Why is my mobile sending mixed signals?

Is the phone reading the first card only and the laptop reading both? I would talk to your phone service provider.

The weird thing is, when I check the card’s status on the phone, it agrees with the laptop – plenty of space. It just won’t let me use it.

So it’s not accessing the extra space for some reason…....Something in the set-up you can check?

Good idea, but I’ve checked – if there is something to change there, I can’t find it :/

Back to the shop then!

Everything will initially download to the phone’s storage, so if that’s full you can’t add anything. You have to move applications (or better, photos, music, etc) to the SD card.

You don’t mention a model, but here’s example instructions for one samsung device with android.

Around version 4.0 of Andriod Google made it so you couldn’t install or push apps to a SD Card. This was later sort of reversed but it never seems to push the entire app over. My phone runs 4.4.4 and I am lucky if it pushes 10% of the app over.

Remember that the SD Card (internal or external) is actually split into a system-controlled portion (controlled by the Android OS for its own purpose) and then a /Download folder which is accessible to you (the user).

If downloads are being made to the system area, that woudl explain why you are out of space. (Although that is unusual because Android/Samsung is usually smarter than that).

What model do you have, and what version of Android (go to About Phone and tell me the Build number)?

How many apps do you have, and how much internal storage are you using for stuff like pictures and music that should be put on the SD card? As @johnpowell points out, apps are pretty much Internal Memory only, and if you have that full then it won’t matter how much space you have free on the SD card since it will not use that space for apps.

It may be not accepting the new memory card, i would say go to service centre and get it check.

I have similar problems with my Samsung Galaxy S4 @longgone. One problem with Samsung phones is they preload a heap of software that you cannot get rid of. You can turn it off or hide it, but it’s still taking up space. Note the second paragraph in the link I just provided. The software you download yourself you can save to the SD card but the preloaded stuff often can’t be moved and can’t be deleted. It’s damn annoying.

I did a Google search on how to get rid of the preloaded stuff and the common theme seemed to be you’d have to root your phone and download software to then remove the preloaded apps. I haven’t done this because I really don’t know how to do it and I’m worried about something going wrong.

I too have a phone that’s telling me I’m out of storage space.

You can kill the bloatware, the old drag to the trash thing just does not work anymore. You have to go into the menu and delete it. Move pictures and media to the sd card, there is a setting to make this automatic. Just adding the card does not set it up, that’s your problem. doing that should free up plenty of space for apps.

@ARE_you_kidding_me that doesn’t work on my Samsung phone. You cannot remove the preloaded software without rooting your phone. For your information, I did not simply try to drag and drop the programs into the trash, I went via the settings. The delete option is not available for the preloaded apps.

@Earthbound_Misfit – right, you need to root – and then use a utility like Root Uninstaller Pro (or similar) to accomplish that.

Reason enough to root.

Sorry, I should have included more information. Here you go:

Samsung XCover
Model number: GT-S7710
Android version: 4.1.2
Build number: JZO54K.S7710XXANI3

For now, I’ve manually moved all pictures. I moved them to the laptop right away, because I don’t really need them on the phone. However, the internal storage is still full to the brim. I tried to download an app yesterday – had to delete an old one.

Thank you, I appreciate all your help!

How courageous are you? You could root your phone and have full control over sizing.

http://theunlockr.com/2014/02/27/root-samsung-galaxy-xcover-2-gt-s7710/

Your Android version is several generations old as well. It came with skimpy specs when it was released in 2013. http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_s7710_galaxy_xcover_2-5263.php

Thanks @elbanditoroso. I’ve been holdling off rooting my phone just in case I really root it!

Hmm, I rooted mine from day one.

Good for you @ARE_you_kidding_me. I don’t think most people root their phones when they take them out of the box.