Database Develop

Apps can't use / don't see 8GB internal storage. Why?

Only had the NC for a couple days. However, after some searching I'm still at a loss over this issue. I apologize if this is a well know issue that I've glossed over somehow. I used AutoNooter 2.12.18 on 12/23 after applying the 1.0.1 update. I assume this typical behavior unless something went wrong. Everything would be appear to be fine otherwise.
Why do apps like DropBox, Awesome Drop etc ignore the internal storage option?
Is there any known workaround to get these apps to use the internal storage?
Is purchasing an External MicroSD card the only way to make these apps work?

DId you let the nook format the DS card after rooting?
edit: Thought you had an SD card installed. I thought there was only 5gb of usable storage. At least when going to settings that is all I have ever seen even on a stock nc.

epakrat75 said:
Only had the NC for a couple days. However, after some searching I'm still at a loss over this issue. I apologize if this is a well know issue that I've glossed over somehow. I used AutoNooter 2.12.18 on 12/23 after applying the 1.0.1 update. I assume this typical behavior unless something went wrong. Everything would be appear to be fine otherwise.
Why do apps like DropBox, Awesome Drop etc ignore the internal storage option?
Is there any known workaround to get these apps to use the internal storage?
Is purchasing an External MicroSD card the only way to make these apps work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfrotunately, i cannot help too much with the drop box question, i but i can give some insight on the internal storage.
There is an 8GB chip, but it is partitioned in a few ways. There is a 5GB partition that is user accessible and is what you see when you connect the computer to the nook. TO the system however, this is the /media folder (using astro explorer, you can see this; navigate to the top directory, and if you open the /media folder, you will see what normally mounts on your computer).
Now, we also have an abnormally large /data partition - 1GB infact. We can install a huge number of apps. /system has 450mb and cache has 350mb - bringing us close to the formatted 8GB internal chip.
So, stepping back to your question - if you can point Dropbox (or the like) at a specific folder, point it to /media, and you will have your 5GB of storage.

That all makes sense now. It's how the partitions are setup on the internal storage that's throwing the apps off. That also explains another question I had why Astro initially showed nothing until I navigated elsewhere.

[Q] saving backups/photos to SD card on D3

Why the hell won't my phone save my songs from Spotify, my photos from Vignette, videos from the camcorder, and anything other data the apps create??
Where the hell is the option to save on SD card?

Simmah down.

The actual SD card is mapped as /sdcard-ext/ in the filesystem. The /sdcard/ mount point is the internal storage. Apps need to be written so you can choose the storage location, and this will only be a larger problem going forward because as internal storage space goes up, more and more manufacturers will be doing this.
The built-in camera app does ask if you want to use the real SD card when you put one in and load the program.

elkay said:
The actual SD card is mapped as /sdcard-ext/ in the filesystem. The /sdcard/ mount point is the internal storage. Apps need to be written so you can choose the storage location, and this will only be a larger problem going forward because as internal storage space goes up, more and more manufacturers will be doing this.
The built-in camera app does ask if you want to use the real SD card when you put one in and load the program.
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Yeah, see I use Vignette so that doesn't help... geez.
Guess I'll have to make sure the main camera app is at least on SD card storage. I don't remember if the video files are automatically saving to the SD card (I did notice the SD-ext difference and figured that was the external vs internal memory).

pekosROB said:
Yeah, see I use Vignette so that doesn't help... geez.
Guess I'll have to make sure the main camera app is at least on SD card storage. I don't remember if the video files are automatically saving to the SD card (I did notice the SD-ext difference and figured that was the external vs internal memory).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If they're not being stored to the external on the stock app, boot the phone without the SD card in the phone, launch the camera app, then shut the phone down. Pop the SD card back in, boot up and launch the camera app again. It should say as soon as you launch that a new SD card is found and ask if you want to use it.
Going forward, /sdcard-ext/ is going to be more common on more phones, so app developers need to start providing an option for where users want to store data files. I'd contact the Vignette developers (they're pretty responsive) and let them know that they need to add a feature to choose the storage location of saved pics because most likely all Motorola devices will be set up this way going forward, with other manufacturers following.

Why can't I save apps on my internal SD card?

Why does my Captivate only limit me to having 2GB of space for apps? I'm not using an external SD card and I want to install my apps onto my internal SD card or atleast move them there.

