext partition or something. Arg
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

[Q] Arc's /cache partition

Hey,
I've got Arconium ICS rom installed on my Xperia Arc. I'm running low on internal memory, and while trying to find more space on the device I've found this:
Code:
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/block/mtdblock2 225.0M 1.1M 223.9M 1% /cache
So my question is - what is the cache partition used for on ICS? How big should it be? I found this in the description of some Nexus HD ICS rom:
Cache partition (/dev/block/mtdblock4) is only used by CWM.
Cache partition size is not important because the data partition (/dev/block/mtdblock5) is used as the cache space when running Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course partitions path varies, but the info seems to be relevant.
And a final question - fdisk doesn't seem to work (getting "fdisk: can't read from" error) - how do I go about changing partition table?

To my knowledge (based mostly on HTC phones), in normal use the cache partition is used for downloading apps prior to installing, and for downloading OTA updates (which is why it's so big).
If youre running custom ROMs then this partition doesnt need to be anything like this size, because youre not going to be installing OTA updates. HTC desire owners resize this down to as little as 5meg (though this seems low to me, IMO it should be at least as big as the biggest app youre ever likely to install, so i'd say 25-50 meg is a safer bet.
Now, i have no idea how CWM works, so if this is using the partition to perform installs or nandroid backups or something then your probably wouldnt want to make it much smaller.
There is also a lot of space which could be freed up on the system partition, particularly if youre using a stripped down ROM.
All of the above is all well and good, if there is a way of changing the Arc's partition table. I have no idea how this is done, or if it is even possible. So would love someone who knows about this stuff to respond. BUT: i very much doubt FDISK (you mean windows fdisk?!?!?) is the answer - at the very least i'd expect that you'd need a specially modified kernel in order to boot with a modified partition table. The fact that it fdisk with an error instead of giving it a try is probably the only reason your phone still boots.

Why do I need to partition my sd card for ICS roms?

All of the new ICS roms talk in their instructions to partition your sd card. Some also have a non partition version for those that wish to not partition but those releases take longer to come out.
So why should I partition? I am asking in a general I really want to know why as on all of the rom release pages it just says to partition but no one every talks about why. Why do the newer roms require partitions while the 2.x Android roms never needed this.

Can't anyone let me know?

A lot of ROMs in 2.x support DarkTremor which allows many of the ROMs files to go onto a separate partition on the SD Card. This speeds up the phones response time as you run various apps.
This is most likely why the ICS builds are asking for you to partition the SD Card since they are automatically enabling this which is unlike the 2.. builds in which it was an option.
Doc

DocEsq said:
A lot of ROMs in 2.x support DarkTremor which allows many of the ROMs files to go onto a separate partition on the SD Card. This speeds up the phones response time as you run various apps.
This is most likely why the ICS builds are asking for you to partition the SD Card since they are automatically enabling this which is unlike the 2.. builds in which it was an option.
Doc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this new automatic thing part of ICS or just something differently the rom developers are now doing?
Was DarkTremor built into the 2.x roms? When I first moved from stock to Cyanogen all I remember doing was wiping and installing the zip file, never did anything extra.

LordJezo said:
Is this new automatic thing part of ICS or just something differently the rom developers are now doing?
Was DarkTremor built into the 2.x roms? When I first moved from stock to Cyanogen all I remember doing was wiping and installing the zip file, never did anything extra.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe that this is something being put in by the developers. The ICS you get from HTC, LG, Samsung etc.. does not have this.
DarkTremor was built into a lot of the 2.x roms and would only become active if you you had the SD Card partitioned properly. It is in Cyanogen but it is something that you did not need to use if you did not want to.
There are some good tutorials out there if you want to give it a try. The big advantages are that it speeds up your phone and frees up precious space on your internal memory.
Doc

I believe the simple answer is that ICS has a bigger footprint and therefore requires more internal system capacity. The phones that come stock with ICS have more system capacity than our EVO 4G. A2sd and an ext partition effectively expand the system partition so that these larger footprints will work on our phones.
Non-a2sd versions take longer because the dev has to figure out how to get ICS working with "insufficient" capacity.
Another development to look at is firerat's mtd mod that allows one to reconfigure the system, cache, and consequently data partitions.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk 2

dcharleyultra said:
I believe the simple answer is that ICS has a bigger footprint and therefore requires more internal system capacity. The phones that come stock with ICS have more system capacity than our EVO 4G. A2sd and an ext partition effectively expand the system partition so that these larger footprints will work on our phones.
Non-a2sd versions take longer because the dev has to figure out how to get ICS working with "insufficient" capacity.
Another development to look at is firerat's mtd mod that allows one to reconfigure the system, cache, and consequently data partitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for.
When people use in in GB roms is it just them trying to optimize things better by freeing up system memory by utilizing sd space?

