firestick short on storage can't d/l software needed to read usb storage

June 15, 2021 1:31 PM

i have a firestick that i've been using on my TV... the problem is i have run out of storage... Yet, i haven't downloaded hardly any apps... & it tells me critically low on storage, 175mbs left of 5.25 gb... The handful of apps that are on there apparently are permanently there..& it won't let me delete anything. The only apps i've downloaded are my cable/tv app (Dan's Cable cutter) & another app that uses dan's to put the channels in a nice guide... (tivi)... but that's it. i tried to clear all the data & cache for all those existing apps (under the manage applications).... but it's not doing anything. I bought the cable the goes in between the power source & the firestick that allows you to add an external usb storage device... but it's not plug & play... Everything i read says d/l a app to allow the firestick to see/read the USB device... But how do i d/l the app without having space to do it?? Please help & all questions will be answered...
posted by foodybat to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

A fire stick at a place I visit had that problem, and the owner turned to me as the peer IT support guy, and based on my reading, it happens to a lot of people and there's no reasoning with it, and deleting apps doesn't help. I myself deleted a dozen apps and kept getting the message. It's a bug, and I found no sign of a fix per se when I researched this (3-4 months ago).

The solution which I read, and which worked for me, is to do a factory reset on the Fire Stick.

You'll have to log in to your apps again, but this will very likely solve your problem. Amazon tech support is likely to tell you the same thing, and in any case if it doesn't solve your problem, you'll still be way ahead of the basic troubleshooting they'll put you through.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:36 PM on June 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

Short of the full reset, you could go through and manually clear the data cache for each app. It's under "Settings" -> "Applications" -> AppName -> "Clear Data".
posted by dum spiro spero at 2:26 PM on June 15, 2021

Response by poster: as i previously mentioned, i did go through each & every app. that is loaded on the firestick & manually cleared out the data & cache... but this does nothing to solve my problem.
posted by foodybat at 2:31 PM on June 15, 2021

As Sunburnt says: "The solution which I read, and which worked for me, is to do a factory reset on the Fire Stick."

This is not the same as "going through each & every app and manually clearing out data & cache"...

... and is actually much easier to do.
posted by itsflyable at 10:29 PM on June 15, 2021

Had the same problem about 2 months ago: continuous complaining about space, us clearing it and removing all the apps that were possible to remove, and still not clearing the problem.

We got a Roku box. Solved the problem.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:12 AM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

So I have a FireTV and tried to find "Dan's Cable Cutter" and it's not available from Amazon so I'm going to take a guess and assume this is a grey Kodi-like app that was sideloaded into your device. Not judging here, just going off what I know from previous Android development.

The problem I see is that with apps like that, the FireOS doesn't really know what that app is storing and where. If it's moving video content, I wouldn't be surprised if it's caching huge amounts of data somewhere deep in the storage that's usually off-limits for approved Amazon apps. (Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it was running a BitTorrent node to assist with moving video content. But that's not the primary question. But check your bandwidth usage just in case that's an issue)

I agree with the others that doing a nuke and reinstall is the only way to get your storage back for sure. Or perhaps chat with other users of Dan's or even Kodi to see if there's some bug or intentional thing going on to soak up your space.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:49 AM on June 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

Continuing my recommendation to factory reset the stick, here's the procedure.

Immediately after your do this, you'll have to log it in to your Amazon account, so have your credentials handy for that, and maybe a list of apps you use regularly that you can install and log in to right away. Many apps will let you log in on a web browser and copy a code from the Fire Stick, so you don't have to onerously enter a password via the 4-way button on the fire remote.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:38 AM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites]