(No comment was entered for this change.)

Related to 2191 ?

 Issue 9027  has been merged into this issue.

Still an issue as of 2.1

Still happening on 2.2.

Not related to 2191, that's about storing SMS messages on the SIM card.

The main problem here is that when you get the warning, you've already just missed a txt. The sender doesn't get a failed message, and you don't know who sent it.

Admittedly the phone is 'low on memory' as in internal space is around 5mb, but that's enough to squeeze a little SMS in somewhere. I think the SMS app is being too strict.

Any of these things would be of great help:
a) show the warning before the limit is reached, giving a buffer to receive a few more txts whilst you clean something
b) tell you who sent the txt so you can ask for a resend (sheepishly...)
c) send the sender a 'message not received' error
d) ...or could the network be told to retry again, like it does when the phone's off?

Ideally, although I feel this might be hard or it'd already be done, let the SMS app grab more space when it needs to. It only needs a tiny bit for each message compared to the few MB that may be left available on the phone.

Any given SMS (not MMS) is only a handful of KB, right? Even if they're, say, 20 KB, that's still roughly 250 SMS messages on 5 MB of phone memory. When you clear internal storage to the point of the warning going away, the messages DO come in (at least on T-Mobile, it might be a network thing).

is it possible to transfer the location of the messages etc to use the SDcard, this would remove a lot of hassle as the SD card will always have more space than the internal memory.

This is quite annoying, I keep loosing text messages because of this. 

I've had this issue as well since upgrading my N1 to Froyo. After installing a few big apps (Google Earth, Fennec) I get this warning, then bam no more SMS!

why this problem is not resolved

what makes this more irritating is that there is a messaging setting checkbox that says "delete old messages as limits are reached"...  why not delete the oldest message in the inbox to make room for the incoming message instead of dropping it on the floor?  i understand that this scheme might not work so well if the inbox is already empty, or if the incoming message is a variable size mms, but it is better than nothing

Also, my old SonyEricsson used to stop receiving messages, when I deleted some suddenly a bunch would appear all in one go.
So there must be a way to queue them up at the network.

this is ridiculous how the (false) low space warning is handled.  Why not MOVE TEXTS to SD card???  And force app developers to provide "move to SD" for all new apps.

Come on, THIS DOESN"T TAKE A FREAKING ROCKET SCIENTIST!  As usual, Google is oblivious to users' woes.  Makes me wanna flush it and buy a......  whatever

my remaining memory is 18.72 Mo, yet I just got 2 sms rejected ! BOOooh to google for that !!
Ok I might had a too much sms stored (around 300) but I like to have the history of what I send/receive ! can't we with the memory we get nowadays ?
I wish the sms could be inegrated in the gmail account and never lost !!!

@dgonneau A little off-topic, but there's an app just for that. Download "SMS Backup".

Already installed soon after I wrote my post :)

Same behavior here on a Motorola Milestone with Android 2.1

I had the low space Notification for quite a while, and kept on installing, but with around 13MB, bang, no more SMSs ! no warning, nothing...
I even called my mobile operator because I was positive this couldn't be an android problem :(

Deleted a 5MB app and now with 19 MB free I can receive messages again

This is ridiculous, not only that 10mb is enough for an sms to be received but you only get a poorly done error message that only tells you it is rejected and YOU LOOSE IT FOREVER!!! You can't tell who sent it or anything. THIS IS BASIC PHONE STUFF, how can it not be fixed yet on froyo 2.2????

I totally agree that messages should always be received and moved from SIM to SD as needed, i.e., automatically (maybe with a setting option to disable such behavior, though I wonder why one would do it).

I have lots of RAM and SD left but I still received this error.

I just suffered through the same issue on my nexus one running stock android 2.2. The phone told me a message had been rejected due to low memory. I cleared memory to 64 megs of free space, restarted the phone but the missed message was just gone. 
As far as I'm concerned this is a major design flaw. If I could not have guessed who the message was from I would have not been able to determine who sent me what. Same as if someone called me but I didn't see a missed call or voicemail.

Even my old 'dumb'phone was able to retrieve  messages after I cleared space

I am experiencing this same issue on my Nexus One running stock 2.2. The most recent occurrence was when I had 16MB of internal phone storage available. The messages were not delivered (old messages were not replaced). Hope to see a fix for this soon.

Getting this on Nexus one with Android 2.2, it's very annoying :-(

huh, i've got a G1, ok, it's an old phone for today's standarts and it's no longer supported/upgraded, but the same bug in 2.2? google come on! or is it a feature ;P

Everyone facing the bug should vote on it by clicking the star below.
Hopefully it will get enough attention.

no

@kaustav.101 interesting... noone else has reported this behaviour!

What phone are you using?
Does it use a third party framework like Sense, Motoblur or Touchwiz?
Which SMS app are you using? The standard one from the framework, or one from the Market like HandcentSMS?

Cheers!

It may depend on how many texts you have as opposed to just the free memory.
I saw the problem on android 2.2 with the default messaging app

internal

testing,

Well its working on my nexus one now running cm6 rc3 with the latest Google apps.

@ianbmacdonald That's because the latest Gapps is considerably smaller than prior packages. On my G1/Dream, it took up 8MB less internal memory than the prior package, so it's probably just working for you now because you actually have the additional room.

I just had this happen to me again on my N1 running Froyo. I have 16MB+ of free internal memory, and only 36 SMS messages stored in total. I've moved everything to the SD card that supports that feature, and culled back my apps as much as possible (more than I'd have liked). I really can't believe this kind of bottleneck ever made it into the OS. I can't even wrap my head around the thinking that went into the decision.

I'm getting the same issue on Nexus running stock 2.2

What I noticed is that it makes no difference to delete messages or even large applications to make space for new messages UNTIL one I restart my phone. Once the phone is restarted then all of a sudden it realizes that there is in fact now space for the new messages!

This makes me think that the available space is cached and not updated when anything is deleted, or deleted items are not actually removed until a reboot or some period in future?

When it realizes there are new messages, does it download the messages that
had not been downloaded previously or does it only download new messages?

when

Nexus One stock Android 2.2 is giving me the same problem as described above. When SMS messages are sent to me, I get a warning that my messaging is full and that I should delete some messages. After deleting all my threads, even with message storage settings set really high, I still can't get SMS messages. I have to uninstall applications from my phone in order to get a SMS message.

Why does the device need 20 Mb of storage space for a SMS message? This is ridiculous considering that not even close to every other app can be moved to SD card storage.

I know that Nokia phoes re-retrieve the SMS when the memory is cleared.

People who have this problem and describe it here are doing something useful
- they're giving developers information on the symptoms and on how to
recreate the problems.
Also, more people reporting it or voting on it is likely to get the problem
fixed sooner.

I'm pretty sure that when this problem occurs, the difference of whether or not "missed" messages are retrieved is carrier-specific. If you think about it, the cell networks are a push model, not a pull model (hence why your phone has to register on the network; it allows for routing. Correct me if I'm wrong), so the carrier network sends it to your phone, and it's up to your phone to tell the network whether or not it was received. I know that the first time this problem occurred for me (on T-Mobile), I thought my phone was strangely silent all day, and when I finally cleared messages, it practically had a seizure of vibrations with all the texts from earlier in the day all coming in at once.

If I recall correctly, it's not just SMS either - I *think* voicemail notifications don't come in either, but I might be wrong on that. I've since gone to CyanogenMod and use apps2ext (apps on SD card) and don't have this problem anymore.

Working in mobile networks the problem isn't carrier.
The phone should report that "Memory Capacity Full", this would put the message in to a retry sequence until the phone memory is cleared down, or the message expires.
Instead Android is accepting the message, deleting it and saying the phone is "full" so it is lost forever.

Thanks for the clarification @ryancullen. However, I think I must be the only one here whose phone properly reported its memory capacity was full since I never lost my messages.

If that's correct then it sounds like Google should be able to fix it
easily.

I thought I had bought the best phone on the market?!? Even my very early Sony Ericsson phones warn BEFORE the text message memory is full. How come the coolest, latest smartphone, bought in 2010, can lose important SMS messages?!? Come on, it's the worst oversight I've seen in programming in a long time, but it can't be that hard to fix?!?

Same problem here. Workaround, always keep some spare internal memory free.

The status is medium? This is basic phone stuff that dumb phones have been handling (mostly) correctly for years. SMS might not be as big in the states as they are in Europe, but if google is an international business than they should be aware of how important text messaging is here.

With the way my colleagues use SMS, this is the equivalent of the phone spontaneously rejecting phone calls with no notification (or the radio silently crashing and not rebooting, a Windows Mobile problem that led me to consider Android in the first place)

I can't believe this problem even exists...

It is incredile that Google has not done anything about this. Can't receive the messages that was "received", since they have probably been received and deleted because of the low memory.

I am on Verizon. Every time I get the low memory message I delete another few applications until the message will clear and then all my waiting messages come in. I agree with all about how REDICULOUS this problem is.

I wish more of my apps had the "move to SD card" option enabled...

Same exact problem on 2.1 on my LG Ally. This is obnoxious. I can't receive messages now. I have 15MB free on the phone (plenty!). Come on!

The problem happens when you get below 20MB free space.

receive

Words can not describe the immense agony this problem creates. Fix it asap.

I had the same problem, with my Samsung Spica (Android 2.1), but I think it's finally solved - not a perfect solution, but better than nothing. I just updated "Hancent SMS", which I use for messaging, and I think that they have got the solution. Since I haven't updated Android since I've had this problem, I don't think it's Google who fixed the problem.

Today I got the "internal memomry is critcally low" - warning. I sent my self a few messages from another phone, but I couldnt receive them (didnt get any pop-up or anything on the phone that indicating that a message is lost/waiting in line). 

But then I deleted some apps to free up the internal memory, and all the messages came up. So yeah, not a perfect solution (because I didnt know that I had received a message), but still good enough, since it at least doesnt drop the messages forever.

