android "insufficient storage space"

[CU]

I have two Nabi tablets. Both run Android 4.1.1. When I go look under storage both have at least 282MB free. Every app I try to install says "insufficient storage space". They download fine though. Even App Cache Cleaner which I thought might help me free up some space. How can I fix this problem? Everything I find on line just says to remove some apps. I have removed 150+ megs of apps and still nothing. Most of the apps I click on have 0 or only a few megs of cache data. So, I don't really know what I need to delete.

 

[gmaster456]

How much storage is cache taking up?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I will try to avoid going on another "I hate android" rant, but I had the same problem, but even worse with an Acer A-100 tablet that I had. It has only a 5gb storage drive, but it was showing like 2gb free, plus I had a 8gb SD card installed that was basically empty. However, every time I tried to install even a tiny app, it gave me the same error message about insufficient space. I think it was somehow related to the internal storage being split into a "partition" for apps and one for data, and if the apps portion was full, you could not install an app, even though there was plenty of space on the drive. And I never could figure out how to tell it to install the app on the SD card or how to move stuff from the internal storage to the SD card to free up space. Did I mention that I hate Android?? Sorry cant help myself.

 

[CU]

How much storage is cache taking up?

How do I find out? Spot checking a few apps, I would say not much. I would guess not more than a few megs.

 

[gmaster456]

How do I find out? Spot checking a few apps, I would say not much. I would guess not more than a few megs.

Go into settings and tap on storage

 

[gmaster456]

I will try to avoid going on another "I hate android" rant, but I had the same problem, but even worse with an Acer A-100 tablet that I had. It has only a 5gb storage drive, but it was showing like 2gb free, plus I had a 8gb SD card installed that was basically empty. However, every time I tried to install even a tiny app, it gave me the same error message about insufficient space. I think it was somehow related to the internal storage being split into a "partition" for apps and one for data, and if the apps portion was full, you could not install an app, even though there was plenty of space on the drive. And I never could figure out how to tell it to install the app on the SD card or how to move stuff from the internal storage to the SD card to free up space. Did I mention that I hate Android?? Sorry cant help myself.

I have no idea why device makers would partition the storage like that. It was the worst thing about android. I am glad most of them stopped doing that.

 

[JeffMD]

They didn't stop, internal memory is still partitioned like that. However unlike the 4.1 days where apps couldn't be installed to sd cards if your memory was partitioned into an emulated sd card, it seems the enhanced security measures to external storage in kitkat has allowed apps to be moved from internal sd to external sd storage.

The reason for the emulated SD partitioning was a badly thought out but quick method of kicking user generated files out of the operating system partition due to exploits and security.

 

[CU]

Go into settings and tap on storage

Storage doesn't tell me how much is in cache.

It says:
4.49 Total

Apps 4.08G
Pictures, videos 136K
Audio 92K
Downloads 5.14M
Misc 14.61M
Available 353M

 

[CU]

Just tried to install Disk & Storage Analyzer. It gave me the same error and the app is only 467K.

 

[piasabird]

So do the apps you have have to be all loaded in memory to be available? How does that work?

I have an Android tablet but I dont know much about how it works. There has to be some limits to the number of apps you can have up and running.

 

[JeffMD]

Uninstall something big that doesn't have saved information or anything you need to lose, then try installing AppMgr III. It will help you move things if possible, and clear your cache. If you still can't install anything you may have to do a wipe, as something is obviously broken in your software.