It's been a while since I have been on a stock ROM so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can move at least some of the apps by going to settings / applications and then, in the individual application settings, select "Move to SD."
I know you can't move widgets or alarm applications because they will break if they aren't on internal memory, but you should be able to move games, etc. with no problem.

Move to SD was not available on Eclair... what are you running?
Sent from my Cappy

I'm on 2.2 right now. There is an option to move to SD but it only moves it to external SD not the internal one. It's split up into 3 sections
Internal Memory
Internal SD Card(I want apps to go here)
External SD card

muh316 said:
I'm on 2.2 right now. There is an option to move to SD but it only moves it to external SD not the internal one. It's split up into 3 sections
Internal Memory
Internal SD Card(I want apps to go here)
External SD card
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Ah, now I understand. I never had enough apps on Froyo to play with moving them but shooting from the hip, have you tried removing your external card and see if it will let you move them then? If not, I know that there are apps2sd applications on the market that should help you, but I haven't used any of them to give you a recommendation.

apbthe3 said:
Ah, now I understand. I never had enough apps on Froyo to play with moving them but shooting from the hip, have you tried removing your external card and see if it will let you move them then? If not, I know that there are apps2sd applications on the market that should help you, but I haven't used any of them to give you a recommendation.
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I've used all of those methods and none work.

Did you find solution? I have same situation here, it's pretty weird internal SD could only be stored with application data instead of application itself.

I'm almost positive that you can't move apps to your "internal SD card" regardless of whether or not you have an external sd card installed.
My understanding is that you can only move apps to the external SD card (at least that's how it's been on any ROM I've ever used)

why... Why! WHY!!! . . . oh >.>
muh316 said:
Why does my Captivate only limit me to having 2GB of space for apps? I'm not using an external SD card and I want to install my apps onto my internal SD card or atleast move them there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why you ask...
Well simple, your limited to only 2GB because this size was choosen by phone manufacturors years ago when they were first designing the phone.
Consider that most of the phones in use back when 2.2 was released did not, for the full storage potential, even have the 2GB that we have just for apps (16GB in total). Heck most did not even have 1GB (I think 512MB was the standard). There was no separation between app storage and other media. This lead to users running out of space for both rather quickly. The solution then was to find use for the external SD as it could be as large as 32GB of storage.
The whole "internal SD" thing was thought up because it seemed wise to separate app storage from media storage. Also back when 2.2 was first released we did not have such massive apps as on the market today, so 2GB was plenty of any and all user (excluding the ppl who felt a need to have 200+ user apps...)
So, you can't store apps to the "internal SD" because that's not what it is meant to be used for. When companies decided to start putting such massive storage into the phone there was no reason for it to be any bigger.
As to only being able to move apps to the external SD, simple; Google did not design Android to do so.
To allow such would require changing how Android sees the "Internal SD" and to change how the app to SD function works, it is not currently written to check for multiple SD cards. I don't see any Dev willing to take up the task when the solution to running out of app space has already been solved by a much better means.
A different way to view the problem would be to ask (or learn, as that's the xda way) about re-sizing the partition to make the app storage larger. If enough people ask (politely!) maybe one of the Devs can be convinced to make it standard in their ROM that it be more then the default 2GB, or someone might make an app or flashable .zip that allows for re-sizing.
lt:dr - phone is old, based on old specs (think pre- 2.1 Android).

Strange file system issues

My file system is totally confused. When I browse to EMMC from a file manager it goes to my SD Card. If I browse to SD Card it actually goes to the internal drive.
I've had my rooted Nook Color for about 5 weeks now (CM7 booted from a SD card). Everything was working great until I tried installing some different launchers. I tried GoLauncher, Zeam, ICS, Honeycomb and maybe one more. The default was ADW. Maybe I confused the system by constantly switching from one to the next but at some point the system crashed and I rebooted.
Once rebooted I noticed that many of the games I installed told me I needed to redownload their data files. I looked on my card, through my Mac, but the original files were still there. Turns out the Nook now installs apps on the internal drive rather than the card as it had been before.
Wouldn't be so bad but, as mentioned earlier, the file system is confused. When i need to manage files I've loaded on my SD card I have to browse to EMMC and vice versa. Makes my head spin.
Is there a way to fix it without starting from scratch? I'm using CM7.2.0.
Thanks for your help

That's not a bug, it's a feature. Anyway, what you likely did is Settings -> Cyanogenmod Settings -> Application Settings -> Use internal storage (checked). If you do this, then it swaps the mount points for the SD and the internal memory, so the SD card is mounted at "/emmc" and the internal memory is mounted at "/sdcard". See the first post in the thread in my sig for more information about this.
If you really want to return it to the original way, wasting 5G of internal storage space, then you can uncheck that box in the settings and it'll go back to normal.

