Is your stock Android Motorola Triumph on Virgin Mobile constantly telling you that it’s out of memory, despite the fact that you keep uninstalling apps and deleting files all the time? Odds are, you are running into the same problem repeatedly. Most likely due to some sloppy programming on the part of Motorola, there are log files that get created and just keep growing and growing until they take up the entire phone storage. We are going to delete them, and then make sure they don’t grow to that size again. We can do all this with the Stock ROM for the Triumph, which will save us a lot of time.
It might be smart to make sure this is a likely cause of your problem beforehand. I would recommend using the DiskUsage app to check and see where all your storage is being taken up. Your system storage should be less than 200mb. Mine was well over 1000mb, indicating a serious problem. I don’t cover how to check here, but Google is your friend on this one. So, let’s get to it.
Disclaimer: I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKING UP YOUR IMPORTANT FILES BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS. There have been reports in some cases of people bricking their phones during some of the steps. I honestly can’t think of a reason that would happen and I had no trouble at all, but I suggest even setting up a recovery ROM for your phone in case something goes wrong. I am not responsible for any damages you incur from using these methods. We WILL be rooting the device, which will almost definitely VOID YOUR WARRANTY. So be warned.
Here are the steps you must take to correct this. This should take less than 10 minutes in total, and is really quite simple.
1. Download the “Terminal Emulator” app.
2. We are going to root the phone. It is fairly harmless though it will probably void your warranty. I am including steps to unroot the phone when we are done, though I have not tested that. It’s only a Triumph though, so I say who cares? Open the application and type:
sudo“#” should appear.
3. Now type:
ln -s /system/xbin/sudo /system/bin/suThen Press enter. No message will be displayed but a new “#” should appear. Now type:
ln -s /system/xbin/sudo /system/xbin/suAnd press enter again. Again, there will be no confirmation.
4. Reboot. Your phone is now rooted.
5. Download “Super User” app. You don’t have to do anything with it.
6. Download “ES File Explorer File Manager.” Run it.
7. Go to settings in the app.
8. Scroll all the way down, select “Root Settings”
9. Check the boxes “Root Explorer,” “Up to Root,” and “Mount File System.”
10. Hit back until you are browsing folders again. Hit “Up” button at top until you are in the root directory (At the top it will show your location, it should say just “/”)
11. Navigate to “data” folder.
12. Scroll down until you find all the files with names beginning with “alog.” Press and hold on each of them and select delete. Especially alog_events.
13. Reboot.
14. Go back to the same location using ES File Explorer, long click on each file with a name beginning with “alog”, go down to properties, click the “change” button to change permissions, and uncheck every box. This prevents the files from being written to again, thus preventing them from growing. NOTE: A couple people have reported there phone bricking itself while performing this step. If you haven’t backed up your files and contacts, certainly stop here. Or if you don’t want to risk it, don’t perform this step and just do steps 1-13 every time your phone runs out of memory.
That’s it! Your phone memory should now be clear and you are free to use it as normal again. The files we deleted don’t serve you any purpose anyway, and won’t cause any problems.
If you would like to unroot your phone when you are done, here is what you do:
Open your terminal emulator and type, hitting enter after each line:
sudo
rm -rf /system/bin/su
rm -rf /system/xbin/su
40 Comments on “Motorola Triumph Phone Storage Low All the Time – Solution Using Stock ROM”
WOW From 96% Full to 25% Ty So Much
Where am I looking for “settings” or “root settings”, Im probably stupid but Im not seeing it.
I found settings in the sidebar but no root settings.
is it “android terminal emulator” or “terminial emulator”, The second one requires busy box or at least it says that and this is a paid program.
I assume both will work, but I don’t actually have that phone anymore to try!
Thanks Brian! Your post was helpful about a year ago and once again now.
Awesome! 500Mb Cleaned!!!
I’ve done this once before but it’s been so long since last time I’ve done it I’ve forgotten what I’ve done. My alog’s I assume as everyone elses have built back up again. I’m having trouble remembering step 7, to scroll down to the bottom to ‘root settings’to find the settings as there are several different areas to look through?
wow thanks man- I had to hack around your instructions because I had various issues pop up (terminal emulator wouldn’t work- needed to download busybox; busybox wouldn’t download etc). But eventually deleted alogs and then removed permissions. System file usage dropped from 792 to 102mb or so. Thank you!
If you are facile from the command line you can replace steps 5-14 with shell commands from within terminal emulator:
1. Fire up terminal emulator
2. sudo
3. cd /data
4. ls alog*
(note the filenames, as you’ll need them in steps 6 and 7.)
5. rm alog*
6. touch alog alog_events alog_radio alog_system
7. chmod 444 alog alog_events alog_radio alog_system
That worked for me.I didn’t do steps 6 and 7 because I got an error when trying to use the touch command, “touch not found”, but I reboot and it seems that the system rebuild the empty log files without doing anything else. Thanks, that was an easy fix!
The best thing to do is throw the Motorola Triumph in the garbage and replace it with a Samsung Galaxy 2,3, or 4. The Triumph is a turkey in all ways!
Agreed. Mine went to crap and stopped charging, now I’m using a Galaxy S4. It’s a million times better in every single way! I feel sorry for all the people who still have to suffer with it!
