Google released Android 14 earlier in October, and most Pixel users got a nice treat. Better battery life, cooler phones, crisper photos; it comes with a lot. Some Pixel 6 users weren’t as fortunate, however, with the new operating system instead rendering their phone’s storage inaccessible.
Having your storage locked plays havoc with apps. As users report on the Google Support forums, they can’t take photos, install or remove apps, and the storage settings crash when troubleshooting. Error messages direct users to free up space in the Files app, but all this shows are categories with 0B storage, with Apps being the only exception.
The Verge discovered that it seems to primarily affect Pixel 6, 6a, and 6 Pro users with multiple user accounts on their devices. Writer Umar Shakir couldn’t quite replicate the issue by making more accounts but did see their 6a crash several times instead.
Switching profiles seems to solve things in the interim. When connecting their device to a PC, one forum user says that internal storage is no longer mounted to the primary profile. Swapping to a secondary user could be a small step towards a fix, although you won’t have access to anything associated with your primary profile in the meantime.
Newly release operating systems often come with creases that need ironing out, and it’s clear there’s something funky with Android 14. It isn’t quite as widespread as Android 13’s launch issues, but still painful for those affected. It might be worth downgrading to an older version of Android, but we can’t guarantee that’s the best course of action until Google acknowledges the issue.