LordJezo said:
Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for.
When people use in in GB roms is it just them trying to optimize things better by freeing up system memory by utilizing sd space?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's what I think.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk 2

That is why I partitioned my drive (to move apps to my sd card and to free up space on the phone). I am on the MikG ROM.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

1TonyC said:
That is why I partitioned my drive (to move apps to my sd card and to free up space on the phone). I am on the MikG ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would you need to partition the sd card to move apps? That's a built in feature of GB.
Or do you mean system apps?

I was constantly getting alerts that I was running out of internal memory. This was after I transferred as many apps as I could to the sd card.
So I partitioned my sd card and flashed the MikG ROM. No more memory problems .
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

Partitioning for apps2sd is not to move ur apps to SD card. It will automatically install ALL apps downloaded from play store to the SD. No need to move anything! Its like adding internal memory to our phones! I was hesitant at first but now I wouldn't do it any other way. I noticed a nice increase in performance on ics roms and I can now download whatever the hell I want and not worry about bogging down my internal memory
Sent from my D.I.R.T.y CM9'd EVO 4G using xda premium!

Rather than posting a new thread, I'll ask my question here since it is somewhat relevant to the conversation.
I'm at work while I was updating to jmztaylor's latest nightly, so I do not want to backup my SD onto my work computer. Can apps2sd be flashed at any point after flashing the ROM or does it have to be at the same time as flashing the ROM?

Jaxp3r said:
Rather than posting a new thread, I'll ask my question here since it is somewhat relevant to the conversation.
I'm at work while I was updating to jmztaylor's latest nightly, so I do not want to backup my SD onto my work computer. Can apps2sd be flashed at any point after flashing the ROM or does it have to be at the same time as flashing the ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It can be done later.

Captain_Throwback said:
It can be done later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great, thanks for the info!

The main difference between the built-in moving of apps and the partition is where the apps go.
With GB's moving (a2sd) the .apk file is moved to a directory on your SD card called .android-secure. The big con to this is that if your SD isn't mounted (for example, if you're moving files from your computer, or on the initial error check on boot), you can't access these apps. You also cannot use any widgets an app might have if it's been moved to .android-secure.
If you have a partition (ext3 generally) then it's a different story. Generally, what happens is that the /data/app directory in your internal storage is symlinked to your partition, /ext. (I think it's /ext/data/app, but I can't remember and haven't used the sd partition for a bit). Pros to this one are much more space, since assuming you have the space and your SD is fast enough you can also symlink your appdata and dalvik-cache. Plus, you are able to use widgets because Android thinks the apps are installed to the internal data. One major con is that you can potentially reduce your SD card's life, since it will be reading and writing a lot more from that portion of it.
And a symlink explanation: In a sense, it points one directory to another area of the filesystem. When I was partitioned Root Explorer showed my symlinked /data/app as this: "/data/app > /ext/data/app". It's a way to have parts of the filesystem "appear" in other areas without having to copy/paste. I've used it to get a few directories to sync to Dropbox without having to keep spare copies of my files in the main Dropbox ones.

Be careful. I just did it an hour ago and everything disappeared from my sd card. So pissed.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium

What are partitions..
SLB9884 said:
Be careful. I just did it an hour ago and everything disappeared from my sd card. So pissed.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is because when you re-partition your card (or hard drive,etc..) it basically wipes it. What you are doing is redefining the very volumes that take up space on your card and giving them a starting and ending block address based on the size of the card and the defined size of the partition. You can think of it has a two pieces of glass and you are pouring colored sand in. You pour red in and get your data partition, then you pour in green and get your swap partition so on. Eventually all partitions are defined and ideally will make the most use of the total space on your card.
So when you partition, it's very low level and requires abandoning all data and prior formats on the card unless you are using some special software that attempts to adjust the sizes of the partitions.
Somewhere at the beginning of your card is a small sector that lists all the partitions and their starting/ending blocks, plus other relevant informationj.
So if you plan to partition, you need to back up the data first to your pc or what not.

Storage
Because its an entire system you'll want to to save space on your card, make a backup of any important files because its gonna wipe it and you cant undo it

Here's a couple of great guides for a2sd. Once I finally did my phone performed much better.
http://therootofallevo.com/2011/04/10-step-guide-properly-set-darktremors-a2sd/
http://androplasty.com/2011/08/mini-guide-how-to-re-partition-your-sd-card/

Two Download folders in SD Card

Apologies if this has been resolved before, but I've been seeing two download folders in my SD card "downloads" and "Downloads." I've tried deleting one but I get an error - this also confuses Recovery when I try to flash a file located in one of the directories it typically looks in the wrong one. Has anyone had this or resolved it?

