internal storage - Google Play: Error downloading app - insufficient space

After one of the latest updates (not sure if it was the last one or a previous one) of the Google Play app, I am having an error trying to update a large app (42MB). It says:

Error Downloading . There is insufficient space on the device.

My device is a Samsung P1000 running Froyo. It's rooted, but the error was there before rooting it.

A quick Google search showed several Samsung users having the same problem (the app in question that was giving me the headache is Smurf's village). Some said that removing the updates to the Android Market (Google Play) app would fix it, but to me it was of no avail.

I also tried the procedure in this Google help FAQ to no avail.

Now I am stuck with a prehistoric version of the Market (that works on small apps) and still cannot update Smurf's Village or install big apps. How can I fix this?

EDIT: device has over 2GB of internal SD storage, 27GB of external SD card, so space is not an issue.

Answer

For me, it was all about killing and rebuilding a bigger cache. I want it registered on SE so other people having the same problem can find an answer googling for it.

The problem seems to be with the size of the partition the cache is in. It is mounted on a 20-30MB partition in the phone internal SD card.

The fix that worked to me was described in this blog post.

THE BLOCK BELOW IS TAKEN FROM Jimmy Halim's blog post, and used with his permission.

After browsing around, I found out that the cache folder (that I assume used by the market) is using small partition (around 20mb in my case). So to solve this we need to change it to bigger partition.

You gonna need Android Terminal Simulator or equivalent terminal app. This will also require your Android rooted.

Type su (root permission request will be shown: you need to approve it).

Type cd /

Type umount /cache

Type mount -o rw,remount -t rootfs rootfs / (to set the folder access to rw – read write)

Type rmdir /cache (delete cache folder). I personally using root explorer to do point 5-6.

Type mkdir /sdcard/cache

Type ln -s /sdcard/cache /cache (to link cache folder to /sdcard/cache – which should have bigger partition size)

My p1000 was rooted and had terminal emulator and busybox installed. I just typed the commands in the order described by Jimmy Halim (kudos to him).

Searching for the background to this question, I also found this forum post (in portuguese) that seems to (untested by me) solve the problem using an app.

[begin portuguese posting]

Para solucionar o problema, eu precisei modificar o tamanho do cache do telefone

[end portuguese posting]