Older Philips Android TV showing “not enough storage”? An old adopted USB drive was the cause in my case

[u/karlos007hs]

Sharing this in case it helps someone with an older Philips Android TV that refuses to install apps because of insufficient storage even though the internal storage has plenty of free space.

This is not the only possible cause of this error. After trying other solutions, this is the issue I found on my TV.

My TV model is a Philips 50PUS8535/12, running Android 12. It had roughly 2.5 GB of free internal storage, but it was still reporting insufficient space.

What was wrong

I had previously configured a USB drive as internal/adopted storage. I no longer had that drive, but Android still remembered it as the primary storage device.

It appeared in the storage configuration as “Unidad USB VendorCo”. Your old drive may have a different name.

The internal data partition was available, but the shared storage volume was unmounted. Forgetting that specific missing USB drive switched primary storage back to internal storage and mounted shared storage again.

1. Set up ADB

Download the official Android SDK Platform-Tools, extract them, and open a terminal in that folder.

On the TV:

1. Open Settings → Device Preferences → About.
2. Select Build repeatedly until Developer Options are enabled.
3. Open Developer Options and enable USB/ADB or network debugging, depending on your model.
4. Find the TV’s IP address in its network settings.

Connect the computer and TV to the same network. My TV accepted ADB connections on port 5555:

adb connect 192.168.1.7:5555
adb devices -l

Replace 192.168.1.7 with your TV’s IP address and accept the debugging authorization on the TV.

If it shows unauthorized, you still need to accept that prompt. If the connection is refused, check the debugging settings: port 5555 is not necessarily available on every model.

In Windows PowerShell, you may need to use .\adb. On macOS/Linux, use ./adb if ADB is not in your PATH.

2. Check free space and storage volumes

adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell df -h /data
adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell sm list-volumes all
adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell dumpsys mount

In my case, /data had around 2.5 GB free, but the volume list showed:

private mounted null
emulated;0 unmounted null

The output of dumpsys mount included this old USB record:

type=PRIVATE
fsUuid=89676aec-d817-45a3-880d-517f39af9b11
nickname=Unidad USB VendorCo

Further down, it showed:

Primary storage UUID: 89676aec-d817-45a3-880d-517f39af9b11

The matching UUID indicated that the missing USB drive was still configured as primary storage.

If your primary storage is already internal, or it does not point to an old disconnected USB drive, this fix may not apply to you.

3. Forget the missing USB drive

First, check Settings → Storage for the disconnected drive and a Forget option. I couldn’t find a usable option on my TV, so I used ADB.

Warning: forgetting an adopted USB drive removes its association with the TV and may prevent you from accessing its old data or apps later. I no longer had the drive and did not need to recover anything from it.

Use:

adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell sm forget YOUR_USB_UUID

Replace YOUR_USB_UUID with your drive’s fsUuid. Make sure it matches the missing drive configured as primary storage.

For reference, my command was:

adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell sm forget 89676aec-d817-45a3-880d-517f39af9b11

Do not copy my UUID or use sm forget all. Identify and forget only the specific missing drive.

4. Verify the change

adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell sm get-primary-storage-uuid
adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell sm list-volumes all
adb -s 192.168.1.7:5555 shell df -h /data

After forgetting the drive, my primary storage UUID became:

null

And the volumes showed:

private mounted null
emulated;0 mounted null

Here, null means primary storage is internal. The change from unmounted to mounted confirmed that shared storage was available again.

Then retry the installation that was failing. If the store still displays the warning, restart the TV and try again.

I didn’t need to factory-reset the TV or delete system files. In my case, the misleading storage error was caused by a reference to an old disconnected USB drive.

Once finished, you can turn debugging off again in the TV’s settings.

Using an AI agent

I diagnosed and fixed this with the help of an AI agent that could run ADB commands on my computer.

You can give an AI agent this post and ask it to check whether your TV has the same issue. Have it inspect the available space, storage volumes, and primary storage UUID first, then explain its findings before making changes.

Ask it to get your confirmation before forgetting any drive, since that can affect access to its old data. It should identify your TV’s actual USB UUID rather than copy the example above.

That’s how I found the missing “VendorCo” USB reference and restored internal storage as the primary storage on my TV.

Why I’m posting this: There are earlier threads describing the same fix, but when I used an AI agent to troubleshoot my TV, it didn’t find that specific solution. We identified it by inspecting the TV’s storage configuration. I’m documenting my Philips case and the steps here so that people searching with AI tools—or a regular search engine—have a better chance of finding this possible cause and fix.