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SkySafari 6 Pro | Can The OBB File Be Moved/installed To An External SD On Android? (Answer: Yes, Now You Can - Read On!)

Hello - just upgraded to SS6 pro, nice work!  I'm running out of space on my Samsung S7 edge's internal flash memory and when I use the app manager to move SS6 to external flash it moves the apk file which is pretty small, but not the obb file which is huge (1.71 GB) and remains on internal flash.  Is this a OS limitation - referencing external files or can you program the executable to access it if it's moved?  Are there any tricks with references in the obb directory structure that can be done?  SS5 all versions behave like this. My phone is running Android 6.01 and it's not currently rooted.

Thanks, Wayne

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12 comments

  • -1
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Not really.  We use Google's APK Expansion Files to provide the extra data.  This is Google's recommended approach.  This is what they say in their docs:

    Storage Location 

    When Google Play downloads your expansion files to a device, it saves them to the system's shared storage location. To ensure proper behavior, you must not delete, move, or rename the expansion files. In the event that your application must perform the download from Google Play itself, you must save the files to the exact same location.

    So they definitely don't want them moved.  That said, we have had a couple of folks that are technically inclined move the file to an external SD card and then make a symbolic link from the old location to the new one.  This apparently does work.  However, Google Play may at some point replace your symbolic link with a new copy of the actual file.

    I've also heard that reading from an external SD card is not as fast and the internal one, so app performance may suffer a bit.  Not sure if it is noticeable. 

  • 0
    Avatar
    wayne roth

    Thanks Bill, this is exactly what I suspected.  I looked into creating a symbolic link, but the phone needs to be rooted to use apps such as foldermount and Link2sd.  Maybe using adb from a PC might do it, but I'd likely spend a day figuring out the syntax and it would end up needing root.  For now I just copied the obb file to external storage and delete the internal storage version if I run into memory problems, then copy it back before running SSX.

    Again, nice job on the upgrade!

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    OK, sorry there is not a better solution.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Pierluigi Panunzi

    hi all !

    I installed Pro version in my Huawei Mediapad M5 tablet with Android 8.0, and the program really rocks!!!😎

    I have a 256Gbyte external SD card and in android setup, under the Memory tab, I have choosen as preferred installation memory the "external SD memory"

    my device is not rooted and I think this is an android 8.0 feature, and at least for version 7: really the app itself was installed in the internal Memory, while the huge obb file was written automatically in the big external SD card, as expected.

    this happens everytime I install apps with obb files, for example LEGO applications for Star Wars robots😃

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Nice to know that Google has fixed this.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Davoodzmn

    Hi Bill

    Where can I download a data file for SS 6 Pro for my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge?!!! I've tried to download it from SS 6 Pro App but downloading file isn't successful 

    Appreciate it

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Click this link to download it.

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/ssdata.starrynight.com/Android_OBBs/main.62035.com.simulationcurriculum.skysafari6pro.obb

  • 0
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    Davoodzmn

    Thank You So Much Dear Bill 

  • 0
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    Max Steele

    Open street maps, Google maps, and many other apps allow you to specify the external SD card to store large offline files. The storage selection for this app exists but you do not appear to be using it correctly as the large files still exist in my internal memory 2.27GB worth in

    /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.simulationcurriculum.skysafari7pro

  • 0
    Avatar
    Keiron Smith

    Max,

    this is a very old post. 

    If you want suggest better ways to implement features please create a NEW post here:

    SkySafari | Feature Requests

    Developers review all the discussions in the feature request forum.

    Thanks!

  • 0
    Avatar
    jessi

    Hello, new to forum.  I have an Android 10 tablet with skysafari pro.    I have a large 128GB External SD card that's mostly empty. But the internal memory is full. It won't move any more files to external for some reason that only Google knows. Safari obb data file is too large (1.89GB) and had to be deleted for tablet to work, so I manually put the obb folder into the external folder, same data area, name, etc.. But now Safari still won't work. Keeps asking to download the file and says then the sd card is too full (think it's referring to internal memory). Reading above replies do not help.        How/where can I put the the large Safari obb  data file in the "external SD card area" so that Safari will read it. As it stands, I can't use SkySafari pro at all now!   thank you very much!

  • 0
    Avatar
    Keiron Smith

    Jessi, 

    Officially, the SS6 data files have to be installed to the default storage location, which is on the device.

    External SD cards are not officially supported by SS6.

    This discussion, quite old, explores possibilities that community members have been able to implement, but all these solutions are outside the scope of support.

    When Google Play downloads your expansion files to a device, it saves them to the system's shared storage location. To ensure proper behavior, you must not delete, move, or rename the expansion files. In the event that your application must perform the download from Google Play itself, you must save the files to the exact same location.

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