How to remove SMS-storage limit from SE

[SeaMonkey]

This tutorial is original and made by @Fredrik from Unlock.no - alt om mobiltelefoner og operatørlås (sponset av UnlockShop.no) -> Mobiltelefonens programvare (firmware, flashing, modifisering) (this is original tutorial with pictures), so all credits belongs to him.





Remove the SMS-storage limit from Sony-Ericsson's!

Owners of Sony-Ericsson cell phones have had to go through a lot of annoyance and irritation because of the low message storage limits on the phones. Even thought the phones have large storage space, and some even memory cards, there is a limit at approximately 100-200 messages. As we all know, SMS are plain text, and does typically not take up more than 300bytes (including headers).

Thanks to Unlock.no's forum member Spoochy, we now have a solution to "remove" this limit, making it possible to store huge amounts of messages.


In theory, a K700i is able to store at least 40 000 messages, but our experiences is that you can not store more than approximately 1000 messages - which should be enough for most people. When the phone is filled up with more than 1000 messages it starts to get extremely slow when opening message boxes. When even more messages is stored, the phone starts crashing when working, and opening inbox is not possible because it crashes. Sometimes, some messages will also disappear after crashing! On K750, some of the messages got corrupt when storing more than 1000 messages.

We've not experienced any problems when storing less than 1000 messages, but it will of course take a little more time to open the message boxes. We would recommend to keep the storage below 500 messages.

Here are some loading times (K700i):

Opening inbox with 1 message: 0,3 seconds
Opening inbox with 200 messages: 0,7 seconds
Opening inbox with 300 messages: 0,9 seconds
Opening inbox with 500 messages: 1,6 seconds (K750i: 0,9s)
Opening inbox with 1000 messages: 5,0 seconds (K750i: 2,2s)
Opening inbox with 2000 messages: approx 4 minutes


Instructions

You'll need an advanced service tool for Sony-Ericsson (e.g. SEtool) to be able to modify the file system on your phone.

Replace content in the following file from "/smsdata" to "/tpa"
/ifs/settings/messaging/pref_store.txt
Note: It's not possible to overwrite - you must DELETE it before you upload the updated file.

When done, create the following directories in the file system:

/tpa/messaging
/tpa/messaging/sms
/tpa/messaging/sms/msg
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/pending
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/sm
/tpa/messaging/sms/FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF/sr
/tpa/system/messaging/sms

Messages will now be stored in the sm directory you created in the tpa partition.

This trick is tested on K500, K700, K750, Z520, but will most probably work on all ARM-based Sony-Ericsson phones. Our experience was that Z520 handled this modification best, as the PC-software had no problem reading SMS-status.

And here you have original tutorial in PDF format and sms_extend.zip