pongalong said:
Apologies if this has been resolved before, but I've been seeing two download folders in my SD card "downloads" and "Downloads." I've tried deleting one but I get an error - this also confuses Recovery when I try to flash a file located in one of the directories it typically looks in the wrong one. Has anyone had this or resolved it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the issue and have just learned to deal with it. I don't really know when it why it happened, sometime around when I first flashed jellybean I think. Idk. Just letting you know you're not alone. Btw the "download" folder appears first in recovery. I move all my roms and kernels there. The "Download" is the folder all the general downloads end up in for me... at least I think... it's confusing but a sms issue to me.
DARKSIDE

I made a folder called Aaroms. It goes alphabetical and capital letters first so that folder is always on the top of the list. I then sort my roms mods and kernels with sub folders.
If you keep your (D)download folder clean and sorted it should be easy to know which one has what
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

This is just speculation, but...
1. I think the virtual sdcard (sdcard0) and its links exists to make the real "sdcard" (/data/media) look like fat to apps instead of ext, which it really is (because it doesn't have a separate partition to itself). Most apps only know how to write to fat on the sdcard.
2. To programs that expect to be writing to fat, "download" and "Download" are the same directory, so they can be careless how they spell it when they access it or create it. But since the real filesystem is ext, they get created as two different directories. Maybe through some case-checking bug in the virtual sdcard or some program that writes directly to /data/media.
3. What I wound up doing was taking all my data out of both directories, deleting one, and making sure the remaining one was named "directory". Then I put all my data back in that one and everything has been good since then.

Well this is Linux after all. Downloads != downloads
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Need help too
pongalong said:
Apologies if this has been resolved before, but I've been seeing two download folders in my SD card "downloads" and "Downloads." I've tried deleting one but I get an error - this also confuses Recovery when I try to flash a file located in one of the directories it typically looks in the wrong one. Has anyone had this or resolved it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same issue. I have two Download folders. The thing is that the one with the small "D" (download), it is empty, and when I try to delete it, it always reappear.
Help!

this was anwsered like 2 days ago.
sent from my i9250

bk201doesntexist said:
this was anwsered like 2 days ago.
sent from my i9250
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cant find the post telling the answer. Lol. The last post isbin october 2010.

strumcat said:
1. I think the virtual sdcard (sdcard0) and its links exists to make the real "sdcard" (/data/media) look like fat to apps instead of ext, which it really is (because it doesn't have a separate partition to itself). Most apps only know how to write to fat on the sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that the symlinks are there just for backwards compability issues with apps, that look under /sdcard/ mount point. it doesn't have anything to do with fs, android never used fat, or ntfs; known fs in android are yaffs2, ext4 and maybe a few proprietary ones like sammy's rfs.

bk201doesntexist said:
I think that the symlinks are there just for backwards compability issues with apps, that look under /sdcard/ mount point. it doesn't have anything to do with fs, android never used fat, or ntfs; known fs in android are yaffs2, ext4 and maybe a few proprietary ones like sammy's rfs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The real sdcards were formatted as fat, and most apps that used them to store data only knew how to read/write a fat fs. I found this out by creating a mountable volume on a real sdcard on my old phone. It mounted as a directory on the sdcard. If I formatted the volume as fat, all my apps could use it normally. If I formatted it as ext(anything), a few apps could use it but most could not.
The symlinks are for backwards compatibility, but I believe the fuse filesystem virtual sdcard0 exists to make ext4 look like fat to all apps and to windows.
Note that if the gnex "sdcard" had its own partition, it could be formatted as fat and mounted as USB external storage like a real sdcard. I don't know, but it seems like Google went out of their way to prevent that.
The Google line is that the gnex sdcard shares an ext4 partition to maximize space, ie no unused wasted space on two partitions. But that is pretty farfetched, since the number of problems caused by this arrangement is huge in proportion to the "space saved" which is negligible.
Obviously, the real reason for this kludged-up mess is to discourage local storage/backup and encourage cloud storage, which can then be monetized.

strumcat said:
The real sdcards were formatted as fat, and most apps that wrote data to it only knew how to write it to a fat fs. I found this out by creating a mountable volume on a real sdcard on my old phone. It mounted as a directory on the sdcard. If I formatted the volume as fat, all my apps could use it normally. If I formatted it as ext(anything), a few apps could use it but most could not.
The symlinks are the for backwards compatibility, but I believe the fuse filesystem virtual sdcard0 exists to make ext4 look like fat to all apps and to windows.
Note that if the gnex "sdcard" had its own partition, it could be formatted as fat and mounted as USB external storage like a real sdcard. I don't know, but it seems like Google went out of their way to prevent that.
The Google line is that sdcard shares ext4 partition to maximize space, is no unused wasted space on two partitions. But that is pretty farfetched, since the number of problems caused by this arrangement is huge in proportion to the "space saved" which is negligible.
Obviously, the real reason for this kludged-up mess is to discourage local storage/backup and encourage cloud storage, which can then be monetized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sure, i was talking about nand storage. still, if apps really depend on that to survive (said "fat compability"), it's unlogical to me coming from linux, where several fs can co-exist, as you may know.
if sdcard had its own partition like you say, and it could be formatted to fat, it would suck from a performance point of view, right? because its way slower than ext4 or yaffs2?
sent from my i9250

