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[Q] 'Reserved space and content from other computers'..WHAAAT???

Hi,
I have been searching around but cannot find an answer to this...my WP7 in Zune is coming up with 2.77GB of 'reserved space and content from other computers'....now that seems like alot especially when I only have 8GB in the first place!
Now I've read things saying...reduce the amount of space reserved for apps in Zune and I've done that its down to 1% but still it is showing this huge amount of space reserved.
I have spoken to Zune Support on Twitter and their answer was to do a factory reset and re-install all my apps one by one. Does this sound right to everyone else? Should I really have to do all that?
Lastly (and sorry about the mini-rant) I have a Zune Pass and I have also read that by resetting my phone it will make Zune recognise it as a brand new device and therefore reduce the amount of devices I can use my Zune Pass on....is this correct?
Thanks for all you help everyone

Do you have a lot of apps etc?

You Silly!
Just go to Zune device settings (on top of the zune client, of course, you need to have your phone connected), and then go to the "Reserved space" link from the list on the left side. Then reduce it to whatever percentage of your phone's memory you want. Basically, reserved space is a certain percentage of the storage on your phone that is put aside for app installs, pdfs, docs, etc. So when you fill up your phone with pictures, music, and videos, you would have some space for ... other things.
There is no reseting required whatsoever.

I dont have that many apps.....and I have done what you said already (reduced to 1%) and still I have this huge amount of space taken up...its just annoying!

I completely understand the problem of sergoiacobucci.
On my HD7 (16GB) there is also 1.36GB reserved space for "content of other computers", even though I reduced the reserved space in the settings to 0%.
If I play around a little with the percenteges the reserved space goes down from everything I have left on my device to 1.5GB at 1% and 1.36GB at 0%.
Meaning I also can't get it any lower.
Of course your problem is 4 times more annoing than 8% gone on a 16GB device, but I'd still like to know whatfore this space is used/how to use it for myself.

kapanak said:
You Silly!
Just go to Zune device settings (on top of the zune client, of course, you need to have your phone connected), and then go to the "Reserved space" link from the list on the left side. Then reduce it to whatever percentage of your phone's memory you want. Basically, reserved space is a certain percentage of the storage on your phone that is put aside for app installs, pdfs, docs, etc. So when you fill up your phone with pictures, music, and videos, you would have some space for ... other things.
There is no reseting required whatsoever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He stated in the OP that he's already lowered this to 1%.

OP have you ever synced with more than one computers?

Pretty sure the reserved space includes space taken up by anything outside of media. I just downloaded a game and my reserved space went from 1.22 GB to 1.32 GB. I wouldn't worry about it too much, it sounds like you just have a lot of non-media data on your phone.

I don't know about the reserved space thing but as for Zune Pass. You can remove devices from your 4 devices in the settings. So adding a new device wont take up your 4, just remove the old one from the list
Settings > Account > Computers and Devices

sayonical said:
OP have you ever synced with more than one computers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are you suggesting this might be causing the issue? i'm syncing with 2 pc's and my available space has gone from 3.02GB to 2.12GB with only a few apps installed and 1GB of music. i'm not concerned about the "shrinking space" now, but would like to know how it's used/allocated.

Hi everyone and thanks for the replies.
I have only ever connected it to one computer.....i just un-installed about 3 games and it has reduced the reserved space from 2.77GB to 2GB...so maybe the games take up alot more space than I realised...
Bit of a worry though to be honest, as more and more good apps/games come out I am going to quickly run out of space!

it depends on the games tbh. most games are small, but the big ones which we all like take up quite a bit (e.g. need for speed and guitar hero).

The Gate Keeper said:
it depends on the games tbh. most games are small, but the big ones which we all like take up quite a bit (e.g. need for speed and guitar hero).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says on the marketplace page how much space each application/game takes up. It's down near the bottom where it says "released dd/mm/yyyy, version x.x.x.x, xxMB".
For example, "The Sims 3" is 113MB, "Guitar Hero 5" is 201MB, and "Monopoly" is 24MB. So, there's a good range of sizes.
I can't find this info in the Zune software, though, so I think it's only in the marketplace on the phone.

yeah, I've got a lot of games on my phone and even though I have it set at 5% (I think the standard setting), it is reserved at about 4gb of stuff. But I have about 20-30 games (about 12 xbox live titles), like harvest, need for speed, etc.
I don't worry about it. I don't put a ton of music on my phone since I have zune pass.