I have my limit now down to 25 from 100 and every one says 25 or less and I still get the problem. WTF? ???

Really annoying issue, not sure what's the point behind this design. 

if it's design limit, should at least give some warning, but never let the user guess all possible causes, including (but not limited to): call ISP several times, remove some call/sms apps like handcent sms/missed call etc, try sim on another phone, not to mention asking my friends to send me SMS hoping to receive any, and finally recover from a fresh rom.. and now just find it's rooted so deep..

- Milestone with UK 2.1-update

how come it's still a "new issue"!

well it seems most people are NOT receiving SMS later, after they are rejected.  When my phone runs out of memory, I get NO messages, so its a panic to get it working again.

So, is there a way to know whether Google is working on this issue??

Are you using handcent sms?

5. sep.. 2010 18.17 <android@googlecode.com>:

Is the problem specific to any carrier?  I have T-Mobile, and I've had this problem since Froyo came out.

I don't think its carrier specific... I'm using T-Mobile UK. When this happens with other phones the messages stack up at the operator then all come down at once when you free memory - you never lose any. Just like when the phone's off. Must be a response the phone sends, or doesn't send, to the network.

Google may not notice this because it's set to version 1.6, they're probably paying more attention to defects raised for 2.2. No idea how to get this changed though?

I'm with Bell Mobility in Canada.

I used to lose all SMS when my phone got into this state, but since maybe a couple weeks ago, the SMS started queuing up and I'd get them when I freed up some space.  

I'm starting to think the lost-message problem is carrier specific.  No specific proof though.

@tmadge: Curious. I'm also on Bell and I still lose my incoming messages if my internal memory dips below 20MB. N1 2.2.

@tmadge & jelkouby: I doubt that it is carrier specific. I have tried two different operators in Sweden, plus some in Estonia and Spain, and the effect is always the same - I get a nitification saying that I have received a message which has been rejected. And it never comes back.
N1 2.2

I did some more testing...

1. I got my N1 down to 10MB free space and got the warning: "Your phone is running low on space."
2. Had a friend send an SMS from his phone (Blackberry)... got the notification that it was rejected.
3. Cleared space
4. Had same friend send another SMS... got it this time

Ok, so I was wrong :o)  I didn't get any of the messages that were sent when my phone was in the low-space state.

I think @moley666 is right.  The issue here is mis-labeled, so Support considers it an old-release problem.

I have added a NEW ISSUE LINKED TO THIS ONE, with the updated version: 2.2 (not 1.6).


EVERYONE should add comments and STAR this issue:  
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11045

Well I was mystified as to why my €500 smartphone couldn't recieve SMS for about a week, until i stumbled upon this page. For the love of everything holy, please resolve this issue before the next release. Happened on a Motorola Milestone 2.1-update1, and as other have previously mentioned, there was NO warning that there were SMS waiting for me to be received. I did get them all after uninstalling some applications though which i guess is carrier specific (I've got tele2 sweden).

@silvrdad -  thanks for the link. i've reposted on the google android message boards as well, in hopes of getting more people to STAR it.

the same happens to me u8220 with cmcc

I just lost all my Android-enthusiasm after a week of no calendar sync, e-mail sync and SMS'. At least Google helped me find this site. I have no idea how many SMS I've missed as I only receive new ones on my Xperia X10 running 1.6.

I am having the same error, cleared out my txt messaging history, now have 24.74MB free internal memory, but I am still getting the error.  It seems even though I am deleting things, and the internal phone storage calculator is changing, whatever triggers the error message is not getting updated, so I am dropping txt messages.

I'm with Rogers, Canada. Two Identical phones displaying different internal memory.  
My wife and I have identical Xperia X10 with very few extra apps installed. My internal available phone storage space is big, 356 MB and texting works fine, BUT her phone shows only 12 MB space, and can't receive txt from me. She can only send txt. Tried both handcent and the default texting app. She tried to free up internal storage by removing her email account, purging all browser/texting history etc, verifying that the few pictures she has are all on SD card, and re-booted the phone.  None of this gained internal memory.  I verified that all the phone and app settings are identical on both.  I'm wondering now if portions of the internal flash memory are defective on some phones causing a big reduction of internal memory.
Astro file manager shows all folders close to the same size in both phones, so why is there a huge difference of 300MB in internal phone storage?  I'm regretting the Android now and wish I had gone the Iphone route. Developers need to get this fixed.

Update:  RESOLVED - My wife's Xperia X10 with only 12 MB of internal phone memory suddenly jumped to 402 MB, 6 hrs later the next morning. Rogers customer service said they had been doing several hours of account maintenance to their web site during the middle of the night (at the same time, and without knowing this, I was struggling to free up her internal phone memory).   Her phone never lost the ability to make or receive calls during that time while on low memory.  But the phone memory did not respond to the reduction of apps, or deletion of files or emails with attachments, UNTIL Rogers finished their maintenance. Several hours after Rogers accounts were back online and after their customers backlogs had been cleaned up,  her email sync/SMS/google talk/AND phone memory response all began to work on their own again.  
My phone functioned perfectly during that period because I had enough internal memory "before" Rogers web accounts began maintenance.  My wife's Xperia X10 was crippled during that time (except to make/receive phone calls) because hers had low memory "before" Rogers maintenance began. In future I will monitor internal memory much more often.

@dave4494: Dave, you're issue is unrelated to this bug. Please keep comments on topic. If you think you have found a problem with Android's memory management feel free to open a new bug for that issue.

Happens to U8220 (t-mo pulse) running android 2.1 with custom mod FLB 1.3.

And because i have two phones, hence it's easier to identify whether if the problem lies within android, or the carrier (i live in malaysia, using Maxis as my carrier).

Initially, i thought it was the carrier problem, because i seem to be able to receive smses alternately. However, when a friend of mine complained why havent i replied his smses, i was curious to as why he asked such a question, given that i didn't receive any smses. Hence i changed my network settings from 3G to 2G network, and obviously, that still didn't help.

I then swapped my sim card into my trusty old phone and the lost smses started pouring in, with some smses dated since yesterday. Hence it seems that android is rejecting these smses. The network did attempt to deliver the sms, but the phone rejected it, hence the network registers these smses as undelivered, and continuously tries to resend it to the phone. Until you change your sim card to another phone, then you'll see how many smses you've really lost.

SMS rejection when memory is low has been reported in at least 4 issues (4991, 9540, 11048 and 11045). Let’s all flag all four issues to really draw attention to the problem! 

I have the exact same problem related in Comment 77 by testeracc in my Samsung Galaxy 3 GT-i5800. If I reset the phone to the default settings (losing all installed apps and definitions) the equipment starts to receive the undelivered messages.
This problem happens even with reported internal memory as high as 140MB.
I called Samsung and they do not have any solution for this problem neither know when and if it will have one.
This is a basic "dumb" phone function that does not work properly in a smartphone!!

I had a similar problem with Android 2.2.1
I got a message that the system memory was low at the same time the phone told me a message was rejected.

At the time the message got rejected the 'Settings' said that Internal phone storage had about 15 megabytes of space left.

Two things HAS to be done:
1. The warning should pop up _before_ there is a problem, not at the point of the problem.
2. There has to be a seperate but extendable memory for text messages so this never can happen.

I had a similar problem with Android 2.2.1 NEXUS ONE Spanish Language
I got a message that the system memory was low.

Consequences:
No updates of Market Apps
No sync Gmail, Calendar, etc
The phone alert SMS message was rejected.Memory full

Solution.
Delete all the apps you can
Start thinking in move the apps to SD (all)
Create more memory available for the apps.

I also have issues with apps not updating or installing, even though they'd be going to SD card and I have 12 MB free of internal memory

This is still an issue, as of today's newest version 2.2.1 (FRG83).

People are actually losing business because of this flaw! 

Please vote for the four same issues:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4991
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=9540
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11048
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11045

This is nuts. I have no apps I want to remove (I have a lot installed), all are moved to SD where possible yet im still getting sms rejected. This is critical, please fix.

It's unconceveible this issue is still there in 2.2.1!!!

INSANE!
@maintainer: Upgrade Priority!

Does anyone know a way to reach google on this issue?

just send this link to everyone you know and tell them to hit the start button (Your vote has been recorded!) maybe eventually Google will take a look before most of us move on to other phones...

In my case, I have a Nexus One running 2.2.1
as soon as I get the "low memory" warning (under 19.5mb of internal storage space), my syncs do not work, my Google Talk does not work... this sucks.

I have to constantly think about my internal memory and make sure it's always above 19.5mb ... cuz once it's 19.4mb... i get the warning.

is there any way to merge all these similar threads together? seems like it would be more effective if we had 400 people star one thread instead of 100 people star 4 different threads...

I agree, too many update mails for same issue.

Nestor

Comment #89 on  issue 4991  by ramytramyt: Can not receive SMS when internal
memory is low.


https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4991
is there any way to merge all these similar threads together? seems like it
would be more effective if we had 400 people star one thread instead of 100
people star 4 different threads...

Just post in this thread. I think it's the first.

Hey all...

Ive had too many mishaps with my Nexus One. Because of an unrelated bug concerning the phone, I've put my Nexus One (which occasionally cannot receeive SMS messages) back into its original box for good.

I called T-Mobile and spoke to an account specialist who offered me a discounted rate and I walked out the door with a G2 phone. Ill sell the Nexus-One for a good price and make out on the deal.

Hopefully the new G2 won't have the same SMS issue. Time will tell.

that's not the point. from what i understand, posting multiple times about the same problem isn't what's going to fix the problem. starring it, apparently, will get some attention. so it seems to make more sense that if we can consolidate, then maybe google will take notice. ... then again, this issue has been going on since OS 1.5 and it seems like it still hasn't caught their attention. 