Thanks for pointing that out and glad to see there's an easy fix. Seems a bit confusing though, like it's renaming your hard drives or something. I had been using the internal drive for storing media files, video, music, comics. Does it matter where apps or files are stored?

false1 said:
Thanks for pointing that out and glad to see there's an easy fix. Seems a bit confusing though, like it's renaming your hard drives or something. I had been using the internal drive for storing media files, video, music, comics. Does it matter where apps or files are stored?
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Well, the "fix", IMHO, is to leave it with them swapped.
Yes, it matters where apps are stored and it matters what is mounted at /sdcard. Apps use space on the /sdcard partition for settings, temp storage, downloads, etc. Mounting that 5G partition at /sdcard instead of /emmc allows these apps to use that space rather than cluttering your actual SD card. And apps are going to wind up on your 1G partition, not on either the /sdcard or /emmc mountpoint.
You can go read up in my guide on my recommendation on how to best use this space. The normal way is inefficient and wasteful of internal memory, IMHO. But you know, maybe you like it that way

mr72 said:
You can go read up in my guide on my recommendation on how to best use this space. The normal way is inefficient and wasteful of internal memory, IMHO. But you know, maybe you like it that way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think efficiency is more in how you choose to utilise the spaces rather than fundamentally in which switch option you use. For example, I choose to completely fill the 5GB of internal with sound and picture media as they get included in the normal app scanning process. Leaving the SD card to hold yet more media, app data and back ups.
It's still good to have the choice offered by the switch.

Is there any way to force the phone to use External memory?

This is my first phone with a lot of internal memory and I don't quite get how it uses it... Is there any way for the phone to use my external 16GB memory card instead of always using its own 8GB partition?

I second this question.
Though it may seem useless to do so, on the contrary I have a 32g ext SD card and would be fine ignoring the (confusing and my case redundant) internal SD card.
Or if not disable, maybe force apps/etc to default to the ext card?
Sent from my XT875 using xda premium

The question is does your app allow you the option to use your external memory. Not all apps are created equal and whether they allow you to use the external SD card is really up to the app developer. Its in the coding of the app that determines where the data is stored. Check your apps for that option and if there is none request it from the developer.

I believe there are ways to use the sd-ext for some kinds of data files used by large games, but the app must run on internal mem. I store all docs, downloads, pictures, music, videos, etc. on my external microsd card, but apps have to go on internal or they disappear or don't work. Search for 'apps2sd bionic' and you should find a way to store some game data externally.

raylgo said:
This is my first phone with a lot of internal memory and I don't quite get how it uses it... Is there any way for the phone to use my external 16GB memory card instead of always using its own 8GB partition?
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I did this when I had the atrix, and have also done it on my Bionic.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1404872

Ha! Didn't even think about messing with the fstab, thanks for that link. I'll be trying this shortly, and repost with results.
On a side note, I figured it shouldn't rely on the apps per say, considering a lot of phones don't have an internal "sdcard" (note: sdcard, not to be confused with regular internal app storage).
My opinion, naming the internal sdcard what it is was a seriously stupid idea. Should've followed suit with "app storage", how about "data storage"... just something not involving "card".
--
Cool, it worked awesome. Just had to swap files from one to the other to keep data in spots apps expected it to be.
Actually, I went ahead and disable the internal SD, and mounted the extsd in its place. Have been playing with mounting the extsd to both internal and external (resulted in only one mount point working), and also tried renaming the internals mount point to something like "internal_storage" (resulted in boot loop).
Be careful if playing with the mount points. The system doesn't like booting if it can't find something mounted to "sdcard", etc.
Something I'll be playing with and experimenting with. Any more info on editing these mount points would be very handy.
And lastly, sorry for hijacking your thread
Hope I didn't bother.
Sent from my XT875 using xda premium