Beta3 - Install fails with "Insufficient Storage" message

[Ozols]

Placed an .apk into Adam's filesystem. Navigated to that file (in Root Explorer) and clicked on it. System offered to install that .apk. I clicked OK. System told me there was not enough space to perform the install.

My problem is that I don't know WHAT KIND OF SPACE the system ran out of. Looking at the side panel in Setttings -> Storage, every partition listed (including the one for /data) has more than 1 GB available.

Did the install run out of plain memory? Is there a way to define a swap file for the Android operating system ? . Logcat http://pastebin.com/znpYcKuy Dmesg http://pastebin.com/aTfdEBxP

[Ozols]

When on the Adam (after having set up a swap partition, etc.) I execute the command 'swapon', it tells me "Function not implemented".

Pretty please - would you please include swap support in the kernel.

[sandervanzijl]

do you mean something like a2sd, to put apps on your sdcard? as far as i know a swap partition does not increase the memory available for apps.

did you nvflash beta1 first? then upgrade to beta3? nvflashing beta1 upgrades your partitions to create more space.

[Ozols]

First of all, I found the error message "Insufficient Storage" to be confusing -- it does not tell me WHAT KIND of storage the install process was short of. As far as disk storage goes, my system partition has 399 MB free; my data partition has 1 GB free; my "internal SD" has 4 GB free; and my "external SD" has 2 GB free. So it is not 'free disk storage' that there is not enough of. My conclusion -- it was RAM storage that there was not enough of

In traditional Linux systems, the "RAM" is extended by "swap space" -- when more memory is needed by a process, something already in memory is "swapped out" to free the memory it occupied.. Vanilla Android has a different approach -- when more memory is needed by an app, typically another app that had been loaded gets its memory taken away (apps are supposed to "cache" enough information about themselves so they are able to "continue" when/if they get re-loaded).

I'm thinking that if there was "Insufficient Storage" on my Adam to run the app-installer, then the Android "RAM extender" was not good enough. There is discussion of "swap partition for Android" on XDA -- perhaps the Linux "RAM extender" would work in my situation. [But Linux-type swapping requires Kernel support, which does not appear to have beeen configured in for Beta3.]

[Ozols]

What the Beta1 nvflash does is create more room in the /system partition. [Yes, I did the Beta1 nvflash before installing Beta3.] The /system partition is used to store "system-space" apps such as the ones in the Gapps package. [That is why Beta3 users who have not done the Beta1 nvflash will not have enough room in their /system partition to install ALL the "system space" apps needed to access Google (e.g., Market).] But the app I was trying to install was a "user space" app -- which gets placed into the /data partition, not the /system partition. [BTW, both my /system partition and my /data partition HAVE enough free space to install more apps.]

And no, I did not mean something like a2sd -- though I have extra free space on both my "internal SD" and my "external SD" for apps, I also have enough free space in my /data partition to not need to move apps to SD.

[sandervanzijl]

Could you tell us if you tried this on a clean system (no other programs installed, not running anything extra) or not. which program where you trying to install.

[Ozols]

I posted here to document an error situation I encountered. But when I described my experience in the forums, I gave additional details -- in particular, when I first installed this app, THE INSTALL WENT FINE. If there was a problem with partition-size, or cache-content -- I would have expected the error to appear as soon as I tried that first install. But there was no error then -- the install WORKED.

It was only when I tried to REPEAT the install (two days later, and after having uninstalled) that I got the error. So some sort of "storage" resource, which had earlier been available, was unavailable two days later. I suspect that the now-unavailable "storage" was RAM -- more of which had been "used up" (perhaps "leaked") in the interval.

That is why I opened this issue -- an install which should have worked (it DID work earlier) unexpectedly did NOT work.

[sandervanzijl]

well i am trying to help. you are not specific enough at the moment to qualify this problem as a rom error. to sum up your error: there is 'a' program, that when installed twice gives problems in storage space.

even if this is an error in the rom, how are people supposed to verify the issue, and help you find an answer.

do you have this problem with all apk's or just the one? can you install from the market?

so in order to find the cause it would help to know which program you are installing, if you have a lot of other programs installed, did you try going back to a clean rom, did you restart your adam,( this should refresh the memory.) remember this is a bug list. a bug can only be a bug if the problem is reproducable. how else can we distinguish between bugs and user errors.

[Ozols]

There is a huge gulf between my intentions and your intentions. I do not expect any assistance with this issue on Beta3. The only 'help' I would like is that when future ROMs are built for the Adam, they be configured to support Linux swapping. [My "Insufficient Storage" problem was repeated with some other "large" apps, so I did not describe it as occurring with a specifiic app. I did not feel like capturing multiple logcats.]

What I was using the github Issues page for was to share with others some problems that I have experienced - with the intent of alerting them "Hey, here's something that might happen to you". Meanwhile, I'm not going to sit on my hands waiting for any kind of a response -- instead I go forward -- in this case by wiping all SD content, then reinstalling Beta3.

---

"How are people supposed to verify the issue"?

If other people encounter the problem - then it is a matter with wide impact. If it is an isolated incident -- spend your time elsewhere. I make an effort to not report matters unless I'm suspicious of them. If I knew how to reproduce this kind of an error <but I don't>, I might have included that in my description. [However, I've stopped submitting Fedora bug reports altogether - I find it too cumbersome to produce the "how to reproduce" description they want.]

If you really want only "reporducible" problems on this bug list - fine - it is much simpler for me to not bother to report the prolems I discover when using the software built for Adam.