Android Tablet Problem.

Takedap

I'm using a Lenovo tAB 4 10plus tablet (TB-X704F) which has 3GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.  It is running Android 7.1.1 and also has a 64GB micro SD card fitted.

I am getting notifications for app updates but am not able to download them due to "Not enough storage space" with a suggestion to "Free up space by removing apps & other content that you don't need"

When checking in Settings, I've found that it's reporting as using 10.09 GB of  73.66GB.  This breaks down to Internal Shared Storage 10.04GB used of 16.00GB and 52.06MB used of 57.66GB on the SD card (why not closer to 64GB which is the theoretical size of the card?)  It also shows that it uses an average of 1.4GB of the 3.0GB ram if that makes any difference.

So on these figures, it looks like it should have plenty of space for the updates (almost 6GB of internal storage).   

I don't want to delete any apps unless I really have to.  Any suggestions please?

Neil_Jones

For purposes of Play Store "not enough storage space" will only be the internal storage (your 16Gb), and anything you add afterwards like an SD card is completely ignored.

Re: the 64Gb comes up as 57.6, that's normal.  The 64Gb figure is unformatted value.  That and the fact those sort of things are measured (for historic reasons) as a Gigabyte being 1000Mb, when its actually 1024Mb.  So a 40Gb drive/card comes up as 37.2Gb and an 80Gb would be 74.5Gb.

There are apps on the Play Store (such as App 2 SD) which may allow you to move some apps to the SD card, but not all apps will work like this.  Remember the 16Gb internal storage also includes Android itself, which takes up about 6Gb of space on its own.

If you clear cache of programs (some apps on the Store will do this for you) it may free up enough space, all it means they'll rebuild it when you reload them.

Carrot007

AS per the above but do consider if you can also do the following.

https://www.howtogeek.com/242937/how-to-set-up-a-new-sd-card-in-android-for-extra-storage/

I was unsure if an android version that old would do it but the article states it was added in 6. So if you can it's well worth the effort (remember to copy anything off it already if you do and you will be unable to access the card in a reader anymore).

Takedap

Carrot007 said:

AS per the above but do consider if you can also do the following.

https://www.howtogeek.com/242937/how-to-set-up-a-new-sd-card-in-android-for-extra-storage/

I was unsure if an android version that old would do it but the article states it was added in 6. So if you can it's well worth the effort (remember to copy anything off it already if you do and you will be unable to access the card in a reader anymore).

The SD card was already using the option of being internal storage rather than portable storage when it was first inserted.  However, I cannot see the second option about moving data to New Storage.  The tab in Settings only shows "Storage" not "Storage & USB" as in your example.

I've gone down the route of clearing caches & removing lesser used apps & am now only showing 9.79GB out of the original 16GB being used.  But still getting the Low Storage error message coming up.  I can't remember for sure but I think that after deleting some apps & disabling some others, I am now actually using less storage than the tablet's "new out of the box" setting!

WRT to the  Apps2SD app, I am using the Pro version on another device but can't use it on the Lenovo as I can't see a safe & easy way of rooting it.

Is the next stage a factory reset & see what happens??

Neil_Jones

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

Takedap

Neil_Jones said:

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

Thanks for this but I'm now down to using less than 10GB so have over 6GB spare in the internal storage.  How much is "enough"?  If I stopped using Playstore & downloaded the APKs would that make any difference?  Or would it all start again when I needed updates?

Carrot007

Neil_Jones said:

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

No if you format is as internal sotage it gets merged in a union with the inbuilt and can run apps from it. It will not even look to the system to have an extra card. That was the entire purpose of doing it that way.

It will 100% solve the issue. If it is capable of doing it. And while as I said it appeared in 6 it was not commonly supported (later versions made it mandatory).

Takedap

Carrot007 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

No if you format is as internal sotage it gets merged in a union with the inbuilt and can run apps from it. It will not even look to the system to have an extra card. That was the entire purpose of doing it that way.

It will 100% solve the issue. If it is capable of doing it. And while as I said it appeared in 6 it was not commonly supported (later versions made it mandatory).

The situation at the moment is that the card has been formatted to act as internal storage but I have not been given the option of moving data to it as shown in your link 

I now have over 6GB of free space in the built in memory but am still being told that there is not enough space to apply updates.

Any more suggestions please?

Carrot007

Takedap said:

Carrot007 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

No if you format is as internal sotage it gets merged in a union with the inbuilt and can run apps from it. It will not even look to the system to have an extra card. That was the entire purpose of doing it that way.

It will 100% solve the issue. If it is capable of doing it. And while as I said it appeared in 6 it was not commonly supported (later versions made it mandatory).

The situation at the moment is that the card has been formatted to act as internal storage but I have not been given the option of moving data to it as shown in your link 

I now have over 6GB of free space in the built in memory but am still being told that there is not enough space to apply updates.

Any more suggestions please?

There would be no option to move as they would be in a union utomatically managed.

At a guess though from what you say it really needs doing at the start so the system can put the apps there (and leave update space available). Maybe it does not attempt to change existing things after the format.

I know it works as I did on on a unusable phone once as a test (8gb and unable to do much without running out of space to a wroking phone).

It may work if you delete your largest app and then reinstall it (the system in theory should put it on the card then).

Takedap

Carrot007 said:

Takedap said:

Carrot007 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Adopting storage as per the above article doesn't change the storage situation as far as Play Store is concerned.  While it provides more storage so far as everything else is concerned (ie 16Gb and a 64Gb is a raw 80Gb figure, or c. 75Gb net), Play Store will still ignore it.  So while its good for copious photos of the grandchildren and listening to every ABBA song ever made on the bus, it doesn't solve the "not enough storage space" thing when free space drops far enough on the internal storage.

No if you format is as internal sotage it gets merged in a union with the inbuilt and can run apps from it. It will not even look to the system to have an extra card. That was the entire purpose of doing it that way.

It will 100% solve the issue. If it is capable of doing it. And while as I said it appeared in 6 it was not commonly supported (later versions made it mandatory).

The situation at the moment is that the card has been formatted to act as internal storage but I have not been given the option of moving data to it as shown in your link 

I now have over 6GB of free space in the built in memory but am still being told that there is not enough space to apply updates.

Any more suggestions please?

There would be no option to move as they would be in a union utomatically managed.

At a guess though from what you say it really needs doing at the start so the system can put the apps there (and leave update space available). Maybe it does not attempt to change existing things after the format.

I know it works as I did on on a unusable phone once as a test (8gb and unable to do much without running out of space to a wroking phone).

It may work if you delete your largest app and then reinstall it (the system in theory should put it on the card then).

I've tried deleting apps but I then can't reinstall them.  It's telling me I don't have enough space.  This is despite the fact that I now have less apps and more storage space than when the tablet was new.

Think I might just bite the bullet & do a full factory reset.

Neil_Jones

Are you sure you're reading the storage figures right?  If 6Gb of free space isn't enough something's wrong somewhere.  An app from the Play Store shouldn't be taking up any more than 500Mb at the absolute most (complicated/top end games will take up space, but something less complicated will take much less, probably less than half, of that figure, possibly less than 50Mb).