I’ve had this issue 3 times now. The phone reports “Low on space: Phone storage space is getting low.” The first time I had to Hard Reset the phone – on the advice of both Verizon and the HTC call center (where I waited on hold for 30 minutes). Second time, I removed some apps, and the problem went away. But now, at time 3, I started letting my fingers search the net for the issue.
Here’s what Christopher Dawson at ZD had to say:
Is your Droid Incredible low on disk space? | ZDNet
Of course not. It has 8GB of internal storage and you’re geeky enough to have a Droid, so you certainly aren’t out of internal storage. If you’re like me, though, you’re still receiving an error message telling you that you are “Low on space: Phone storage space is getting low.†Here’s the problem, though: HTC has no idea that this issue exists, let alone that it’s essentially bricking Incredibles.
Android Central had a discussion on the low disk space issue that blames HTC mail, but I don’t use that, I use Gmail. Android Forums on HTC also note a problem but there aren’t that may posts on that site. The Incredible forum suggests getting a new unit.
The problem I’m having, and haven’t seen this yet for anyone else, is that my contacts database reports it’s 90MB. That would be a lot of friends. I’ve tried to ensure that my phone doesn’t connect Facebook and Twitter contacts with my address book, but apparently something is making the database huge. Maybe this is the cause of the memory issue, but who knows. The phone reports over 650MB of phone Memory free (Phone Memory, not Internal Phone Storage – that has 480MB free, just in case I’m confused about where stuff happens). I suspect that HTC Sense is trying to link everything and it is taking up a lot of “working memory.”
Verizon tech support level 1 didn’t know my issue – I think they basically got it, but knew enough to pass me to level 2. Person at level 2 support suggested that “If it were me, I’d get a new device.” So, that’s in the works now.
I’m calling on HTC to at least acknowledge the issue, and provide a fix.
UPDATE: Yesterday the problem got worse and worse, until the phone would crash when I tried to use the “phone” application. Yes, I could not use my phone as a phone. I rebooted by removing the battery, set it up as a diskdrive, copied all my photos off the phone, and hard reset it to factory settings, losing my apps and everything. Even thought the VZ people told me the android market would remember all my purchased and free apps, it really didn’t. It did let me reinstall my purchased game, but many of the other utilities I had downloaded I now have to find again, once the new unit arrives tomorrow.
My phone turned into a brick, I am convinced, because the contacts file was >100MB when the phone finally wouldn’t work as a phone, that some HTC Sense thing trying to merge all my contacts with Facebook and Twitter account info and bring in all pictures is what did this to it.
I am going to try to avoid all these ‘connect the accounts’ things when I reinstall the new phone.