@stevenrichards -  i think this is an OS problem and not a hardware problem. it's quite possible you'll run into the same issue.

@ramy... In that case, ill return the phone and issue a press release. I should know by Monday, dont ya think?

haha. keep the phone, but issue a press release anyway. maybe that'll get google's attention. 

no texts on my ally... 

I almost forgot I reported this, is it still there for latest android? cause my old G1 is too old.

Hi all,
For some reason the device must respond to the SMS-C that the message is successfully received, and then it loose it internally one way or another.
Because if not the SMS-C would retry sending the SMS to the phone as space becomes available. 
This is basics in any SMS signalling specification. 

As everyone else in here, I have been having the same problem as well. Why does android even have this problem? Things like this should have been worke out and fixed during the early stages. Any non android phone will retrieve text messages when the phone has some free space, but in addition to not doing that, the phones memory is not even near full. Please help vote for this so that it will be fixed asap

Nexus one running 2.2 and I ran into this problem last night. Until I had over 20mb free I could not receive a text message, just a notification saying that I didn't receive one that was sent to me.

Please fix! Major error!

WHAT THE HELL?!
Seriously Google, this is such an amazing piece of software why can't you fix this menial bug?

fix!!

This is such a BASIC function of cellphones that it is on a level of incompetence by the Android team that it has not been solved yet. This lack of functionality is unacceptable when it has been available on other phones for the past 10 years!

I think it's pretty remarkable that such a solid OS handles this situation so badly. I'd rather android killed open apps to receive the text, than rejected the text.

As has been suggested before, a small buffer space for, say, 5 texts permanently allocated as spillover would suffice. If the phone just warned me when I'm using this buffer, I would immediately free up space.

All that said, the underlying issue really is that we're still struggling for memory because froyo's apps2sd has been a failure, as developers have been reluctant to implement it. It needs to be done in a totally transparent way, and I refuse to believe this is fundamentally impossible.

Terrible that the Android handles this so poorly!

Please fix!

(Desire 2.2)

Why is it that the better a phone is it still just HAS to have a BIG downside to it?
My Nexus One is USELESS to me now. I can't get a 5Kb txt because I 'only' have 20MB of space on my phone? HELLO! It's 2010!

[Let's help click that "star" on the top of this page] to let them know that we need the issue fixed. A phone with GB of expansion memory insists to save tiny little SMS on SIM card... please fix

I am an avid supporter of Android and have high hopes and appreciation for it, but THIS is unforgivable. I mean tons of developers and such that work for Google/Android use the Nexus One or were given it and I am sure someone among them has encountered this. Either they have a workaround that they do to solve this – but which cant be found online, or they are tolerating it also without addressing it. Either way you look at it this is pathetic and there is no excuse. I received all of 3 txts before my phone started giving me this bull$hit...

I'm having this issue as well, on my new Samsung Intercept with Virgin Mobile.  And the real kicker is, this phone doesn't yet have 2.2 (yet... I hope) so I can't even move stuff to the SD to free up space.  This blows.  Fortunately, I do seem to be receiving the missed texts once my memory is freed up again...

This is CRITICAL bug. SMS is essential cellphone function. 

Wow, I never realized this could even happen. So now I have more reasons to get worried about internal memory. The thing that is irritating, even that Froyo has the ability to move the apps to SD, not all of the app is removed, and space is still lost on the phone's internal memory.

DITTO for me too!

I have a Motorola Milestone on Telus in Canada (running Android 2.1)

When memory dips below ~20MB I get the "low memory notification" and all of a sudden I lose the ability to receive any SMS messages, Google Talk will not open at all, and all my Google syncs (Gmail, Calendar, Contacts) no longer function!!

Massive flaws... why should having < 20MB prevent texts (several KB only) from coming in, and why should syncing (even manual) be prevented just bc im below 20MB?!

I've removed all the apps that I can (so I'm around 21MB), but I dont have 2.2 Froyo yet, so I'm entirely unable to move apps to SD card!

This is frustrating as hell and seems really ridiculous IMO.

Agh I've had the problem happen on two seperate occasions. This time it has happened about five times in one night! I have a big appointment tomorrow and if any of those messages pertained to the meeting, I could be screwed!

Between this and the hotmail notifications, I'm really beginning to loose faith in my android.

It's one thing to be annoyed with a phone, but when you are loosing data, and information, or not receiving messages as in this case, it could be time for a new phone.

Please fix this Google!

This is super annoying.

Lack of notification including when going into the messaging application makes this bug in my opinion even more dangerous.

I performed a cpl updates last night and didn't see when the "Phone storage low" msg first appeared. I woke up in the morning to see that atext msg was rejected bc of it. I cleared space, rebooted the phone, and waited to see a result. I searched Google and found this forum. After still not receiving any update on the missing SMS, I decided to send myself a test SMS. When I received it, I also received the "undeliverable" text at the same time. It seems something like this would have already been addressed by one of those smart cookies working on the soon-to-be number one phone OS in the world, but I hope this finding will help relieve someone's mind until it actually is. LG Ally on Verizon 

Google fix this - you can't have a 16GB Nexus with many GB free dropping SMS messages without even telling you what the phone number of the person who texted was. I end up texting a number of people back saying "did you text me? My phone bounced the SMS...". There's no excuse for this bug to be around this long. 

I still have this problem on Nexus One - with the latest 2.2.1 (FRG83D)

I agree that this is definitely a flaw , if the phone cannot record an SMS message because of insufficient space then the OS should be smart enough to:

1. send a reply back to the carrier that the message was not received, thus allowing the carrier to resend at a later time since the SMS message was never received on the phone.

OR

2. store the SMS message on SD card (if there is indeed available space).

With that said, what I dont understand is why everyone is ignoring the real issue.  The phone behaving as if there is no free space yet several of you have mentioned that your phones have +10MB, +20MB, etc of free space!  If your phone reports you have free space, why is the phone not using that free space.

Not trying to hijack this thread, or go off-topic but this "unusable free space" is indeed related to this thread and is essentially the cause of why SMS messages are being lost (the phone thinks it has free space to receive SMS message, attempts to receive it, cannot use the available free space, discards SMS message instead of rejecting it).

Ive opened a bug report for that issue, https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=12626

Sorry all,
I read this thread first, but the other thread created for the same issue (losing SMS messages) discusses and provides some workarounds to the unusable free space causing the lost of SMS messages.   Bug 11045 

I will follow both threads, hoping google devs can resolve these issues. 

I got the same problem recently with a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini pro under Android 2.1. 
I will try to remove apps.

Removed some apps. Receiving SMS again.

Wow...just Wow. This has been an issue for over a year. My contract is up on my G1 so I finally installed Froyo so I could see what it was like before getting a new phone. I have over 9Mb free, so no low space warning, and after receiving ONE text message, all others are rejected due to space. I guess I'm switching to Windows Phone 7 after seeing how Google responds to a serious issue like this.

#epicfail

the low space notification should not block text SMS messages from being received and displayed. 19 MB of free space is *plenty* large enough to receive several dozen text messages, so dropping all texts in this state is completely unacceptable, especially given the poor notification.

N1, 2.2.1 FRG83D, Tmobile US

WTF gogle ? Are you kidding with this issue ? Text message dropped ??? Not even displayed if cannot be saved ? No clue on sender ?
This is a really BAD joke !

expect issues to occur when your memory is below 20m. It's common sense. Your phone, just like a computer, needs as much memory as possible to operate smoothly, keep battery lasting longer, and keep up with main functionality. Monthly maintenance (per android and manufacturers and service providers) included deleting text messages regularly and try to keep no more than 200 in there at a time, delete browsing history, cache, and cookies, and delete any unused applications. 

My point: Expect issues with memory that low. Some pictures you can take with your phone are 5mb. ... Why would you give your phone such little room to operate?

@copdamaddie:

I... think you either don't know much about computers or you're using a very inaccurate analogy.

In computers, storage space is storage space. When a computer runs a program, what it uses is another form of memory known as RAM, which is made of faster, but volatile memory, which doesn't keep when the computer is turned off. For all other operations, such as storage, it uses storage space, which is a lot slower - but keeps even when the computer is turned off.

When it comes to storage and storage operations, a computer should still work up to and until it encounters a file save operation that reduces the amount of storage space avaliable to below zero. Otherwise, it should allow the file operation without complaint, or perhaps with a warning as in Windows.

A computer does NOT and should NOT need additional space to open a file, even when there is no space avaliable in storage, because when a file is opened, its contents are copied to RAM - in which NOTHING can be stored but that which is currently running. 

Even if we considered a Swap File, the space taken by a swap file is marked "reserved", that this reserved space is pre-subtracted from the amount of space avaliable. The rules above still apply.

What you are perhaps trying to tell everyone is that the memory used for storage is used for RAM as well. That said, IIRC even the OLDER first generation Palm and Windows CE devices have their RAM separate from their ROM/physical storage. Yes, they do slow down when there is less physical storage due to their propensity for using physical storage as a sort of dynamic swapfile, BUT you don't see them specifically BLOCKING file operations until the space actually runs out, do you.

20MB is ~100 text messages, by the way, and perhaps 100 contacts or so, and perhaps 100 calls in call history combined - and I'm being conservative. So what if MMS is all the rage and we need to keep enough space for one? 
0 = No SMS recieve possible is intended behavior.
20 = No SMS recieve possible is simply just a bad software design decision. 

Google, your OS works better than Windows Mobile, but Windows Mobile can work with even LESS avaliable *storage* memory to convert to a dynamic swap. At one point on a WM2003 device I even had <0.1MB storage avaliable and IT STILL RAN. It was receiving SMSes even below the 80KB barrier. Yes, it ran like molasses, but that was on a processor HALF the power of most Droid units with a quarter of the RAM. I think there is a problem if your OS, which runs on devices with at least 3x the RAM, doesn't allow for such an eventuality. It would represent a giant step backwards!