I know exactly what you mean and here's an article explaining it as well as how to somewhat resolve it. http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2009...content-from-other-computers-if-any-quot.aspx

That explains a lot. Thanks for sharing that!

okay. so far so good. but i experience some problem about this reserved space: i am not able to change it. i can move the bar so i get different percentages but it does not take any effect.
this is frustrating because im not able to put anything new to my device...
any ideas?

The_Chiller said:
okay. so far so good. but i experience some problem about this reserved space: i am not able to change it. i can move the bar so i get different percentages but it does not take any effect.
this is frustrating because im not able to put anything new to my device...
any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd suggest wiping the system like I'm going to. I have 2.67GB of reserved space that I can't get rid of, and I followed the instructions from that link. Wiping it might do the trick.

I'm having this problem as well. What is the point of having a reserved space?! Why can't the space just fill up like usual and let me delete stuff when it gets completely full? There is no reason for a reserved space (in my mind) that can't be removed without starting all over.
My reserved space has filled up to 2.5gb and says I have 0.0 free space on the zune software. When I go check my phone however, it says I have 565mb free. So this means I can't sync anymore music even though my phone says it has 1/2 gb free?

Thanks for the link!
I always had this problem whenever I sync with my mac after syncing with zune on windows 7. However I did figure out a work around. I use the "I choose" sync method and simply drag all my playlists to the hd7 icon. Whenever I the reserve space issue occurs, I simply re-drag back the playlists and the sync groups are essentially recreated without having to resync the music.

[Q] Rooting, Custom ROMs and Available Internal Storage

Hi there!
If I root my Nexus S, will it then be possible to see what's going on in the internal storage? My phone is acting rather strangely when it comes to the internal storage. When I delete an app's cache (from Settings/Apps) the indicated space does not get freed up. On the contrary, an equivalent amount of space gets subtracted from the indicated amount of free internal storage! On most occasions when I uninstall an app the space gets freed up. However, recently I had 300 MB available when I installed Chrome browser. That took up about 50 MB, so I had a remaining 250 MB available. I uninstalled it again and now I only have 200 MB free. I often get notifications that there is too little storage space available when updating rather small apps (typically less than 20 MB).
With a rooted phone, will I be able to see what's going on and easily locate and delete redundant files? (Back in the days I felt I had a lot better control and overview over my Pocket PC. With my Android I struggle to make sense of what's going on. Well, not that I´m going back...)
I'm not really asking for a quick solution to the problem because it seems from other discussions that this isn't possible. But I'd like to avoid running into the same problem again after a hard reset, rooting, or ROM change.
Cheers,
Larry
Nexus S I9023 (unrooted)
Jelly Bean 4.1.2

hey Larry,
first of all after you're rooted you can see all of your files and folders from...well..root directory
before doing so i'd try to move apps to SD or from SD depends where the low space is: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Aof9r.png

Hi eytan!
As I said, I'm short of internal storage. I've already moved just about everything possible out of the internal memory. Moving programs out of internal storage does result in more internal storage (as long as there's something left to move). However, this does not explain why my internal memory is disappearing. I ought to have a lot more available internal memory - at least 400 MB.
Yes, that's what rooting does. Maybe I should have elaborated a bit... Will it make sense without extensive knowledge of the Android system. It seems like instead of cache (and certain programs like chrome browser) being deleted they are somehow being copied within the internal storage. I was wondering if I would be able to locate this - find some folder that has grown 50 MB in case of the google chrome uninstallation. Or will all this data be stacked up in some sort of system file that isn't accessible.
- larryvega
Nexus S I9023 (unrooted)
Jelly Bean 4.1.2

well, you can always search your phone by folder size and locate the origin of this.
i guess your best chances are at DATA folder, just be careful and make sure you delete only things your'e sure that are already uninstalled and just have "leftovers"

Insufficient storage available - HTC one S

Hi everyone,
When I try to install new apps or try to update an existing app, I'll receive the error message that I don't have enough storage on my device. In my storage settings I can clearly see, that I have more than 250MB left (of 2,34GB). At the moment I can't even install something that is below 1 MB.
For a long time I was running standard Android 4.1 on this HTC one S and lived with this error... Last week I tried to get to the cause of that issue, because it annoys me every day a little more. I rooted my device and flashed Cyanogenmod 12.1, hoping that this could fix my issue. But it didn't. After installing some apps I'm again facing that annoying issue.
In my storage options I do have the possibility to move apps to "SD". Even though the HTC one S doesn't have an SD slot, I guess this is moving the apps to another partition of the flash. Unfortunately they are not copied completely to the other partition. In some cases only a few MB or sometimes only a few KB are moved to that "SD", according to my storage settings.
I already wiped my cache, but unfortunately that didn' t change anything. Is someone of you running into the same issues or even has a solution for me? If you need more informations or tests, just let me know.
Thank you guys in advance!

