Weird file manager problems

Hotblack Desiato

Both my wife and daughter have Alcatel 3 phones running android 9. Since yesterday they've both been getting weird notifications from File Manager, "there are too much system garbage" [sic] and ads for a game popping up. Both phones are running F-Secure which isn't showing anything amiss. Searching for that error message exact phrase returns nothing! Any ideas? File Manager updated yesterday along with some other apps.

banie01

Delete the update to the file manager app would be my 1st step.

If the issue persists after that? Given both are same phone, I'd be going through update history and rolling back to old versions on any update on the last week or so.

Hotblack Desiato

That seems to have solved the problem, thanks. I rolled it back and disabled auto updates for that app.

I thought the file manager app was a standard one from Google but it's not, it's published by Alcatel... trying to annoy people into upgrading their phones maybe? 👺

griffdaddy

If it can uninstalled and isn't baked in you'd be best off getting rid of it all together and replacing it with Solid Explorer or something similar

Riesen_Meal

Google have their own files app, it's on Pixel, may work on your device also :

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.nbu.files

Hotblack Desiato

Thanks I'll bear those in mind. The previous version of the Alcatel file manager app never caused a bother.