bk201doesntexist said:
sure, i was talking about nand storage. still, if apps really depend on that to survive (said "fat compability"), it's unlogical to me coming from linux, where several fs can co-exist, as you may know.
if sdcard had its own partition like you say, and it could be formatted to fat, it would suck from a performance point of view, right? because its way slower than ext4 or yaffs2?
sent from my i9250
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, Android knows how to read/write fat as well as ext. But I guess the app devs figured sdcards would be fat forever. so they only included fat I/O in their apps.
Yes, ext4 is better than fat. But fat+mass-storage is far better and faster than ext4+fuse+mtp. For example, an sdcard backup from fat mounted as mass storage to a pc is much faster and more reliable than an sdcard backup using mtp. MTP backups are painfully slow and often won't even complete due to errors.

strumcat said:
Sure, Android knows how to read/write fat as well as ext. But I guess the app devs figured sdcards would be fat forever. so they only included fat I/O in their apps.
Yes, ext4 is better than fat. But fat+mass-storage is far better and faster than ext4+fuse+mtp. For example, an sdcard backup from fat mounted as mass storage to a pc is much faster and more reliable than an sdcard backup using mtp. MTP backups are painfully slow and often won't even complete due to errors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well it still happens in 2017 running Android 7.1.2 lol
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

Any way to reclaim integrated memory space?

Hi guys,
I was wondering, now that I no longer use a TouchWiz-based ROM, if there's an easy way to reclaim the "lost" space available in the /system folder after flashing a now much small ROM. I know TW-based ROMs use at least 1GB of space, if not more, but my current ROM barely pushes 200MB used of the /system folder, leaving with me a lot of unused space I would like to use for the integrated storage.
Regards

gonXed said:
Hi guys,
I was wondering, now that I no longer use a TouchWiz-based ROM, if there's an easy way to reclaim the "lost" space available in the /system folder after flashing a now much small ROM. I know TW-based ROMs use at least 1GB of space, if not more, but my current ROM barely pushes 200MB used of the /system folder, leaving with me a lot of unused space I would like to use for the integrated storage.
Regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's about partitions, no matter what rom you use.
Imagine you have a 1gig harddisk. You partitioned it into four 250gig harddisks as C,D,E,F
You have installed Windows 7 on C drive but then you installed XP to save some spaces for the harddisks D,E,F
Would it be possible? No!
You have to resize all the partitions which would cause you bigger problems.

I think is something to do with the pit files.
I read something about Sammy offering a new Flash for the s4 with some Chinese rom that enables them to get another couple gig space whilst losing some trash.
I hope we can get something similar either officially or through our devs
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda app-developers app

[email protected] said:
It's about partitions, no matter what rom you use.
Imagine you have a 1gig harddisk. You partitioned it into four 250gig harddisks as C,D,E,F
You have installed Windows 7 on C drive but then you installed XP to save some spaces for the harddisks D,E,F
Would it be possible? No!
You have to resize all the partitions which would cause you bigger problems.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think I follow you. You're telling me resizing partitions is not possible? Theoretically, it is with any type of filesystem and partition table that supports differently sized partitions/blocks. I'm not asking if it's possible to do it, I'm asking if it's possible to do it in an easy way.
My question wasn't if it was possible to do it with the new ROM, I was asking if it was possible to do, now that I have some abundant disk space for /system.
On my Nokia N900 this was extremely straightforward as I basically had the full GNU coreutils available - and with some hacking I resized the partitions to better fit my needs - and even flashed the fat32 filesystem to ext3 while I was at it.
And since it's possible with S4 as 3vo3d mentioned, there's no reason it shouldn't with the GN2.

gonXed said:
I don't think I follow you. You're telling me resizing partitions is not possible? Theoretically, it is with any type of filesystem and partition table that supports differently sized partitions/blocks. I'm not asking if it's possible to do it, I'm asking if it's possible to do it in an easy way.
My question wasn't if it was possible to do it with the new ROM, I was asking if it was possible to do, now that I have some abundant disk space for /system.
On my Nokia N900 this was extremely straightforward as I basically had the full GNU coreutils available - and with some hacking I resized the partitions to better fit my needs - and even flashed the fat32 filesystem to ext3 while I was at it.
And since it's possible with S4 as 3vo3d mentioned, there's no reason it shouldn't with the GN2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I didn't say that you cannot resize partitions
I said that you cannot gain more space in other partitions by just installing a lighter OS. I said exactly what you said in the rest.