Mystery storage memory bloat

[swamp2]

My storage memory seems to steadily but significantly grow and grow. It is now at 98% full and I can't find any space. Normally after a hard reset and installing all of my data and apps this figure is in the 80% range. I do keep my temporary internet files cleaned out by removing everything from Windows\Profiles\guest\Temporary Internet Files which can generally free up a very large amount of space, say 10+ MB or so. The obvious additional pieces of information are:

-no new large files added
-quite a few SMSs - but not a thousand, maybe 50-200 total
-no new programs installed
-the mystery bloat seems to be in the Windows directory which is now 138MB (seems odd) as reported by Resco Explorer

I have used find large files feature and have thoroughly browsed my Windows directory and just can not find the large file(s) causing this. Could this be some kind of memory leak? This is the second time this has happened and the last time I resorted to a hard reset which drastically improved the problem (got rid of it and got me back down to the 80% level again which it seemed to stay at for quite some time). I really do not want to get in this mandatory endless hard reseting loop.

BTW: AT&T device and ROM, bloatware removed by reset during bloatware installation at start up. Any advice greatly appreciated.

[dolbe]

you sure your removing the PIE cache by opening PIE and selecting to clear history and delete files by going to tools/options in PIE? thats the most common place you get internal memory getting eaten up. ive had 40mb go through PIe because i forgot to delete the files through the PIE settings

[swamp2]

Thanks. Emptying that directory does the same thing. Just to be sure I did that anyway. No change. At 96% now. Ugh.

[Farsquidge]

Give us a list of...

Device, is it a stock AT&T Tilt or one of the beta's we are hearing about?
Firmware, items shown on startup from soft reset!
Installed Apps/Cabs,

cause you could have something storing log files that you don't know about!

then we can have a reference of where to go! :)

[swamp2]

OK here goes...

R 1.27.12.11 (std AT&T)
G 22.45.88.07H
D 1.57.00.00

Aps (in addition to std. ROM):
Opera
G Maps
Resco Expl+Today
TT6
iGuidance4
PC MAME
Calc98
Kaiser Notification (LED control)
TCPMP
World Card Mobile
Weather to Go (Tonaya)
MS Voice Com.
MS Live Search
Flash Video Bundle

Thanks again!

[URPREY]

Look for a file named Today in the Windows directory. I noticed this on my Tilt ROM and it was steadily growing. It's safe to delete.

[?Glitch]

Also check your email, this can grow rapidly if you get attachments.

?Glitch

[snooginsguy]

Does google maps save it's map cache to the storage card? I thought it didn't. If not, that would likely cause your memory to drop if you use google maps a lot.

[swamp2]

Thanks so much guys.

@URPREY: The only file like that is Today_Order_23Jul07.cab and it is a whopping 3kB

@?Glitch: I only use SMS not MMS not e-mail, I think these guys are pretty darn small.

@snoogisnguy: I thought google maps downloaded everything it needed sort of in real time and cleaned stuff up in real time as well. Can you point me to a directory to examine for large files?

[swamp2]

OK hate to resort to a "bribe", but this problem is killing me. $25 to the person who can solve it. I'd be happy to simply make another donation to the forum as well.

[johnk1973]

Google maps keeps almost everything it downloads, if you use that a lot that would be my first guess.
check My device/application data/GoogleMaps and the file cashe-GLM.
Mine's about 2M and i rarely use it.

[dunneldeen]

Try memmaid from Dinarsoft. It can evaluate your storage usage, including the google cache and tell you what is taking up the space. It's got a free 15 day trial.

http://www.dinarsoft.com/memmaid/

[akash_84]

hard reset and start again... might be an issue that you may never find

on another note, why dont you sync up to windows and check the file/folder size of each one you have... theres not that many and so it should only take a few minutes

atleast that way you can narrow it down to what area of your phone is taking up so much memory... and then narrow it down to a file hopefully

just an idea

[URPREY]

Thanks so much guys.

@URPREY: The only file like that is Today_Order_23Jul07.cab and it is a whopping 3kB
Which file explorer did you use to check? The file that was on mine was a hidden file and had no extension so I only saw it with Total Commander. It grew very quickly and I had to delete it several time. I believe it was a cache file for the today screen. I use an RSS today plugin and I think that's what caused it. I have no issues after changing to a cooked ROM.

[swamp2]

Try memmaid from Dinarsoft. It can evaluate your storage usage, including the google cache and tell you what is taking up the space. It's got a free 15 day trial.

http://www.dinarsoft.com/memmaid/

Thanks guys! All of the other suggestions, although great ideas, turned out to not be the culprit. The one above, with some more detective work was the winner. Memmaid located a folder called ~Recycled that was 15+ MB. It is a bug (or maybe even a "feature") in Resco Explorer that it does not show this directory ewven when you check show everything such as hidden, system, in ROM, etc. This directory held some files that were cached images from web browsing as well as other unidentifiable files. Memmaid also nicely deleted the entire directory. All was well until I got a bit too aggressive and used Memmaid to move all of the application caches to the memory card. This made my system very unstable, slow and almost unuseable. Luckily I could get back in Memmaid and undo those changes. Anyway a bit of a long struggle but finally this very annoying and crippling problem is solved. I really hope this thread helps out others with a similar problem.

As a follow up question does anyone know how to prevent such bloat in this directory in the first place? Seems like a very crippling feature of WM wihtout access to this directory.

dunneldeen: Was your suggestion enough of a solution that you want the "bribe" money? Thanks again either way!

[dalamario]

You simply have to remove "recycle bin" feature from Resco Explorer settings, so your files will be deleted as soon as you do it and they will doesn't go to the recycle bin that in theory you have to empty manually, like your do with the one on your PC.