I found this quite perplexing coz I've got space like NASA.

The real problem for me is not that there is enough space yet the phone says it's full.  That's annoying, but not as annoying as the phone accepting the message from the SMSC, then dropping it.  I can't believe it's got to 2.2 and yet it's still not fixed!  Just sort out the response to the SMSC to make it redeliver it, easy!

I have already used non android phone in which they have limited SMS memory say 400-500,which is really a pain, i just want to ask does latest version of android provide SMS default memory changed to memory card so that i can store SMS Practically unlimited, does this functionality depends on different OEMs

I have the same problem, what bothers me most is that so many people have been begging for a this issue to be resolved but nothing has been done about it. Google needs to get off their ass and fix this now!

This is a very serious issue. An OS that can't even handle incoming SMS? It should ensure that *nothing* is lost. 

Very poor that this issue hasn't been fixed yet.

I just lost an sms message that is time critical.... Please increase the priority of this app.

I also have the problem. Using Android 2.1 on SE Xperia X10 Mini Pro. I still get the notification of 'Low on space'. And I am not getting any messages from a couple of days after the notification popped up.
As said by one of the users, my Gmail isn't synchronised (ie new emails aren't shown) and GTalk doesn't open. But as soon as I freed up disk space more than 20 MB (which also results in removal of the notification of low disk space) I started receiving messages and also the Google apps started working properly...

Knowing that this has a potential to be an issue, I have tried to keep 20mb free on my Nexus One, so that I would not lose any more SMS.  Unfortunately, when showing a website to a friend, the browser decided to use 17 mb of my available memory for data.  Before I had a chance to clean up the browser data I received and lost an SMS.  I can live with the phone dropping messages if it would only report back to the sender that the message was not received.  Could this possibly be implemented?  It's far better to let the sender think they need to resend than it is to drop the message with no indication of where it came from.

I have to keep 20MB free to ensure the dependency on internal memory by most apps doesn't cause the free memory to drop too low to block incoming texts.  The Nokia E90 and store texts to the MicroSD drive.  This should be securely possible with Android too. 

This happens on my Nexus One when internal space gets around 10mb.  It doesnt matter if I have 10 threads or 0 threads it will reject any message until i start removing apps.  Pretty stupid considering a text uses almost no memory.  Why doesnt it warn you before a message is received so I can make room without missing?

As others users said, this happens when the internal memory is around 20mb. You can't receive any SMS and they are lost forever. My only guess is some hard coded value somewhere.

I have an N1, 2.2.1 same problem. Pretty bad considering it's a few bytes for the text, WHY CANT IT WARN U FIRST instead of reject without so much as having decency to keep envelope information??

I have Motorola Milestone running 2.1 and i have the same problem. This is ridiculous. 
This way I'll have to go back to iPhone

same problem here - Nexus One
Google please be pretty quick !!

To those of you who give a number of MB that has to be free for this to occur: Apparently, this number depends on the size of the biggest App you installed. If you understand German or like machine translations, check out the second Update notice on http://heise.de/-1162685
Otherwise, here is a quick summary: Android keeps as much free space as the biggest App you installed takes up so that you can still update it. So if you've got Opera installed (which is quite big with 22MB or something?), you need to have more than those some 22MB of free space left.
So if you're lucky and have Froyo, try moving apps to the sdcard. If you're unlucky and stuck at Eclair or even earlier, you'll probably have to uninstall apps (the biggest one would of course make a difference twice: the space it takes plus the difference to the second-biggest one).

I know that I should provide some source link or something, but the above one's all I've got and I don't care all that much about this bug since it's not affecting me (yet?), plus it's 12:30 AM here. Good luck.

 Issue 11045  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 11048  has been merged into this issue.

 Issue 13142  has been merged into this issue.

Hopefully now that the issues are merged we will see some actual work being done on this critical issue.

Nexus One @ FRG83D

I think the *other* SMS bug in the news may have help with this one... hopefully! 

I'm terribly disappointed that it has taken so long for someone from Google to look at this. The problem is very real and results in unrecoverable user data loss.

I have been stung so many times by this issue that I now keep a widget on my homescreen that tells me how much memory is available.

Happy to see that the issue has been merged, but still waiting to hear anything official as to why this happens, or ways to avoid it besides deleting apps from my phone.

Honestly, why can't we store sms on sdcard, seems like a pretty logical solution and frees up storage to any size.  

I read on some of the Android forums that Google are to fix SMS bugs. Unfortunately, it seems that this is not mentioned. I find it hard to believe that this problem has been known about and documented for so long and can easily reproduced that it hasn't been fixed or got a higher priority. After all, the receiving of an SMS is a basic function of a mobile phone! It is over 12 months since this was first flagged up here and it is still classed as "Medium".

Same problem here since yesterday: Magic 32B with SuperBlerV4
Handcent SMS shows popup with the message but the message does not appear in the tread-list. I cannot read the messages after closing popup. So i think, the problem is caused in Android and not in the app.

1 Sender T-Mobile Germany, 1 Sender Vodafone Germany. My Provider T-Mobile Germany.

Google, please fix it quick! You had a lot of time since Nov 2009. In summer i can get a new smartphone. Shall i buy an iPhone and use my Android only as alarm clock ;-)

I miss a lot of text messages, although I have enough free space available. I think it has to do with the availability of free RAM. 

However, 19 minutes ago I suddenly received 6 text messages from last week, which I did not received. This never happened before: if I missed a SMS then I never would get it. Maybe and hopefully Google did fix it now???

If not: please Google fix it! This is a big problem for many Android phones, especially the ones with little RAM.

Yes, in my case it has really something to do with low RAM. It's the case when RAM is low and OS tries to free some space, so it kills SMS app. I have made some tests and now I know that when "SMS and MMS" app isn't running (you can see i.e. in Free Advanced Task Manager), the phone looses any incoming SMS (I haven't tried MMSes).

In new CM there is an option in settings to try to lock Messaging app (I hope it's because of this issue), but it isn't perfect...

It't really annoying. First time it happened to me it was an important SMS from my girl (well, any SMS from her is important:-) but this was even more important than usually:-)), and because of this we nearly had a serious misunderstanding...

I run CM 6.1 (Android 2.2.1) / Openetna 6.1rc5 on LG GW620.

Seems those older phones with low internal memory ((as my old G1 which is in heaven now) is loosing the attention as the new phones will get typically bigger storage and app2sd.

same problems here.. i have Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 with Android 2.1....
after a new flashing of my phone, i received all SMS that i havent received before... strange....but now i have all sms...
it's a question of time until it the errors will come back.. :(

GOOGLE fix it please quick! :(

ok i was suffering from this for the last 3 months (moto milestone official 2.1 rooted), only found this out today. SUCKS BIG TIME!
at least give me a warning that i won't be able to receive my text messages!

I actually found this long way back when I was helping to test Sony Ericsson X10 when it's under dev and reproduced on my old G1 just to report this issue.

I'll jump on the bandwagon, getting this message with 25MB left in internal memory!! 25mb is moooore then enough to handle texts coming in and should not cause a message rejection!!

Does anybody know how to find out at least the sender of the rejected SMS message?
Are there any logs that could provide hints?

It's very frustrating to discard messages without knowing who sent them and not letting the sender know that it didn't reach the receiver. What if the message was important, how do I find out who sent it?

Fellow sufferer.

Nexus One. FRG83D

Same here. Nexus One, stock 2.2, 18 free internal megs, and heaps free on SD card.

This is a really bad bug in basic phone functionality.   Even if the message cannot be accepted at a given time, the handling should be much better so you don't ultimately lose the message.

I can't remember owning any other phone that couldn't handle this (you get notified, clear some memory, and your backlogged messages then arrive), including Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc.

N1, 2.2.1

This is the only bug I have personally experienced on Android and it SUCKS!

Nexus One 2.2.1

Ok, I tried to fix the issue by downloading platform/frameworks/base.git and commenting out the following sections in telephony/java/com/android/internal/telephony/gsm/GsmSMSDispatcher.java and telephony/java/com/android/internal/telephony/gsm/CdmaSMSDispatcher.java:

if (!mStorageAvailable && (sms.getMessageClass() != MessageClass.CLASS_0)) {
    // It's a storable message and there's no storage available.  Bail.
    // (See C.S0015-B v2.0 for a description of "Immediate Display"
    // messages, which we represent as CLASS_0.)
    return Intents.RESULT_SMS_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
}

This should result in SMS being received regardless of available storage space.
Sadly, I was unable to upload the changes for review as I am using Windows, not Linux so I don't have the "repo" command available and git push does not seem to work.
Would somebody be so kind and try to upload the changes?
Thank you

Just to be clear, the fix I suggested just ignores the low space threshold (10% or less free space on internal storage).
The main problem of not notifying the carrier that a message was rejected seems to be buried somewhere deeper. I tracked it down to telephony/java/com/android/internal/telephony/RIL.java, methods acknowledgeLastIncomingGsmSms and acknowledgeLastIncomingCdmaSms but I am unable to properly fix it as I am not familiar with the inner workings of SMS signaling.

this issue has affected me in uk. Cleared out all my SMS's and still cannot receive any. 159m space on phone how can this not be enough to have sms's?

Please fix. 

@168 The main problem is that the SMS receiving component should not even worry about storage space. All it should be doing is passing on the message to the SMS application. What if the application wants to store it on the SD card instead? What if it doesn't need to store it at all, just display it to the user?

Still affecting 2.2.2 stock N1. 

Can we not get some publicity on this the same as the random texting issues received? 

I don't see why they can't make it so that when memory is full the network will be notified that the sms was not received. The network should auto retry until it is delivered. My previous dumbphones could do it why can't Android!

