Folder "mtklog" on SDcard keeps getting full

Question

I have a Jiayu G3S android phone. Its system is a rooted Android version 4.2.1.

I've noticed that a folder called "mtklog" on my SDCARD was getting full with files (log files, I guess) until there was no empty space left.

So I learned on the internet that there is a "MtkLogger" app. This app is accessible via the "Engineer mode" (or some MobileUncleTools app of sorts). The solution found on internet was to check the "/etc/mtklog-config.prop" file on my cellphone. I looked into it, and indeed it exists on my phone. It contains some tags like mobile.log.enabled=false.

The solution guided to set all to false. Much to my surprise, all of them were already set to false. All the logs were disabled already. (Another kind of line referred to was max log size=300, and I've already changed it to 0 and 1 with no effect)

After lots of tests and research, I opened the MTKLogger app, which I had never done before. I had never seen the app screen. It allows to log events of 3 types (network, disk and cpu).

Ever since, this app opens on startup with all logging options set to on. It even started appearing on running process accused by the terminal.

Now, when that happens, I open the app via the notification, and use the options to STOP all logs and Delete all logs.

But when that happens (That is, the MTKLOGGER is logging and showing me it is logging), the log files go to "SDCARD/mtklog/mdlog" or "SDCARD/mtklog/netlog". These folders refers to the different log types I mentioned earlier.

What is strange is that none of these is the folder that originally bothered me. (i.e. "sdcard/mtklog/aee_exp") And this folder keeps getting filled even with mtklogger not logging anything. So now I have 2 problems: 1) MtkLogger keeps opening by himself, showing on the notification bar, with all logs enabled. 2) I still haven't found out the cause for the aeeexp folder to get filled. My guess is that another app is using it.

I have a Terminal Emulator app (with busybox commands installed).

Here's what I've already tried:

• I've tried to create a file with the same name of the folder, so whatever is trying to write there, won't be able to. With that, all the logs went directly to internal storage. (Didn't work well and I gave up on this approach) When I cleaned the internal storage, I cleared some *.zip files with random numbers as name.

• I've tried to delete "/system/app/mtklogger.apk" and all the mtklog files that appeared as a find result on terminal. I've tried to check running processes on terminal but no logging one appeared to me. (The only one is Mtklogger, with started to run only after I opened it for the first time) Is there a way to check what app/process is writing on that folder? How can I really unninstall the mtlogger app once and for all? What files should I delete? It has no option on How can I investigate further on this?

I'm sorry for the long text and story-like question, I just couldn't sort clearly what informations would be useful or not.

Answer 1

After a while, and no valid answers, I have come up with the following workaround. The required steps are:

• Have "Android Terminal Emulator" app installed, with busybox commands also installed (as described in question)

• Make a list and check the folders that bother you. The list I've provided contains only files that I'm sure my phone won't need.

• Create a bash script (.sh extension) with remove commands on that specific folders. Here is mine:

#!system/bin/sh
rm -rf /sdcard/mtklog
rm -f /data/log_other_mode/*
rm -f /data/core/*.zip
rm -rf /sdcard/DCIM/.thumbnails

• Place this script on an accessible folder. I've chosen mine to be /system/etc just as a convenience related to chmod'ing and such. And because unfortunately the sd-card is always mounted with "noexec" which means that you can't execute anything from here.

• If you are not able to do so, it may be because your system folders are mounted as read-only. To change that, you need to do the following command in the terminal:

mount -o rw,remount,rw /system

and to revert it back to read-only:

mount -o ro,remount,ro /system

Note: You probably will need super-user (sudo) privileges in order to do these commands.

• The terminal emulator contains an "Widget" option which allows you to place a shortcut to a command in your phone home page. I've used that option with the following command:

su -c /system/etc/scriptName.sh; exit

• Every once in a while I click on this icon to make a clean. This asks permission for the user, since it contains a su command. When clicking "allow" the terminal finishes and closes automatically.

It's not an optimal solution since it needs the phone to be rooted, and you have to manually click the widget button. However, it was the best one for me, since making it run automatically would require it to ask for permission. I didn't want also to give the terminal emulator permanent access to su-privileges. My guess is that a more complex script can be made (e.g. one that monitors the size of the folders with the Disk-Usage command), but I'm happy as it is.