HDD is out of space but not sure why
One of my Ubuntu boxes has a 160GB HDD which keeps running out of space. The reason I think this is an error or some program misbehaving is that if I reboot the box 2 times, it frees up 40-50GB of space. And it works great with all that free space for a few days or a week, then I start getting system messages again, saying I am running out of space. Another couple of reboots "fixes" this again.
If I go to Examine the drive, it shows me that most of the files are in my /home/<user> directory, but underneath that directory the Disk Usage Analyze shows nothing. It sounds strange, but it shows all these files in my /home/<user> directory, but underneath it shows all of my folders are barely used. I can provide a screenshot of this if needed.
I would guess that I have a program running somewhere that is doing this. I do have a Subsonic server running on this box 100% of the time. But how can I verify this? Is there a way to see where temp files or cached files are going, and to remove them without a reboot? Is there a way to verify if it is the Subsonic server app? I only mention this app because it is the only thing I have running 100% of the time.
Let me know what other info I need to provide.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
My guess would be that the files are located in a hidden directory (starting with ".") and that disk usage application maybe ignores these directories.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
There's probably a tool for this, but I'll show you what I do:
cd /
sudo du -hs `ls -A`
Notice the type of quotes here. It's the one to the left of the 1 key on a US keyboard.
The first time you do this it will take awhile, subsequent searches will be faster.
This prints a human-readable total size of every folder, visible or not, at the current level. This is a size including all contents.
Look for the biggest stuff, ignore anything that doesn't end with G for the size. Scan the entire directory first to be sure you understand what's going on at that level, then pick a directory, cd into it and do it again.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Another thing to check: do you delete a lot of files through the file manager? Sometimes this will not truly delete the files but moves them to a trash directory which does not always show up as being in the trash bin. Empty the trash bin and then search a few of the directories for a hidden directory .Trash something or other. See if there are any files left in there. Deleting a file with the rm command on the command line does in fact delete a file.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
I recommend checking the disk usage with tools like df and du.
While the Disk Usage Analyzer is an excellent tool, it's output can be rather confusing if you don't know exactly what it's doing. For example the percentages it displays are not about how much there is available/used space, but instead about how large percentage of the used space in the parent folder a certain file/folder is taking. And to complicate things even more, depening on your Ubuntu version the tool might also count in all the mounted filesystems unless you specifically tell it to only scan a specific partition, which of course means that you don't get any usefull information about free/used space on a certain filesystem. (The main purpose of the tool it to analyze where space is being used, not how much free space there is). Also it's usually running as your normal user, which means it's not even able to scan things when the permissions only allow root to access them.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Quote:
Originally Posted by
1clue
There's probably a tool for this, but I'll show you what I do:
cd /
sudo du -hs `ls -A`
Notice the type of quotes here. It's the one to the left of the 1 key on a US keyboard.
The first time you do this it will take awhile, subsequent searches will be faster.
This prints a human-readable total size of every folder, visible or not, at the current level. This is a size including all contents.
Look for the biggest stuff, ignore anything that doesn't end with G for the size. Scan the entire directory first to be sure you understand what's going on at that level, then pick a directory, cd into it and do it again.
I'm going to try this when I get home. My remote connection to the box stopped working, I expect due to no more HDD space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
agillator
Another thing to check: do you delete a lot of files through the file manager? Sometimes this will not truly delete the files but moves them to a trash directory which does not always show up as being in the trash bin. Empty the trash bin and then search a few of the directories for a hidden directory .Trash something or other. See if there are any files left in there. Deleting a file with the rm command on the command line does in fact delete a file.
Sometimes, yes. I also empty the trash bin after I delete from the GUI, tho. I'll look for the .trash folder, that is a good idea. I've seen this folder several times on a external USB device that I mount and use, and then move to another computer. Windows doesn't hide the .filename folders like Ubuntu does.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Somehow I keep thinking you have a log file that's being spammed uncontrollably. Probably that's in /var/log, but it doesn't have to be.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Quote:
Originally Posted by
1clue
There's probably a tool for this, but I'll show you what I do:
cd /
sudo du -hs `ls -A`
Notice the type of quotes here. It's the one to the left of the 1 key on a US keyboard.
The first time you do this it will take awhile, subsequent searches will be faster.
This prints a human-readable total size of every folder, visible or not, at the current level. This is a size including all contents.
Look for the biggest stuff, ignore anything that doesn't end with G for the size. Scan the entire directory first to be sure you understand what's going on at that level, then pick a directory, cd into it and do it again.
OK here is the result of the command above:
Quote:
4.0K .dmrc
4.0K Documents
4.0K Downloads
12K examples.desktop
68K .fontconfig
220K .gconf
24K .gnome2
0 .goutputstream-9TGVZW
392K .gstreamer-0.10
4.0K .gtk-bookmarks
du: cannot access `.gvfs': Permission denied
4.0K .ICEauthority
80M .local
12K .mission-control
17M .mozilla
4.0K Music
4.0K Pictures
4.0K .profile
40K .pulse
4.0K .pulse-cookie
110G Samson
8.0K .ssh
4.0K Templates
304K .thumbnails
4.0K Videos
4.0K .Xauthority
8.0K .xscreensaver
1.5T .xsession-errors
143G .xsession-errors.old
I'm not sure where this .xsession-errors folder or file is. I can't see it in the Videos directory. Obviously this is causing my problem but not sure what errors there are and not sure how to fix.
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Re: HDD is out of space but not sure why
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kc5hwb
I'm not sure where this .xsession-errors folder or file is. I can't see it in the Videos directory. Obviously this is causing my problem but not sure what errors there are and not sure how to fix.
Code:
rm .xsession-errors*