This is ridiculous. I'm on 2.2.3 and just got a text with low memory notification and it was just discarded. A text is like 100-300 bytes. It temporarily could be placed in RAM, SD card or the fucking SIM card for that matter.  ANYTHING BUT DISCARDING THE MESSAGE!

(No comment was entered for this change.)

finally you have heard our cries! what took you guys so long!

I can 't believe it's taken so long for this long standing and easily reproducible bug affecting such basic functionality of a phone to be assigned. Hopefully it will now be fixed.

 Issue 14198  has been merged into this issue.

> Nexus One (AT&T, lock free), Android 2.2.1
Bad! :( I thought upgrading from 2.1 to 2.2 could help me.

There are several things I can't believe:
1 - As someone said it is an easily reproducible bug and as such should have been handled long before as it is known since the first devices were shipped.
2 - How is it possible that the basic functionality of letting the network know that the message couldn't be stored and we have to retry delivering it later is not implemented? Come on, I'm pretty sure old phones in 1998 were able to do so!
3 - How comes that the priority for this bug is still set to "medium"? It *will* result in data loss. Such a terrible data loss that could lead to terrible situations such as not attending a meeting with a client because your phone dropped his message telling you that he wants to meet you somewhere else or breaking a relationship because people feel like you are ignoring them.

Data loss **never** is "medium priority".

Well. As much as I do agree that the problem should have been addressed earlier, I think that the provider for the previous poster has some blame to take too.
I ran into this situation some time ago. The messages didn't get through, no warning and so on.
BUT freeing up some space all the "lost" messages arrived, which means that the response to the SMS:s by the phone had been correct and they had been queued up in the operators system.
This is 2.1 on a SonyEricson Xperia X10 Mini

I don't think so since, on the exact same provider, which is one of the three biggest in France, it worked perfectly with other phones so I can't really believe that has anything to do with my provider.

What would be interesting to know is what is your provider and particularly if it uses CDMA or GSM as I think that it may make a difference.

Since you seem to be located in Finland I would think that you, just like me, are using a GSM network.
I'm on a Samsung Galaxy Spica running 2.1 for information.

On several occasions I have freed up memory after seeing a failed message and the ones missed definitely never came through on a stock Nexus One which has had all the offical updates applied as and when they were available. I now try to ensure that I have plenty of memory which has involved uninstalling Flash which seems rather a retrograde step.

I agree that data loss is a never a medium priority especially when it is such a basic function of a phone. My Nexus One has "lost" several important SMS text messages. Hopefully this will become a priority to fix before one of the Android forums notices this major bug which, to my mind, is far more serious than the other SMS bug they recently all got so excited about.

 Issue 9540  has been merged into this issue.

As soon as the phone shows the low internal memory warning, I have to rush up with deleting some app to prevent losing SMS.

This need to be fixed in next update of android

What we need is Engadget.com to start another campaign to solve this issue. It's the only way google 'll focus this thing.. It's been over a year already...

Try unmounting the SD card and then re-Mounting the SD card. Works for me - looks like some low memory flag is not reset correctly when space is freed up and the phone rejects incoming SMS messages because of the low mem flag. 

Just got this on my phone after playing around with the OTA market downloads.

I seemed to have missed a text message and it seems to be unretreivable. I have cleared some apps or moved them to the SD card. I get messages no problem now but I will would have like to know who messaged me.

I know the iPhone has the same problem of the inbox being full (though there is a preset limit instead of it being based on the phone capacity.) However when you remove older messages the new ones automatically get pushed to your device.

Come on Google, even my old Sony Ericsson handled this correctly. 

Same issue for me.

I just don't get why Google hasn't done anything about it given all of the possible solutions.

 - Move SMS to SD storage once read.
 - Display new message and warn user it wont be saved.
 - Leave message on network until there is space to store it.
 - Warn user that low storage space will mean SMSs will be lost.

My issue is that there is no warning, and ROM space for me drops below the threshold, and that the outcome seems to be completely irrational.

Space is low, but not full, in say 17MB free, there isn't enough room for 1 SMS?

I usually have a few MB buffer over the 20MB, but after watching some Flash content in the browser, or having an App run rouge it will drop bellow the threshold. Sometimes there is no easy way to clear the space, and only a reboot will fix it.

N1 2.2.2 FRG83G

This is A1+++ BUG !!!!! NOT MEDIUM !!!! and nothing happing. This needs to be hot fixed. No not in new android version I say HOT FIXED.
It costs me money because I need to call every time I cannot respond to sms. Worst bug of Android ever. FAIL.

Running 2.2.2 on Nexus one and been suffering through the same issue  The phone told me a message had been rejected due to low memory. this is a bloody Joke i've missed so many messages that i dont know who their from.. i have Loads of free space on my phone and sd card why hasn't this been resolved and oh yea while im here where the hell is Gingerbread??

Seriously this is Probably one of the single most disastrous bugs ive ever encountered on a mobile Phone.. Receiving messages is vital for me and knowing who their from is more so.. Sort it out Google..

From November 2009 till now March 2011 and Google have yet to sort this.. if its not sorted im jumping away from Android and will Blog the F*cK out of this problem..

disgraceful google Really..

I'm glad the bugs have been merged.  But let us be clear, this is not a bug.  This is a major flaw.  Nexus one, AT&T, fray latest OTA (2.2.2) and I do not get any messages once the memory is freed up.  This  is unacceptable.  As someone said, at least notify the carrier so the message is retained.

Google fix this and also allow your big aps to move to sd.  Also allow the user to get rid of the google apps they not use to free up space. 

This is high priority and it is major.

The *most* annoying part of this is how the messages get completely dropped rather than being resent by the carrier later (as used to happen on my old sony ericsson) I don't know if Android sends a "message received" flag or something back to the carrier. This means that *even* after more space is freed up the message is still not sent through, AND you don't know who sent it so you're really stuck.

This seems to be a systemic problem and REALLY needs to be fixed. As many have said before, SMS functionality is a core function of a smartPHONE and should have been fixed long ago

I'm also suffering the same problems..
I'm using a Motorola Milestone, still waiting for that 2.2 update. 
Android 2.1 with no app2sd often causes this to happen.

Other than the SMS problem, GMail also ceases to respond...this sucks real bad.

my froyo too

I have same issue
i can't check my sms messages, it say that i have not free memory, but
i try to clear all user data in recovery, and running factory reset.
but still have problem!!!!! 

Google please fix this very basic functionality.

There are a lot of issues more starred than this one, so I think we will wait this issue has more stars until it reachs the top of the issue list.

I'm Deaf and I depend strongly on SMS. This is causing true impact in my life for about one year:

- boss upset because I didn't answered back an urgent call for hours
- my dad waited for 1h while I searched for him in another place
- my wife complaining because she sent SMS to pick food in the marked before coming homem and I didn't received it.

Fortunately, in my carrier, as soon as I free memory by uninstalling applications and rebooting the smartphone, the last 24h SMS are resent (SMS with more than 24h are deleted from the servers in my country).

Experienced this on my 2.1 Xperia X8.  Got no notifiacation at all that text messages were being rejected and now they are lost.

UNBELIEVABLE

Having been suffering this intermittently for over a year (Nexus One, T-Mobile, UK) I usually have  daily clear-out of various app caches [FaceBook, Twitter, Browser, etc, etc, all of which I want on SD but cant get there] in attempt to stay above my threshold of 19Mb low memory. Today I slipped up and went down to 18Mb with inevitable consequence... I promptly cleared major app caches, waited 10-15mins, went in-and out of air-plane mode but the missing SMS did not materialise.

Settings > SD storage setting confirmed I had 26Mb[twenty six] free. I then sent myself an SMS from my alternate phone. This too resulted in 'rejected due to low memory' at least 15mins after original problem.

This is a major fail on googles part and they have been aware of this massive bug since 2009 and now its 2011 and its not sorted.. all the gloss and shine of the Android OS cant hide the fact that my nexus one cannot operate as a basic phone to receive txts messages even though i have 21 meg free in internal memory EPIC FAIL Google not happy :(

wow. blocking issue. bugfix please !

WOW!! Fix when!??

@193: Of course it's a bug.

To those saying it's "unacceptable": you still have your phone? You're accepting it. Time for a definition check.

I've been bitten by this one too--but there's a trivial workaround; don't load the world on to your phone. Of course I want it fixed.

@205 : "don't load the world on to your phone"

My phone only has 168MB total for apps, that's hardly "the world". I have ~15.5GB free in SD storage, but there's no way to move apps there in 2.1.

I wish the phone could store stuff on the SD card natively, that would resolve all issues of space.

We've improved this issue in 2.3 (Gingerbread) so it should only happen in very rare cases.  I'm leaving this bug open until we have a complete fix in place.

Would you at least tell us the what the rare case is. At least that would stop idle speculation here on this list and we would have "something to hang our hat on".

But will we ever get Gingerbread? Nobody with an OTA yet ;)

Thank you for the response! Awsome!

207> What? gingerbread? common this just means 90% of us are just screwed till we get a new device :s Getting an update even for bugfix from manufacturer is like a god from gift, lucky are those who get it once on the life of their device, no matter how many critical fixes have been issued in the meantime. When will google deal with this damn fragmentation problem, fixes are fixes,they shoudl'nt depend on the wim of every android integrator. As the things goes they should all change the name of the OS as well, cuz they are as many flavor of android as there is with ice creams.

Messages should only be rejected if your phone has less than 1MB of available system storage ( not including the SD card).  Obviously, this isn't ideal because we should never drop messages, but it's unlikely that you will have less than 1 MB of free space (at that point your phone wouldn't be running very well).

Sounds good with a fix, but... when will I get it? I have a Google Nexus One, eagerly awaiting the update to the mysterious Gingerbread...

