What could have caused a bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) to stop opening on my Windows Phone 8.1?

[drindustrial]

A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

This morning my Samsung Ativ Neo with 8.1 started exhibiting some odd behavior. Any time I try to open text messages, or any of my mailboxes (Exchange, Yahoo Mail, Gmail), my calendar, personal contacts, photos, or things like Storage Sense, Email Accounts, or Backup in Settings, I get kicked right back to the Start Page or Settings menu, depending on where I was trying to launch. Other apps, e.g. IE, Games app, multiple games I have tried, and many other apps within Settings, all do launch and are usable.

The one interesting thing is that my local storage got down to 0 MB available this morning. I have uninstalled a few things that I was able to that are not located on my SD card, and I am up in the 70 MB range now on local storage. I have also restarted my phone multiple times, including taking the battery out a couple of times. No matter what I do, I still cannot access the aforementioned apps, essentially making my phone useless.

I really do not want to do a hard reset, and it does seem to me that I am not completely hosed since many other apps do work.

As an update after toying around with it some more, it does seem like anything related to contacts isn't working at all, though other things not related to contacts may also not be working depending on the app.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

 

[ShreyansShah]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

such thing happens sometimes after installing firmware update.
it may happen due to low space on local drive and also due to defective sd card.

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

This morning my Samsung Ativ Neo with 8.1 started exhibiting some odd behavior. Any time I try to open text messages, or any of my mailboxes (Exchange, Yahoo Mail, Gmail), my calendar, personal contacts, photos, or things like Storage Sense, Email Accounts, or Backup in Settings, I get kicked right back to the Start Page or Settings menu, depending on where I was trying to launch. Other apps, e.g. IE, Games app, multiple games I have tried, and many other apps within Settings, all do launch and are usable.

The one interesting thing is that my local storage got down to 0 MB available this morning. I have uninstalled a few things that I was able to that are not located on my SD card, and I am up in the 70 MB range now on local storage. I have also restarted my phone multiple times, including taking the battery out a couple of times. No matter what I do, I still cannot access the aforementioned apps, essentially making my phone useless.

I really do not want to do a hard reset, and it does seem to me that I am not completely hosed since many other apps do work.

As an update after toying around with it some more, it does seem like anything related to contacts isn't working at all, though other things not related to contacts may also not be working depending on the app.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
David

I have also experienced this issue and with the same apparent cause with one of my older phones. As you pointed out, the issue is most likely cause by having very low available free storage memory (or none at all!). You may want to try clearing out the temporary files from your phone through Settings > Storage Sense... then clear the temporary files both for the SD Card and the Phone memory. As a bonus, doing this also clears out some of the "Others" Storage, so if you're lucky you may clear out a lot of space from your phone.

Let us know what happens, and welcome to Windows Central.

 

[drindustrial]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

Unfortunately Storage Sense won't start either. I can get the quick view from settings (currently have 131 MB available on local storage and 18+ GB available on SD card), but when I try to open Storage Sense it also kicks me back.

 

[amitnahar]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

Unfortunately Storage Sense won't start either. I can get the quick view from settings (currently have 131 MB available on local storage and 18+ GB available on SD card), but when I try to open Storage Sense it also kicks me back.

Go to keyboard settings and download any keyboard apart from the one you already have. It will prompt the phone for an update. Do it and get back to me with result.

 

[gpobernardo]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

Unfortunately Storage Sense won't start either. I can get the quick view from settings (currently have 131 MB available on local storage and 18+ GB available on SD card), but when I try to open Storage Sense it also kicks me back.

Right. Sorry for that.

There's one more method you can try, which was proposed in another thread (i'll have to look for it - the credit goes to him for this ). You may try plugging your phone into your PC and allow the Windows Phone Desktop app to detect your phone. Leave it connected for around 15 minutes. In the process, the PC will synchronize and download some data from your phone, in effect freeing some space from it.

 

[drindustrial]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

I just ended up doing a reset. Since I had everything backed up it wasn't as painful as expected (outside of all the time it takes to install apps). The good news is that not only is everything working, but I also purged a bunch of the untouchable areas that take up space, so it seems to be in much better shape now.

 

[lbeezy2188]

Re: A bunch of apps (mail, photos, text, storage sense, etc.) not opening on Windows Phone 8.1

I just ended up doing a reset. Since I had everything backed up it wasn't as painful as expected (outside of all the time it takes to install apps). The good news is that not only is everything working, but I also purged a bunch of the untouchable areas that take up space, so it seems to be in much better shape now.

Yea I did the same thing.. Still having fb and whatapp notification issues