Backup crashed and internal memory gone

[RaulP-G]

Hello,

Again, more problems with the Z3. Yesterday, out of the blue, internal memory went down from 2.7 Gb to 2.2, right away, after having insterted a new 128 Gb SD card, which was working fine on phone. Removing (unmounting) the card didn't make any difference.

So, just in case, I made a backup with Xperia Companion. Backup was stuck so I had to stop everything, and safely remove phone from USB. I restarted Xperia Companion, as it didn't detect the old backup I had, and clicking on backup icon led to an error. Result: only restarting computer led me to make backup of Xperia Companion work.

I'm trying a new backup, as you can see that during backup internal memory is being used and as a result of the crash, the memory wasn't cleared (150 Mb left), but backup is stuck again at certain point (while "backing up other..."

Question is: how can I recover memory on the phone? Phone is totally useless now, and rstoring to factory settings leads to so long time to reinstall applications, configure, maps, etc etc... Any help? I guess the new created folders during backup in internal memory of the phone, with long names made of random letters and numbers, are taking all space (temporary I suppose), but should I delete them? Is it possible?

Thanks a lot in advance and Best Regards

Raúl

[Lord_viridis]

Connect phone to pc, and use Explorer to manually move the folders you want to the new SD card, that's how I do it anyway.

[RaulP-G]

Hi viridis,

I could remove those folders I mentioned before, but made no difference, the other folder whose date is from the time trying to o the backup is DeviceConfig, and it only shows 1 small file, so I guess I cannot move anything. Nothing big is shown, so manually I cannot move anything, basically...

But... thanks a lot for your swift answer and your time 🙂

Regards

Raúl

[Lord_viridis]

Copy what you need, and factory reset it.
Yes it's a pain, and takes time but the performance gain and cleaner storage easily outweighs the cons imo.
Good luck

[RaulP-G]

Man, what a pain, I have a backup from 2 months ago since I got the phone back from technical service, only 2 months and problems again, go figure... I'm doing the backup (that seems to go back to original memory once is completed, otherwise as cancelled) in my owrking laptop that is much powerful, still, insanelly slow but bar is moving, I'll kee here posted what happens, may be it'll take whole night. Anybody from support who knows a workaround for this without formatting the thing? Would be really appreciated.

Thanks again for your help!

Regards

Raúl

[RaulP-G]

After 20 h of backup, when it's done, memory is not recovered, now 123 Mb, great Sony software, great.

If I restore my backup with Xperia Companion, will I get my phone back as I had before? Icons on desktops, email and calendar accounts, all settings, etc? Will I have to do a software repair first, and then do backup?

I would also appreciate if any Sony staff in this forum could explain why when a backup crashes it does not clean up the phone memory, leading to my problem (no memory), and if possible, what is a solution to clean up that left over, is it that difficult?

Thanks and Regards

Raúl

[RaulP-G · Accepted solution]

Hello again,

First of all I thank viridis for trying to help. Good thing in this forum is that there are always peoply ready to help :smileysmileythumbsup:

On the other hand, sony staff (almost) always redirect to Local Support, which is fine, but I would appreciate more hands on experience on solving problems like mine.

I'm not an expert in phone stuff, just a user trying to get the most out of a device. Anyway, I solved my problem and I will explain quickly:

I went and checked the Settings -> Storage -> Internal Storage -> After calculation of usage, went to Apps -> I pushed Show System in the 3 dots menu (top right) -> and I saw that "Backup over MTP", was using around 2.1 Gb, the amount of data lost after Xperia Companion crashed on backup; pressing button "clear data" freed that memory so problem solved.

Question is: why nobody from Sony in this forum knew this thing (temporary files stuck in "Backup over MTP" if Xperia Cpmanion crashes on backup)? May be nobody cared / read the post? Lack of knowledge? I'm surprised that I found it myself, not being an expert instead. I sent a message to questions.nl@support.sonymobile.com from local support in Holland and Lesley (Sony Xperia Support Nederlands) was so kind to reply within 2 hours suggesting to clear cache or reinstal Xperia Companion. I really appreciate her time and speed, but again, the solution was not sufficient, and I have the feeling that support are helpful, organised and ready to help as much as they can, but alas I see some lack of knowledge somehow...

Another thing I'm still investigating is the why I lost ~0.5 Gb when I just mounted a new 128 Gb SD card, but again, I doubt someone from Xperia will point the solution out

Thanks again for the community and people trying to help!

Best Regards

Raul