I have the same problem and it is just absolutely out of control. I can't understand why this garbage is allowed to happen. I have very few apps, with the biggest being GApps' updated versions. But the phone's storage only seems to be 2GB - which is unusable.
It seems like modern phones use a "dynamic /data" arrangement, where /sdcard is really a virtual path to /data/media (so the sdcard contents actually exist in the /data partition, hence can't be mounted as USB storage or FAT). I'm constantly running into the "insufficient storage" problem with >200MB free - which is hardly enough to even work with anyway.
The problem is made significantly worse by dalvik-cache storing a second copy of the app - so that instead of a 20MB app only taking 20 MB of storage, it really takes about 40MB (or more, depending on extra uncompressed data). Like keeping a copy of the installer along side the actual program, for every program you use on your computer.
I have no need for any "/sdcard" storage, as almost all my data is cloud-based (Dropbox photos, Tidal, Slacker, Spotify music, etc), so I hope to find some way to repartition the internal storage to split it up into 8GB /data with the rest as /sdcard (possibly as low as 4GB), and minimize the /cache partition which is generally unused anyway. It's a damn shame that this isn't given more priority among the people trying to squeeze more /sdcard space (to use with what apps?!). :/

Incorrect storage calculation

So today I awoke to the low storage warning and decided to check it out, the memory and storage section of settings claims I only had 440 MB left out of 32 GB, but upon examination of everything that occupies space, it adds up to a little over 17 gigs, not 31.5. Any idea what may be causing this and how to fix it?
(I wanted to add a screenshot but apparently you can't from mobile)

Are you using twin application? whatsapp or facebook?
Check the space used on: Phone manager-->Cleanup-->Store manager-->Application restore

pellizzo said:
Are you using twin application? whatsapp or facebook?
Check the space used on: Phone manager-->Cleanup-->Store manager-->Application restore
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, never used app twin. And storage manager apparently can't finish computing the space used by each category even after 5 minutes.

There may be some files hidden somewhere. Also your phone doesn't give you the full 32 GB because it uses some for Android and stuff.

rootless ways to Overcome >500mb free space required limit?

Google forces people to have at least 500mb of free space saying "some crashes may happen" (they actually don't and if they do I/people can manage that).
Freed up all space on phone, removed all files, removed almost all apps, but space used up (probably by internal partitions such as /data /system etc) increases so:
I mostly can't ****ing use phone any more;
can't install any app (even from USB, yeah I unchecked the damn "protect device" options),
can't enable ADB (because of some other WebView error, which too is related to how google/android works, can't access Dev Settings, they always crash , yes even with >500mb of free space),
can't view email (only in Gmail) (without a workaround,
can't download files (only in Google Drive) and so on...
Clearly this is a google problem, I wish I (and anybody else) never had to use an android/iphone etc.
When rooted etc, all this was never a problem, I also even could do all until there was actually 0mb available.
I need to do this to test some app I'd like to develop.
I can root, etc. each phone, but I'd rather keep putting it off (as I'm developing a hatred for all this, including anti user technology)

@StackExploit
It's NOT Google who notifies you when your Android device has less than 500MB free storage space, but Android OS.
The Android >=500MB free storage space rule is because of 'operating capital' - it needs space to store temporary files as you use apps, it needs space to download updates to and space to store the uncompressed update files prior to installing them ( it should delete the compressed and uncompressed update files automatically after install ), etc.pp.
If Android's storage memory is 32GB ( 32,768MB ) then 500MB correspond to ~2%, if it's 16GB ( 16,384MB ) then it corresponds to ~3%. IMO ridiculously low shares. Take note that Windows & Mac computers have the at minimum 10% free space rule.
In answer to your actual question: I don't believe there's a way around this restriction. Not unless you had rooted and used a custom ROM that specifically mentioned that as a feature. Even if you could bypass it, you'd probably run into other problems (e.g. performance) as a consequence.

Yes, of course, I didn't mention this need of space for temp files (which most often don't take up anywhere near as much as 500mb), because I explained instead for example that I can manage if things crash. These files should be in RAM instead when possible anyway(!).
Well, the min storage is 3% but so what when you can't upgrade any parts like storage and external storage is still lagging behind in so many cases. The higher prices for devices with more (of the same non removable) internal storage are ridiculous.