"Low on free storage space" message

[Guest antman68]

I've had my TyTN II/Kaiser for about 2 weeks and so far, so good. WM6 is a big learning curve following UIQ devices.

Something that has just started happenning over the last couple of days is that it will not let me download any files bigger than about 10MB from the internet. I'm trying to download them directly to my 8GB microSDHC card, which has plenty of space, but near the end of an 11MB download I get the message "Your phone is running low on free storage space. Delete old or unused items to create more space". I then get a message saying that storage memory is critically low and then a message saying "Not enough storage is available to complete this download".

The memory stats are:

Main:

Storage: 10.67MB free

Programs: 49.82MB free

Storage Card: 7409.70MB free

The same thing happens whether I am using GPRS/3G/HSDPA, WiFi or USB cable to connect to the internet.

I have moved almost all of my applications to the storage card (only a couple of very small apps left in main memory) and cleared temporary internet files, deleted messages etc. But my Windows folder is still 122MB (8.8MB excluding files in ROM). I probably have more free storage space than I did about a week ago when I am sure that I managed to download foles around 20MB. What is going on? How else can I increase free storage space on the phone?

Does the Kaiser have to download to main memory before transferring to the storage card? That would be ridiculous. Whay can't I download larger files.

[Guest Neil5459]

As you are only showing 10MB free storage memory, something has eaten about 100Mb somewhere (not including ROM files)

The common culprits are MP3 files that get put on the device rather then the storage card by mistake, or inadvertant Voice Recording files- the VR button can get pressed by miostake in a pocket, and carry on recording for hours if the button lock isn't set.

Look in My Documents for any large files; if you can't find them, go to Tillanosoft and download their free SpaceFinder app which will give you a view of files/folders in their size order.

As for the file transer- I think a certain amount has to go through the device first unless the app being installed has a specific routine to go straight to the storage card. CAB files tend to go via the device as they are usually quite small, but support files & data files usually go straight to the card.

[Guest antman68]

As you are only showing 10MB free storage memory, something has eaten about 100Mb somewhere (not including ROM files)

The common culprits are MP3 files that get put on the device rather then the storage card by mistake, or inadvertant Voice Recording files- the VR button can get pressed by miostake in a pocket, and carry on recording for hours if the button lock isn't set.

Look in My Documents for any large files; if you can't find them, go to Tillanosoft and download their free SpaceFinder app which will give you a view of files/folders in their size order.

I used SpaceFinder and it told me what I'd already figured out using Total Commander. The vast majority of main storage is being taken up by the Windows folder, only SpaceFinder only shows the files and totals that Total Commander shows with the "Hide files in ROM" option selected. That is, SpaceFinder says that there are about 9MB of files in the Windows, as does Total Commander with the "Hide files in ROM" option selected. Without the "Hide files in ROM" option selected, Total Commander says that there are about 122MB of files in the Windows folder.

There are no mp3 files or other obvious space hogs, only a 16MB mxip_initdb.vol and about 60MB (at a guess) of dll files and maybe another 30MB of miscellaneous exe files (camera, powerpoint, JBlend, StreamingPlayer etc.). Is it normal for there to be so many files in the Windows folder all the time? The rest of the main storage (the other folders plus files in the root directory) contain about 6MB of files.

So, if this is an unusual amount of storage space being used up, what do I delete or what settings do I change to free up some memory?

Edited January 29, 2008 by antman68

[Guest Neil5459]

ROM files should be accounted for when computing the amount of free memory you should have. If Windows uses 122MB of your 256MB ROM, you should still have about 120MB of free storage space after a hard reset, which is about right for these devices.

So, where has the other 110MB gone? :)

If you can't locate it, it may be there is a corrupt file somewhere grabbing a lot of space (or at least with a missing End of File marker, confusing the OS); best bet in those circumstances would be to save anything in My Documents to your PC and make sure your PC Outlook data is up to date, then do a full hard reset to restore it to factory state.

Now look in the Memory applet and see how much Storage Memory is reported, and selectively reinstall your applications.

[Guest antman68]

Problem solved: it had created a folder called "Storage Card" in My Documents and I had accidently been saving files there rather than to the actual storage card because the file path is truncated in PIE when it asks you whether you want to save a file.

Thanks for your help.

[Guest Neil5459]

Glad it's sorted! A very easy mistake to make, especially with the poor default File Manager :)

[Guest scottt]

Another thing that runs the space down is internet explorer I allways delete the history every few days.

ie-menu-tools-options-memory-delete files.