[Jermanicus]

I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but I think I may have one explanation for the "Other Data" which seems to be gobbling up space on our phones' internal storage and memory cards.

I recently bought four movies on the Blackberry World recent Xmas film sale. For some unknown reason, the film file downloads were incredibly stuttery (not to view, but the download progress). For example it would stop after a few hundred Mb, then I would have click restart etc. etc. Eventually after 20 or 30 retries each movie would download. It didn't matter which wi-fi I was using: my own, my friend's or my family's.

On the second film I was shocked to see a message that my 64Gb memory card was almost full - there was virtually nothing on it before I started downloading. On checking I noticed that there was nearly 57Gb of "Other Data" which wasn't there before.

My theory: each time I clicked to download, the OS would cordon off a section of the memory card. Trouble is, when the download failed, the OS didn't free the memory up again. If this is the case it is a major, major bug in the OS's handling of memory.

Now I have recently noticed that my internal memory has around 8Gb of Other Data and for the life of me I cannot identify what it is. I am starting to think that again this is just a flaw in the OS and the way it handles memory blocks. There must surely be a way of identifying what this memory is. As some have hypothesised, it may be the actual OS, or metadata for Android side-loads, or apps. But to lump it all together as "Other Data" is about as useful as a cat-flap in an elephant house. Further, when viewing the internal storage memory through Windows, all my files (including hidden files) amount to a paltry 77.3Mb - less than 1/100th of the size of the 8Gb of Other Data.

Can anyway advise a solution - apart from the obvious Wipe and Restore? Like many others who have made similar posts, I'll be disappointed if I have to completely wipe and restore my phone every few days because of a bug in the OS. Perhaps some of the moderators on here could press Blackberry for some sort of response?

PS. I forgot to add that my current handset is the Zed30. I gave my Zed10 to a friend who is also encountering a similar problem - it's really turning him off Blackberries which is a pity because I have worked hard to convert him.

[DOCTOREVIL8]

The only solution I heard of was to change the BlackBerry World settings to download music and movies to the device, not the SD card. There is no 'other data' problems this way. Then when the download is finished, copy it to the SD card.

Posted via CB10

[Bla1ze]

That was happening to me as well with the video downloads, I just went in and trashed the files using the file manager. Even though it was downloading say 100MB or w/e.. it was allocating the full amount each time it was downloaded, so even if it was only 100MB the memory card THOUGHT it was say 2GB. I ended up just saving them to my device storage and then moving them to my memory card.

As for the other crap that consumes 'Other Data' I have never found a way around it, it's problematic on all smartphones. Android suffers from it, iOS suffers from it though I'm not sure about Windows Phone, haven't touch my Lumia 920 in a while. The only way to get of it is to essentially wipe the device and blow it, which I know, you're not really interested in but it is a definitive fix for it until it happens again.

Oh, and while it's not ideal. The other way to fix the memory card is to copy all the things you need off it to a computer, deleting the 'bogus' other data from the movies and then formatting the card. Once that's done, you can put all your stuff back on.

I dunno why smartphones aren't 'smart' enough to clean up after their own mess. But I suppose, the issue is the same on Windows, Mac and Linux as well.. it's just less noticeable thanks to the abundance of storage space one generally has on their computers.

[rai187]

I don't even download movies or music on my phone and I have 11GB in other data on my device storage.. ridiculous

Posted via CB10 on the Z10

[Bla1ze]

I don't even download movies or music on my phone and I have 11GB in other data on my device storage.. ridiculous

Posted via CB10 on the Z10

It's left over junk from apps you used, websites you visited, games you've installed and since deleted and whatever other crap builds up. One really should blow out their device every 3-6 mnths to keep it fresh. Oddly enough, I just cloned my Mac hard drive so I could reinstall Mavericks because of all the stray crap it has on it right now wasting space. That's actually another benefit of leaks if you install them without upgrading, it blows all that crap out cause it wipes your device LOL.

[rai187]

It's left over junk from apps you used, websites you visited, games you've installed and since deleted and whatever other crap builds up. One really should blow out their device every 3-6 mnths to keep it fresh. Oddly enough, I just cloned my Mac hard drive so I could reinstall Mavericks because of all the stray crap it has on it right now wasting space. That's actually another benefit of leaks if you install them without upgrading, it blows all that crap out cause it wipes your device LOL.

Yeah I want to wipe my device out but last time I tried to do it, it took forever. BlackBerry Link takes forever to backup and resource and the device wipe itself takes forever. I don't have that much time lol

Posted via CB10 on the Z10

[Garias]

Given that it seems that the wipe out is the only true solution to the issue (although not permanent) what are the steps in order to perform it given that a big number of programs and accounts are set up? Sorry if this is a very basic question but I want to ensure that I will not end up with issues.

[Dextermutt]

I had the same problem with 10 movies purchased on BlackBerry World on my Z30. The Q10 worked fine though. I even thought the 64gb card was the problem. When I tried a spare 32gb I had there were no issues. I ended up downloading the movies and copying them to my PC when I had them all saved I reformatted the card and copied them back. This only used the actual data that the movies took up and it solved my issue. Very time consuming and annoying. With all the issues I had I actually had restarted and had so many failed downloads that I reached the 5 download limit somehow on 2 devices. I sent an email to BlackBerry World to see if this could be corrected and never received a reply. Luckily they were just 99 cent movies but after that experience I don't think I would ever pay 20$ for a movie on BlackBerry World, especially since they don't seem to provide support after the purchase.

Posted via CB10 on my sweet Z30!

[Jermanicus]

This will be a bit of a rant so I apologise in advance...

After over a month of trying to get someone - anyone - at Blackberry to help, I am no nearer arriving at a solution to the Curse of the Other Data. I keep contacting Blackberry Support on Twitter and I am sorry and disappointed to say that they were about as much use as a chocolate teapot. They kept insisting that I contact my carrier and ask them to engage Blackberry Support. I have a sim only contract with my carrier and they were not remotely interested as I had not purchased my Z30 from them. Eventually after much haranguing Blackberry Support started to suggest things such as refreshing Blackberry World, however it has not made one whit of difference.

Two points to this rant:
1) there is a specific flaw in the Blackberry 10 OS which does not release ringfenced memory. This, combined with the frequent Network Error on Blackberry World when downloading films leads to several Gb (currently over 30Gb on my memory card) of Other Data. The most recent software upgrade (10.2.1.537) has done nothing to solve this. The only way to solve it is to copy everything off my phone and memory card, wipe and restore the phone then copy everything back. This all seems to be when downloading movies from Blackberry World so my advice would be this: DON'T. No wonder so many of the films have been for sale at under a quid recently.

2) Blackberry Technical Support are virtually impossible to contact and in the rare event one does manage to get a response they are simply useless . I have previously had an iPhone and the technical support was breathtakingly simple and straightforward. Words have not yet been invented to adequately express how bitterly disappointed I am in this apathetic "Support" service.

[Jermanicus]

It's left over junk from apps you used, websites you visited, games you've installed and since deleted and whatever other crap builds up.

This may be the case for part of the Other Data. It is a bit of a let-down in the OS if it can't manage memory better and provide robust options for cleaning this crap. However in my case and that of others it is related specifically to bad memory management on the device during film downloads from Blackberry World.

[Anubhav Nagpal]

Maybe off topic, but does anyone knows if there's an app to clean up this junk?

Thanks

Posted via CB10

[lerxster]

Apparently you can connect to your computer using mass storage mode and browse to the offending folder and delete the files. I have not tried this myself...

Posted via CB10

[asherwiin]

Apparently you can connect to your computer using mass storage mode and browse to the offending folder and delete the files. I have not tried this myself...

Posted via CB10

This works. Used the chkdsk utility. Cleans up the data fragments and puts them into a hidden directory called found.000 that you can then delete. Only worked on my SD card, however. :-(



Posted via CB10

[peter0328]

I agree this is absolutely unacceptable to have gone in this long without acknowledgment or a fix from BlackBerry.

The memory card other data can be fixed with chkdsk as mentioned.

It's crazy that there is no way to fix the internal memory other data. Wiping a phone is NOT a solution. You cannot even restore after the wipe or it will all come back.

It's a bad design/bug and it needs to be fixed.

Posted via CB10

[yvpan1]

This will be a bit of a rant so I apologise in advance...

After over a month of trying to get someone - anyone - at Blackberry to help, I am no nearer arriving at a solution to the Curse of the Other Data. I keep contacting Blackberry Support on Twitter and I am sorry and disappointed to say that they were about as much use as a chocolate teapot. They kept insisting that I contact my carrier and ask them to engage Blackberry Support. I have a sim only contract with my carrier and they were not remotely interested as I had not purchased my Z30 from them. Eventually after much haranguing Blackberry Support started to suggest things such as refreshing Blackberry World, however it has not made one whit of difference.

Two points to this rant:
1) there is a specific flaw in the Blackberry 10 OS which does not release ringfenced memory. This, combined with the frequent Network Error on Blackberry World when downloading films leads to several Gb (currently over 30Gb on my memory card) of Other Data. The most recent software upgrade (10.2.1.537) has done nothing to solve this. The only way to solve it is to copy everything off my phone and memory card, wipe and restore the phone then copy everything back. This all seems to be when downloading movies from Blackberry World so my advice would be this: DON'T. No wonder so many of the films have been for sale at under a quid recently.

2) Blackberry Technical Support are virtually impossible to contact and in the rare event one does manage to get a response they are simply useless . I have previously had an iPhone and the technical support was breathtakingly simple and straightforward. Words have not yet been invented to adequately express how bitterly disappointed I am in this apathetic "Support" service.

for point no. 1, my suggestion is, tweet this to @michaelclewley, i've done mine. just tell him that we need the next BB10 OS update to be able to release any cached memory trapped up on the storage, be it on the SD card or the phone. he takes it seriously and so does his team.

[ubizmo]

Maybe off topic, but does anyone knows if there's an app to clean up this junk?

I don't know, but if it's possible for an app to get access to this stuff, it could be a very successful app.

Android has a few apps for this purpose, and these apps are usually among the top selling apps in Google Play. The one that I use, CleanMaster, lets me know when I have a certain amount of junk files accumulated, and gives me a one-click option to delete them. Something like this could be a real asset on BB10 if it could be built.