I have 194 apps, and I am constantly struggling to keep the memory above 20MB. And YES - I actually do use all my apps! That's what the thing is for - to be USED! I wish I could add on another 200 apps. There's no room for games for instance! ;-)

Not dropping messages is more important than the phone running well.  If they can be left on a server and recovered after the memory is clear, that's not as big of a deal, but if they are lost forever, that's a big deal.  How much memory does a single SMS use?  200 bytes?

Thank you cgi..@gmail.com

The problem isn't *just* that the device is rejecting messages even though there is plenty of room on the device.  The main issue (to me at least) is that when it rejects a message, it should respond to the SMSC with the correct response code to tell it the message was not received and to try to redeliver it later.

It's a common thing for phones to do... even my 15 year old Nokia 3310, and older Philips Saavy with a 10 message memory lets me know there isn't enough space to receive the new message, and if I delete a message I have stored, in a few minutes the message is redelivered in any time between a few seconds (near-instant) to an hour or so, depending on how long I leave it before I clear enough memory.

The error message stating 'rejected' isn't true if you don't do the above, it should say 'message received but deleted', which would obviously not be a pleasant error message to see.

I get this message when I go below 25mb of internal storage on my Droid, is there any way to change that?

1MB is not the limit. We had more than 30 MB on the phone. And this together with the limitation of not being able to store apps on the memorycard (in 2.1) is asking for trouble..

@212, "less than 1 MB of free space (at that point your phone wouldn't be running very well)."

Yeah, I can confirm that both conditions were met on my Moto Flipside. I shall now redirect my anger at the Motorola engineers who left a measly 168MB of storage for users on this phone, for the remaining 23 months of my contract. *sigh*

1MB is the new limit when the fix is deployed, #218.

I believe the project member is talking about the fix, which would only show this behavior when you have less than 1mb free. I've also experienced the current issue with somewhere around 10mb free.

beyond the new 1mb buffer that's being used, i think the other main issue here is that the texts were just getting lost in space once rejected. they should fix that problem as well if they already aren't...

I had this issue with a custom ROM.  I thought it was the custom ROM.

I agree, the message being lost in space is the main issue there. This is basic phone functionality right there. A message should always be delivered no matter what.

I have an HTC Desire, running stock Android 2.2 (not rooted or anything) and I encounter the "low memory" message at around 15mb left on the device.

Result is:
1) I can't open text messages.
2) I can't receive text messages
3) I can't open the Google Talk app (it just shows a brief black screen and I'm back at the home screen)
4) And app updates just fail, despite having about 15mb of space free.

How I have to solve this for me? Often it's because some app uses a large amount of cache (Reddit is Fun, for instance), so I go in and delete the cache. And after about the minute or so the "low memory" message disappears and the phone works again as it should. Other times (when it isn't the cache) I've had to just delete apps, most times because some update made an app a certain amount larger than it used to, bring me over the 15mb mark.

hi i am using a motorola milestone with android 2.1 update 1...

I have encountered this problem alot of times before, whenever the internal storage space low warning comes out, i will not be able to receive anyomre SMSes until i freed up the internal disk space to 20MB and above...

this is freaking annoying to me, why can't we installed the apps to the SD card instead and it defeat the purpose of being a smartphone when you can't even recive your SMSes promptly...

As others have said (but have been ignored) the main issue is not the threshold of free space at which the messages are rejected but what happens to the rejected messages. I have a Nexus One with T-Mobile and can confirm that the sender gets no notification of a rejected message, and I never get the messages once space is cleared up. I believe three things need to happen:

1) Threshold for rejecting a message needs to be lowered (this seems to be in the works based on cgi@google's updates)
2) The proper response should be delivered to the carrier when a message is rejected so that either a delivery is attempted later, or at least the sender gets a notification.
3) Any read text messages should be moved to the sdcard if present.

I can confirm that this problem exists on an HTC Hero (GSM) running Froyo (2.2.2) too.

Having the same problem with over 18Mb free space on the phone. Had to remove a few apps to get a simple ~60char SMS. 
ZTE Blade - Android 2.1 update 1

I finally found a workaround:

I had free space of 598 MB on MicroSD and 19.18 MB on the phone. I tested by deleting Skype and the free space became 607 MB and 20.22 MB respectly and it can now receive texts. I read in one of the forums that the texts would be lost but I can see the old texts are being received here.

I then found people talking about the 20 MB limit bug in another thread/issue :-)

really there is a couple of things:
1. internal memory should be bigger/ shoudl b possible to move anything to sdcard
2. need to be able to retrieve messages somehow as it is costly ( i receive text alerts on network breaches ) not knowing where the text came from

even if... it said "reject sms from +441... would be better

finally seems to be fixed in cyanogen mod 7, don't know if on stock 2.3.3 too.

just received an SMS with 16mb of free space and low space alert active

Same for me on sony XPeria X10 Pro mini, with up to date firmware. Could'nt receive SMS with 13Mb free and low memory notification active. 
The problem was solved after removing some apps. 
 

Same issue here...How does Google respond/ resolve the issues reported here?

I agree with comment 227!
Are there any updates to this issue folks?

I own a dell streak. Every time I get a message, I get a notification in the top bar saying my text message memory is full, so it doesnt let me read or msg or even see who sent it. It just rejects the msg. And the irritating thing is I have deleted every single msg in my inbox, sent msgs, drafts everything. I DONT HAVE A SINGLE MSG IN MY PHONE. but I still keep getting the text msg memory full notification. I have also deleted a lot of apps, photos, videos and music but nothing seems to help :(  somebody help? Is there like a trash can in the phone or something that I have to go to to delete deleted stuff? Please help, I cant receive any msgs nor know who they're from D;

I'm using a Froyo and i have the same problem.
I can't believe this is not fix yet. It's very annoying, you can't even know who sent the sms. I'd change the priority to 'High' because this is a telephone.

The SMS is not disappeared, if you contact your provider, they can resend the jammed messages.
En temporary solutuion is to install an Advanced Task killer and fix the setting so at least 20MB RAM is free in your android phone.

Comment 238: totally agree to the priority change!

Someone change this priority to high! Android phones are phones and what kind of phone can't send and receive texts?
This occurs on my Intercept, with its measly 80MB of internal storage and Android 2.1 so I can't install apps onto the SD card. Arrgh! So annoying. 

Why is this not fixed? It's been a problem for TWO YEARS!!!!

Going to go ahead and throw my 2 cents in here. Had this problem today, with 16 MB of memory left, phone started rejecting text messages. Moved/ Deleted stuff to get above 20MB. Error went away, still waiting on those texts, I don't have much faith. This is an absurd problem obviously, and needs to be fixed. I am new to android, and so far this is my biggest complaint.
LG Optimus V
Virgin Mobile. 
Pretty bummed if those texts don't come...

@turley: They won't. Android ACKs the messages, then freaks and drops them. That's the real WTF with this ridiculous issue.

Still an issue.  over 15 MB of internal store and cannot receive an SMS.  Perhaps I should go back to my iphone or to a Nokia ?

Amateur stuff google..

Viewsonic Viewpad 7 on Hong Kong CSL network, Froyo 2.2

Same problem here.
Sounds like the copy/paste problem for apple: ridiculous in 2011.

ridiculous issue to have.. no idea who just tried to send me an sms, but was rejected again. Come on Google.

Anyone knows of a good widget that monitors the internal memory? As I understand from previous posts (also in other bugreports) you need about 20Mb free or the messages get lost in space.

Device: Nexus S 2.3.4
SMS recieves late on my phone when SMS text message limit exceedeed, lets say the recipient is XY, sometimes for 3-4 hours

My solutions is to backup my sms list, delete the  sms thread with XY, or
by sending new sms to XY.. like fishing an sms..

Sorry for my bad english

Just had this issue yesterday on my Samsung Galaxy Ace, after my internal memory went down to 15MB all incoming SMS were rejected, and I needed to free so much memory until I got over 20MB.

Regarding that I have an 8GB-SD-card in that phone as well I can view this bug merely as down-right ridiculous! This one should have high priority!

I found the solution to the low sms memory problem on the Viewsonic Viewpad 7. when you down load apps move them to your SD card or else they just sit in the memory on the phone thus eating up the internal 512kb memory.

Still no resolution? Really? REALLY????

I am posting a comment here because you REALLY REALLY DO NEED A NOTIFICATION about this VERY BASIC AMATEUR CODING FLAW.

NEARLY TWO YEARS and you haven't fixed this???  REALLY???

This is one of the main gripes I have about my Android phone and it is so annoying people actually WANT TO SWITCH PHONES.  How can you not be addressing this???

Bought a f*cking iPhone because of this problem Google cannot be arsed to fix. WTF Google? Seriously. 

@carbonfr That's not a solution. The problem's still there. Having to delete apps or texts to receive them IS NOT A SOLUTION. Used Froyo. Absolutely disgraceful. 

Google, just change the SMS/MMS storage location to the SDcard! problem solved!

<<<FOR PEOPLE STUMBLING UPON THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME>>>

---

So... My understanding from reading though all these posts is:
1) To TEMPORARILY stop this from happening- delete enough applications and/or data to have INTERNAL MEMORY free space approximately the same size as your largest installed application (in my case this was a game stored on the SD card, NOT in the phone's internal memory)
[Thank you- Comment 145 by l.huebsc...@googlemail.com, Jan 5, 2011]

---

2) Google has *fixed* this in Android v2.3 (Gingerbread) to allow text messages all the way down to 1MB of free internal memory

[Comment 207 by project member cgi...@google.com, Feb 23, 2011]
We've improved this issue in 2.3 (Gingerbread) so it should only happen in very rare cases.  I'm leaving this bug open until we have a complete fix in place.
[Comment 212 by project member cgi...@google.com, Feb 23, 2011]
Messages should only be rejected if your phone has less than 1MB of available system storage ( not including the SD card).  Obviously, this isn't ideal because we should never drop messages, but it's unlikely that you will have less than 1 MB of free space (at that point your phone wouldn't be running very well).

