Solved! Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime issues: Storage space; 4G; can’t call out

Oct 8, 2018
2
0
10
Hi,

First-time poster here, hoping to find some advice. For a while now I’ve been experiencing some rather confounding symptoms with my smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime.

For one, there’s been a really irritating ongoing space issue. Even though I haven’t had the phone for all that long, its 8 GB of storage sure got gobbled up in a hurry - to the point where I have *very* little space for new apps. I’ve thus made multiple attempts to free up space by cleaning up apps that I rarely/never use, but I’m fast starting to run out of options.


…If I’m looking under Settings > Storage, I see 3.18 GB of that 8 is reserved for System Memory. Pretty sure I probably can’t do anything about that. Used Space is 4.19 GB, which is 99.9% Apps. I have a [next-to-empty] 64 GB SD card inserted, which holds my relatively small number of personal photos (don’t have any movies). Cached Data is negligible; and I remember to clear that out periodically, anyway. Miscellaneous Files (whatever that is) is around 54 MB. Again, I probably can’t do anything about that; and even if I could, it’s a relative drop in the bucket. The phone is telling me that after my latest round of “housecleaning”, in which I freed up around 200 MB, there is currently 590 MB of Available Space.

(I’d be naïve to think, though, that that’s going to do me a whole lot of good; Often times I’ve wanted to install a new app that’s only about 30 MB in the Play Store, when I’ve supposedly had around 500 MB “available” …only to have it come back with an error message, telling me I first need to free up more space!



More recently, my phone seems to have very spotty 4G capabilities. Or *none at all*.

And, even when I’ve been on Wi-Fi, in the house, there’ve been instances where I go to make a simple call and the phone comes back with the error message: “Emergency calls only”.

Also to that end, my Visual Voicemail app has stopped working.


My leading theory for all this is that my phone is simply nearing the end of its useful life – even though I’ve only had it since the beginning of 2016. But then I thought, is there perhaps a chance that what I’ve described are merely symptoms indicative that I might need to change the battery? OR, could something else entirely be wrong, and I might be able to remedy the situation with some simple settings?

Thanks in advance, for anyone who can offer assistance.


-Steve


P.S. Oh, and there also seem to be some clock issues. The smartphone - on which I've never manually adjusted the time, which I'm assuming was correct out of the box two years ago - is currently about 4 minutes behind my desktop's time (as well as two other identical smartphones in the family). Suspicious?
 
Solution
In regard to the coverage, you need to talk to your carrier/service provider about that. Those are issues only they can resolve.

As to the space. Well the 8GB that it comes with is also used by everything already installed on the phone, including the OS. So that leaves you with very little to use. On top of that, if memory serves, that particular manufacturer doesn't allow for converting the SD card into "Internal" storage, so you are left with only being able to use a SD card for files and not for apps. I would suggest uninstalling any apps that the phone will allow you to uninstall, that aren't necessary and you don't use. Then save files to the card and not the phone's storage. Other than this, you just have to limit the space the...
In regard to the coverage, you need to talk to your carrier/service provider about that. Those are issues only they can resolve.

As to the space. Well the 8GB that it comes with is also used by everything already installed on the phone, including the OS. So that leaves you with very little to use. On top of that, if memory serves, that particular manufacturer doesn't allow for converting the SD card into "Internal" storage, so you are left with only being able to use a SD card for files and not for apps. I would suggest uninstalling any apps that the phone will allow you to uninstall, that aren't necessary and you don't use. Then save files to the card and not the phone's storage. Other than this, you just have to limit the space the data from the apps you do install use up. Places like say Facebook will keep adding more and more data to the device, taking up more space. So keep an eye on that.

Otherwise you would have to look into getting a device that has more storage.

As for the phone's time, if you have it set correctly, it should be auto updating that through your carrier/service provider. If it is not right, check with them.
 
Solution
Oct 8, 2018
2
0
10
Thanks for your response and advice - I will definitely check with my carrier (Cricket) regarding the service issues. The space issue may very well be indicative that I need a new (higher-capacity) phone, if I'm goint to be able to make use of all the apps I'd like to.

I have one further question to that end... I do see the potential to free up several hundred more MB of space, if I clear out what they call User Data from several of my apps. I have to admit I'm a bit leery about doing so, though. Are those files essential? (e.g. in apps such as Facebook; Yahoo Mail; Google; and Waze)? Am I going to wind up being sorry if I do delete that data?
 
The user data is everything pertaining to you. So messages, log in info, etc. So if it is things you need, don't remove it. If, however, it is not stuff you want to keep, and you don't mind logging in each time rather than always being logged in (which personally I don't recommend staying logged in all the time) then go ahead and remove it.