Fixing the Memory Full Issue on Nokia E71
September 6th, 2010 by Michael Kwan
My primary phone at the moment is the Nokia E71 that I bought last year. By and large, I’ve been pleased with my purchase and the phone has been great for productivity, social networking, GPS navigation, and all that great stuff. However, I’ve recently been encountering some memory issues and it culminated to a unfortunate error last night.
Frozen Applications and Forced Restarts
For the past while, I’ve noticed that some applications would “freeze” upon occasion and I couldn’t figure out why. I thought it could have been a RAM issue, but more often than not, the “frozen” application would be the only one running. Everything would return to normal with a quick restart of the phone. This is annoying, to be sure, but I was able to “fix” it without too much trouble.
Last night, however, it got worse. When I tried to reply to a friend who had sent me a text message, I got a “memory full” error. It told me to close some applications and try again, but no other applications were open. After exiting the messaging app, I couldn’t even get back into my text message “inbox” again. The same “memory full” error screen appeared. Checking the phone’s memory, I still had a decent amount remaining. That didn’t appear to the problem.
After scouring the web, I came across other users who encountered similar problems. Some suggested firmware updates, but others said that new firmware was just as problematic. Some suggested uninstalling some (buggy) applications, but I know that couldn’t be my problem. And then someone suggested something that sounded like it might work for me: adjust your messaging settings.
How to Fix the “Memory Full” Problem
Go into the main menu of the Messaging application. This is the screen where you can see New Message, Inbox, My Folders, and so on. Press the Options button, choose Settings, and then select Other. Change the “Number of saved messages” to 999 and change the “Memory in use” to your microSD memory card. You should then be able to return to the text message inbox again after this. From here, you should probably clear out both your inbox and sent messages folders periodically.
As far as I can tell, this seems to have fixed the problem. This is with my Nokia E71 (more specifically, the E71-2 NAM), but it should be fundamentally the same for many S60 smartphones. With some of the hardware upgrades in newer devices like the Nokia N97 mini smartphone, I’m probably less likely to encounter problems like this.
Time for a New Phone?
Then again, I can already hear some of you telling me to get an iPhone or Android phone instead. Perhaps. Maybe the next time I choose to upgrade.
Tags: nokia, smartphone, technical support
Filed under Technology.
I think deleting text messages will solve a lot of problems. Or prevent problems or reduce it anyways, ie. Tiger Woods.
Thanks. Mine is an Nokia E63.
Yup, they’re fundamentally the same. The E63 has a couple lower specs, but the core is the same.
What network are you with?
I use an iPhone, and it is excellent. I’ve tested other touchscreen phones but most require a bit of time to get used to. As for the iPhone, it’s so easy to use that it doesn’t come with a thick manual.
I’m on Fido.
Fido, never heard of it lol. Only in Canada I assume.
Correct. Fido is Canadian. Same company as Rogers.
That happened to a friend of mines phone ans they gave her two replacements before they figured out the problem.
Programs are set to use certain memory locations when they are programmed a lot of the time. Keeping that many messages using the memory that the program is normally set to use is going to fry the app. But I also see it as extremely poor programming that the error checking and limits set on the messaging causes the phone to freeze.
Thanks very much for that Michael, works perfectly
thanks Michael…yours was the only site that clearly explained how to fix the message full prob…many thanks
how can i solve memory ful isssue in my nokia e 71
Good on ya, Bud. Thanks for that. This fixed the problem on my 6110.
Thank you! Finally, a quick, easy solution that seems to have really done the trick. I have a Nokia N97 mini and was tearing my hair out (and I only really use it for storing contacts, SMS messages, phone calls and calendar). A great tip.
[...] a bit of a Luddite when it comes to buying these things for myself. After all, I stuck with the Nokia E71 in the face of lowered performance and outdated features. With the Nokia C6, you get most of what [...]
WOOOOWWW at last- Ive had my NOKIA N97Mini for a month and i keep it turning it off when i get the memory full flash up on screen.THIS FIXES IT straight away
WELL DONE
thanks heaps
Thanks man, that was a life saver.
You did it! With your simple recommendation I fixed the memory problem!!
Thanks a lot and if there’s anything I can help you with, I owe you one!!
Paul
I’m having the same problem with my Nokia E-71. Tried your suggestion. I can send, but still get the error when a text tries to come in. I go back into Other and the number keeps reverting back to 200. 999 won’t stay. Any other ideas, please?
My other suggestion would be to delete your messages periodically, then. If you’re a lighter user, once a month should be more than ample. If you send lots of texts, though, maybe it needs to be flushed out more often.
M havin d same problem….Thnx muh 4 d suggestion…..hopefully it works…Dunno wats d prob wid nokia nowadays…i own d X6, few days back wen mi inbox limit crossed arnd 8000 msgs, d fone stopped vibratin n givin tones….had 2 move ol d msgs frm inbox to a separate folder…..n nw wen mi total msgs r arnd 12,000 it shows this Memory Full Error…
I dun wanna lose mi msgs n hope this trick works…..Thnx Again 4 d suggestion…… 
Saved me from taking few asprins………thanks
This has pushed me close to insanity and thank you, I hope this works! Nokia make great phones but the manual offfers little assistance with the memoru full issue. Thanks again, fingers crossed!
Mine still shows internal memory at 199Mb (max 120) and I don’t really know how to change or clear this. I have a 4Gb card in the E71 that has masses of space on it. I already had messages saving to the card (as above) but the original number was 200 and not 999. Please can any assist as this is making the E71 unuseable
( Thanks in advance.
Maybe you have some images, music, video, or other files hogging up space on the internal memory? Change the number of saved messages to 999 and try clearing out your inbox/sent folders.
Thank you for great advice.