I got it up, but now I got the same In: Not Found message. I put in, spaces and everything. Any clue?
I think I might have the record. I need to kill 1.01G of data. My phone is so full I am having trouble finding the room for the apps to fix it. Also, terminal emulator needed an app called Busybox to run.
Worked perfectly on my 2.2.2 Triumph – used the “Cupcake” version of file manager. There was not “up to root” option so instead I changed the default “Home location” setting from “/sdcard/” to just “/” and then hit the home button on the file browser screen. After deleting the files and restarting, The “System data” portion in the DiskUsage app immediately went from ~750+ MiB down to 113.1 and the free space reported went from 99 to 743. Thanks so much for this relatively simple fix!
You say “We are going to delete them, and then make sure they don’t grow to that size again.” What part of this “makes sure they don’t grow to that size again.”?
Step 14. We make it so they can’t be written to or changed, that prevents them from growing.
Ok.. it’s telling me link failed..permission denied
After I type in the In -s line….it says In: not found
…now what?
Finally someone has the answer! I’ve tried everything to date to fix my ailing phone. Thanks so much for taking the time to outline the procedure!
Thanks so much! This problem has been driving me nuts for months. Your process took me from 21MB to 810MB available. I, like others, skipped steps 7-9 because I couldn’t find those options in the current version of ES. If the problem comes back, I’ll look for the old version of ES and re-do the steps.
Thank you so much, this article is a safe saver for my phone! I went from ~28MB available space to ~701MB! The only thing I had to do differently was what Steve said about using “ES FIle Explorer (1.5 Cupcake)” because I couldn’t fine the root permissions in the settings of the newest ES file manager in Step #9 listed above.
I had the same issues with my Moto Triumph and this worked perfect for me. Internal storage has increased by about 700MB.
BTW step 14, make sure to specify to long click each log file, and not the other files or folders. I assume you only want to restrict permission on those log files.
I skipped steps 8 and 9 though, because I didn’t not see it in the version of ES Explorer that I saw. Found this article through a Google search and I’m glad I did.
I’m glad I could help! I haven’t quite gotten around to updating this yet, I keep hearing people say it’s different in their version of ES File Explorer.
I just did the above, now I love my phone again. it freed up ~830 MB. I did have to download an older version of the EX file manager called “ES FIle Explorer (1.5 Cupcake)” because I couldn’t fine the root permissions in the settings of the newest ES file manager in Step #9 listed above. The older version was able to do all the steps, and now my phone is unconstipated = relieved. Thanks Brian, Steve
Glad I could help! I’ll look up the newer version of the program and try to update the steps so that people can figure it out. But ya, it’s amazing how much this can help!
I followed all the steps and it worked great! Deleted 740 MB from those files, but a couple hours later I checked and they were at 6 MB of data. Also, when I went to settings in ES there was no option for Root Settings. Did I do something wrong?
Root settings should be in there, make sure you go to settings first. Did it work when you first tried it? I’m not sure how you could have deleted the files if not.
The step that prevents the files from growing is 14. Make sure you change the permissions for each file and remove all permissions. It’s possible they aren’t actually growing, check again to verify. They obviously have some size when they are created even if they don’t get bigger.
Please help! i did everything right, was doing the last steps which are uncheck boxes to prevent files from growing, app caused an error and phone went off, pulled out battery to see if helps and nope, of course it turned off before unrooting, i wanna cry 🙁
That’s so strange that it would have trouble on that step… Really the process isn’t messing with any important system processes or files, so I’m not really sure what the problem is. I guess charge the battery, try it again later, see if the phone turns on and works. Let me know!
Hi there looks like nothing its helping, my friend suggested a factory reset and did not help either, here its the link of what my phone is currently doing would you please take a look? thanks in advance! Roxi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XQwPFFXS0w
It’s possible it’s just a coincidence, the phone is not super reliable and it appears to have happened to you at a very random time. Either way, if you did a factory reset, you deleted all your user data anyway so there is nothing left to retrieve on your phone. Might be time to upgrade! Unless you are still under warranty, in which case you could TRY to have it replaced, maybe they can still do it even though you rooted it and technically it’s not allowed. I’m not sure!
This is a problem with the phone, not what you did. It did this to me less than a week after I got the phone. First it wouldnt turn on, then it wouldnt access the internet. I called the company and they sent me a new one after troubleshooting for less than 10 minutes.
Thanks for this guide! (Though I think some of the apps have updated since you wrote it and I had to flounder around a bit to figure out the new menu, etc.) You helped me clear up over 600mb on my phone’s memory!
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i did the whole thing correctly and now my phone shut off and wont turn back on it keeps trying to reboot but it wont come on at all 🙁 help please…
There’s not really anything in here that should cause that at all. You got through the entire thing, and THEN your phone shut down and wouldn’t start back up? That seems odd… Did you unroot it at the end?
hi tanisha, looks like i had ur same problem 🙁 did u get it fix?
If you screw up either of the “ln -s” commands, it will produce an error when you try to run it a second time. To fix this always “force” the system to make the link anyway, using “ln -sf”
Nice! Were you able to get the whole process to work??? How big were the files you deleted????