---
Most of the rest is angry complaining and caps lock 'shame on you' posts
---

Corrections? Additions?

Thanks :-)
~Dan

Argghhhhhghhh im paying for my internet allowance so I can download apps (not even that many!!!) then I have to keep deleting them wastin my money bcz google cbb to sort out the memory problem I havent even downloaded anything since the last tym I got the warning I deleted all my msgs n everything and now I feel like throwing the idiot x10 down the toilet not to mention all the phones bugs I have to deal with on a daily basis!!!!

-1 Android/Google user
That's what I would be saying if I didn't just spend months migrating all of our work accounts over to Google

I have the same thing, and removing applications is not acceptable
Is there any fix to this yet?

First reported Nov 22, 2009, now its  July 8th, 2011
999 users reporting the issue

When this is fixed I'll consider if it is worth the risk waiting for google to fix any future issues, or if I should just change platform before hand so I don't have to deal with this again further down the line

Sorry Google, but I just don't see how anything this important hasn't been fixed yet.... my largest app is the one I require for work

Google Ideos, 200MB internal storage, 20+MB free

i am having the same problem and will be giving up the android for something else.  ridiculous!

ridiculous!
after 2 years, problem still not yet fixed and no reply.

Just had this happen to me on my G1 running Android 2.2. 

Very annoying considering the size of an SMS message can only be what, double digit kilobytes at the most.

Viewpad 7 - same problem. Moved many apps to SD card. No way in hell this should still be an issue.

What about those of us with notoriously slow to update phones (any bloody Samsung)? Waiting for a gingerbread rollout while we continue to lose text's, and most if not all Google sync in not an option. I don't have enough space on my SD card to move any more apps dammit and I can't delete the language programs that I paid for, I'm freaking linguist! Why has this not been fixed after 2 years almost? This makes absolutely no sense to me.

What a letdown!
Now considering to buy an iPhone!

Thanks a lot popbones! I have looked all over the internet for a solution for this, and it turns out it was this simple. Thanks again. You saved my life.

A lot of you are blaming Google for this fault but really it's not. It's the phones manufactures fault for not adding enough internal storage I have a Moto Droid 1 and that only has about 256MB of internal storage which isn't really enough for SMS/MMS messages the Droid X has what 8GB which is plenty more than enough and is why I think Motorola decided of adding a massive amount of storage phones now has up to 16-32GB of internal storage like the iPhone so if you think about it it's more so the manufactures of your phone models at fault here fo not adding enough storage space. If I'm wrong tell me.

Part of why we may be blaming Google is because there is no special priority for basic phone functions such as SMS. I typically see ~70MB free on my Nexus S, and from what I know about the Android OS, the amount of "free" memory should be as low as possible. Android takes priority of active applications over background/inactive/previously active applications. When a phone call or SMS arrives, we expect those things to be active and take priority over anything else.  This seems not to be the case for SMS. Is there a way to make SMS be considered an active application when a text arrives?

If phone memory was increased, that could be a solution, but a better question should be how a situation should be handle when there is low memory (because no matter how large you make your memory, you can still run out eventually).

I now know when incoming text messages are dropped: I have eCID, which verbalizes a notification when I receive a text message and from who. Sometimes I am in a game when I hear this, and I don't see a text when I come out of the game (low memory?). I've also had my phone in an inactive state on a table and I hear that notification (shouldn't be low memory?), and then no new text is found when I check the phone. I can confirm that the sender did indeed send a text.

I fixed my text message space bar by downloading a app called SwiftKey that did the trick.

I fixed my text message space bar by downloading a app called SwiftKey that did the trick.

@Anyone blaming phone manufacturers:
Take a look at this code (which is STILL current), common to all Android phones (from the GSM section, the CDMA version is almost identical):

 134         if (!mStorageAvailable && (sms.getMessageClass() != MessageClass.CLASS_0)) {
 135             // It's a storable message and there's no storage available.  Bail.
 136             // (See TS 23.038 for a description of class 0 messages.)
 137             return Intents.RESULT_SMS_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
 138         }

Then the message is *destroyed*, and apps are notified that an SMS was rejected.

The worst part is that this function doesn't even store the message. It just passes it on to the Messaging App! The whole point of having a flexible framework is that the App can do whatever it wants with the message. Who said it was even going to store it? The App could put it on the SD card, or ask the user to clear space if that is also full. Maybe it just needs to be shown once, or maybe it is a "where is my stolen phone" that must be silently responded to and hidden from a thief. Checking storage before it has even been established that the message is MEANT to be stored is astoundingly stupid. It goes against the philosophy of an open framework, and it goes against various design principles (such as leaving the responsibility of checking storage with the code that ACTUALLY STORES SOMETHING).

Whoever wrote this just wasn't thinking. They did so well at not thinking, that they went to the trouble of adding mStorageAvailable to the base class, subscribing to any updates on the storage status of the phone, and then set up a status handler that INFORMS THE CELLULAR RADIO that storage is full, implying that there is no point even informing the phone software about any messages. Thank science that the radio is smart enough to ignore this, or you wouldn't even get a "storage full" notification when the message is rejected.

Was there no code review?

The fix is simple. Delete those five lines. Remove the line that informs the radio about low storage. Six lines and the phone will function properly as a phone. Remove another few lines and there are no longer any references to low storage at all, as there never should have been in the first place.

The question is this: WHY has not not been done yet? It is not a difficult fix. A first year IT student could do it. The changes are simple. The effects are simple. Testing it is simple. It will make a fundamental phone function far more robust. Every second that this is still in the code, it seems more and more like the Android project doesn't actually care about having a working phone.

You simply can't blame the phone manufacturers. Earlier android versions considered 10% storage to be "low". For a phone with 8GB storage, that would mean rejecting a single SMS message when there is 800MB free. They shouldn't even reject it when there is 1MB or even 0MB free for reasons outlined above.

tldr; The code is stupid, the fix is trivial, Google doesn't care.

so what should i DO??

A "workaround" for this is reducing the threshold for the low space warnings.

Get into adb shell and type:
sqlite3 /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
insert into secure (name, value) VALUES('sys_storage_threshold_percentage','5');
.quit

This changes the threshold from the original 10% to 5%. 

However, this doesn't prevent messages to be deleted when the new threshold is reached.

Same here, it frustrates me going to flash the phone once. 

oh cmon, when will this bug resolved ? It's very annoying, i love android, but with smartphone that can't hold much sms, i better back to nokia instead

samsung galaxy ace, froyo

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a 16 gb sd card and dont have room!!!!?????? I am returning it and going back to my cheap ass phone that can have up too 100 messages inbox and outbox. at least that one tells me that i am full (reasonably) and i can see who tried sending me a txt. Going to post this on www.boycottrelief.com to promote the boycott of this and help warn prospective buyers.

Enter MANAGE APPLICATION, select MESSAGE, click CLEAR DATA and FORCE STOP. the problem will be solved. try it

Although I had switched to iPhone. I'm still so happy to see this bug is got assigned now. Hope it would be fixed soon. 

We need a fix for this. A REAL fix. Saving the messages to SD (as my old SonyEricsson did), or at least saving the messages to "the cloud" when storage is full!

I'm using SMS Backup+ and it's great.. maybe do something like this but from google itself? 

It can also provide a way to send SMS from your phone, via the web interface of gmail.. wouldn't it be nice?

I think that it's your number's network which decides if it's going to keep the message after it's rejected. Had the same problem here, but after I cleared some space (I had to go uo to 26 MB free on internal space to stop having "low memory" warnings!), the warning disappeared and the messages started to arrive, one after another. So the problem with rejecting having space is Android's, but the problem with not retrieving messages may be your phone company's.

just got this error on my Lg Optimus chic!!!
My old nokia could store 3k messages with 9mb total of internal memory and i can't get a sms with 10mb free!?!?!?!?

I'm using SMS Backup+ too great app... but this bug it's ridiculus anyway!!!

I have 6.87 Gigabytes available on the SD card.   Why wouldn't Casio make the C771 Commando just copy old SMSs and MMSs to the SD automagically rather than dropping messages?  This is just stupid. Google should drop licensing of Android to any company that causes customers to lose data due to inadequate design.  SMS Backup doesn't help for MMS. 

anyone come across to manage housekeeping on internal memory of ViewPad7

thx&rgds

anyone come across to manage housekeeping on internal memory of ViewPad7

thx&rgds

anyone come across to manage housekeeping on internal memory of ViewPad7

thx&rgds

I am looking to be able to disable at&t incoming spam messages and wish there wàs such setting that would report memory.being full to the carrie not being charged for any messages.r and thus 

it worked for me after i deleted loades of apps. i now have 70mb

So what's the solution? Still happening on my Xperia X8

The solution is to make sure you have at least around 20MB Internal Phone Storage free. Check how much you have free at Settings->SD card and phone storage. 

It sounds like a critical issue which effect phone usability and should be given a higher priority.

I can't stand this any longer, my dell streak is still rejecting  lots n lots of messages. Uninstalled many apps but it didn't get any better. Please help me. I think this kind of problem isn't supposed to be for "smartphone". Green robot, do something will ya?

Google do you fancy doing anything about this, its not as if its been an issue for long?

I have now made 21.5 MB available, and am still getting the Text message memory full. What exactly keeps some apps from being able to move to SD? Some of these bloated apps have no business accessing phone functions and need to allow movement to SD.

I thinks this bugs has to be resolved NOW.
Google is being unresponcible by releasing new versions of Android before fixing bugs in the previous one.
But what happens in an emergency like an earthquake and your android phone is the only way of communication and this bug is still occurring?
This bug has been going on for over a year and all that Google is doing is releacing new versions of Android that aren't compatible with the expensive phones that people have.

FIX IT!

*edit* The trick is to "Clear DATA" (not clear cache).  Start with the Browser.

This just worked for me:

Enter MANAGE APPLICATION, select MESSAGE, click CLEAR DATA and FORCE STOP. 

Thanks it worked. :)

I have this issue now on a friend's Galaxy S2. I found a link from an HTC site for a VZ customer and decided to try it on my own Samsung Galaxy S2 (since the link was for an ANDROID Hotfix not just HTC). I will attempt this on my friends phone soon and hope that it works.
Make sure Unknown Sources is selected (menu settings, applications, allow installation of non-Market applications). Then download this: http://dl3.htc.com/misc/inc8049.apk. It is a Hotfix that once downloaded/installed and opened it does an "NV item reset" and seems to correct the internal OS memory problem. It literally says that "you are able to receive messages now." 

I hope this works for my friend and maybe others!

ZTE Blade / Orange San Francisco on stock 2.2
Still waiting for a fix.

Same problem on a Galaxy Mini with 2.2 (made worse by the awfully small internal memory).

My Messaging app stops working as soon as my available internal storage drops below about 16MB.  The best solution I have found is to first make sure you have moved all apps that you can to your SD-card, and then UNINSTALL SOME APPS until you have relieved the low memory situation.  While clearing cache or application data may help for a while, it will just fill up again.   Deleting old SMS messages does NOT resolve the problem for me.  

Still waiting for a fix for this.  LG Optimus V with Android 2.2.1, (Virgin Mobile).   

I tried to insert (name, value) 'sys_storage_threshold_percentage' & into secure but I still get the "low storage" notification although I have free out of 173MB ........ iam using Samsung galaxy gt-i5510 also known as galaxy 551

IT WORKED I just needed to reboot the device .... but it still doesn't work for apps :( it say not enough storage when I try to install any app 

Hi We send out two part sms from our Siemens modem, trouble is the modem has be locking  for months and has to be rebooted, we have since changed the modems and this does not happen anymore. We think this has created the problem we now have which is the first part of the message when it hit's the phone is a message from months ago merged with the 2nd part of the new message. Someone said that because of interuption on the modem it has sent out orphaned sms id's and when the phone gets the new two part text it replaces the first part with an ID from before (255 id's exist). So promlem is how do we delete the id on a phone as deleteing all text messages does not solve the problem. Help anyone?

So my phone can tell me everything, except a text message. I get a" message rejected due to full memory" So i cannot receive the message. This is obscene, even after deleting memory to clear up space I cannot retrieve the lost messages. How this problem  persists is ridiculous, this should be a top priority fix 

I am trying to fix it ,,

the issue actually is because the using of 1 MB to SMS box capacity

I am now trying to make it up to 10 MB

it needs more test to ensure that it won't affect the other parts of memory !

i will keep updating 

this sms thing is so ANOYYING.. why dont google make it like nokia does.. option to store sms in external memory i'll throw away this android, it is a great phone. but stupid for this important thing. BOOOOO google. Back to NOKIA

Is anyone going to solve this FUCKING BUG finally? How many Androids 2.2 are still out there???

It's happening to me on Android 2.3.4!!

Issue still happening on my 2.2 phone.

Why is it so hard to fix this issue, EVERY OTHER FUCKING PHONE CAN fill up on memory and still either queue the message for later delivery or delete the oldest message.  ONLY ANDROID PHONES CAN'T DO EITHER. INSTEAD THEY JUST ACK THE MESSAGE FROM THE PROVIDER AND THEN DISCARD IT INSTANTLY.

THIS FUCKING BUG HAS COST ME TWO JOB CONTRACTS AS OF LATE, AND NEEDS TO BE FUCKING FIXED RIGHT FUCKING NOW.   I SPENT $250 ON THIS PHONE, AND EXPECT TO NOT GET STUPID FUCKING FLAWS LIKE THIS FROM THE OS ON IT.

Hello to all,
is actually somebody reading our messages? or we are speaking alone in here?
I have the same problem on my Samsung Galaxy GIO (GT-S5660), with Android 2.3.6.
the phone has only 200MB internal memory and gets really easy full due to applications like skype or yahoo messenger that can not be moved to SD, and due to cache data that is stored in the internal phone memory even if the application itself is installed onto the SD card.
As I could not read all the messages above, I am not sure if all of you users experienced the same as me.
I will now describe how the issue is presented in my case:
1  - I have received an low memory warning few weeks ago, since that time I started to have this problem.
2 - I have cleared data from manage application sub-menu, I created about 60MB of free space on my internal memory
3 - I am receiving SMS es but there is no notification, to see those messages I have to go here: "messages -> settings -> Manage SIM card messages" and only now I can see the messages that I have received lately.
Please let me know if there is a fix for this bug, and if you can experience the same.

ok,  problem solved somehow:
Had the same problem with my Garmin Nuviphone A50:  memory was "low",  suddenly no more sms during a few weeks.
I started to delete apps,  until the "mem low" warning dissapeared.
THAT did the trick.
Not sure what app was eating memory, but explorer showed lots of free space (500MB on one, and 3GB on the SD card).

Just passed by to give my input on this dreaded issue... I also I´m having the issue for almiost a year and a half. Intermitently, and a reset solves the issue. With lots of trying and error I managed to coclude that NOT only the low internal ROM memory issue afects android phones, and NOT only it afects official Froyo 2.2.1 but also Gingerbread 2.3.5 (my girlfirend´s phone just had the same issue days ago).In neither of them did we have low storage space (this time) as I had before but managed to solve the issue. Still the same thing happens, some randow numbers do not manage to send sms to me (it only happenned with my girlfriends number-same with her). And it only happens after several messages are sucesefully sent to each other. Low internal memory aside, I do realy believe the issue as something to do with low internal RAM memory. Both my phone - Milestone first gen, and my girlfirends - Samsung Galaxy Ace do have relative low internal ram memory...
As many say, shame on google, updating new OSs to new devices not carying about people stuck to non updated phones...after two Fuc/%$g years!... Now I see why so many iPhones are sold around the world... They fucking work! (so they say)...

Problem still unsolved - Android 4.0.4
Google is fucking users in their assholes as always.

Came across this today. No SMS for 3 weeks. This has to be resolved. In my honest opinion this is a serious error and flags as a high risk to use the OS within a business environment. (Windows Phone suddenly has a nice ring to it.)

Ran into on LG Optimus V today [still stuck with 2.2] today.  The war of attrition with the internal storage is constant.  Lack of fine-grained cookie and form management in the default browser probably helps keep it painful.

On Virgin in the US (so possibly this also goes for Sprint?), it appears the message did retrieve correctly _after_ another message came in, specifically the reply to the "Did you just send me something? My phone dropped a message w/o saying who it was from" I had to send to 5+ possibilities.

Possibly it would also have retried an hour later or whatever the network retry period is, but when it could have been (and turns out to be) your landlord messaging from one floor above, that's suboptimal.

Also, in line with all the angst and anger from other commenters (and since I left it out of the last) ... is it not too much of a "me too" to wince at how un-nuanced Android's storage model is in general?  "App bundles" would be one of many possible solutions, but when the excuse for why not all apps are "Move to SD"-able is apparently "Well, widgets wouldn't load because they load before the SD is fsck'd," isn't the solution to fix the init scripts to check again after the device is available?

Why is it not solved yet? On some phones, installing just RECOMMENDED UPDATES for SYSTEM APPS gets you close to the "20MB left limit" and disables receiving new text messages. Come on! Texting is a second most important feature of the phone after making voice calls. No other mobile system has issue like this one!

strange; having a new phone, I passed the Samsung GIo to my daughter. Using the phone more intensively than i did, she did not yet encounter any SMS issue as I did (also leaving much less memory free in the phone). He has another service provider. 

Hi, this issue is most frustrating!
I have a DELL STREAK 5 running android froyo. the "text message rejected because memory full" issue only started appearing 2 months ago, after I had the phone for ages. 
The phone has plenty of RAM, not a single text message stored - I deleted them all - and I still get the issue after rebooting the phone and clearing the data in the text message app.
This issue appears on many different phone makes, teleproviders: so it is clearly a GOOGLE ANDROID ISSUE. (I wonder if ever GOOGLE googles GOOGLE issues?)
AdroXplorer says:
Available RAM memory: 178.1MB
Low Ram memory threshold: 16.0 MB
Total internal storage memory: 1.6GB
Availablel internal storage memory: 161,9MB
Total external storage memory: 14.9GB
Available external storage memory: 1.0GB

I have zero text messages and still the issue persists!

I will try this soon: http://www.askstudent.com/how-to/resolve-phone-storage-space-is-getting-low-on-android-phones/?ModPagespeed=noscript

i tried this.(after cleaning all the messages, removing ram using apps.)
Settings/applications/manage applications/running/messaging ... and then clear data. suddenly the full message disappeared. I hope it will stay that way.
greatings,

How do i fix thiss??? has there been any solutions yet??

This was REALLY bugging me because my "Settings" showed 50mb of free space on "internal storage" and 10gig on SD card.  I deleted all of my old SMS messages and uninstalled any application that was greater than 15mb.  I tried everything suggested on this thread too.

The solution was to ...
* Power off the phone 
* Remove the battery for a few seconds.
* Remove the SD card.  (On mine it was next to the battery).
* Then I installed the battery and powered up the phone WITHOUT the SD card inserted.  All of a sudden the "low space" warning disappeared and I began receiving SMS messages!
* I powered off the phone, re-inserted the SD card.  This time I rebooted and my phone was just like it used to be, except now the warning message was gone and I could still receive SMS messages.

i have an android phone (2.3.6 gingerbread exactly). i also can't receive text msgs lately.. can someone help me with me this? thnks!

i have same problem my mobile NokiaC5-03 cnt recieve messeges and sometimes stock up if ive open some of my files it cnt be causing of appearing memory low please help me about my problem how to solve of this

 Issue 42108  has been merged into this issue.

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