c/linuxquestions · by qyron@sopuli.xyz · 271d

System returning home folder as being full with free disk space to spare

I'm betting the root of this problem is on how I originally installed the system but I would like another opinion. Or several.

Running Mint.

After analyzing the disk usage, the folder where Thunderbird is installed is completely full. I have four separate accounts in it but a single one is responsible for taking all the space available, through the imap/sent folder, which makes no sense for me, as I send relatively few messages compared with all the messages I receive.

I already considered just purging the program from my system and completely reinstall it but if I'm going to do that I'm better off doing a fresh system installation.

The system has two disks: a SSD running the system core and a HDD for the home partition. I opted to keep the system core on the SSD to speed up booting (and it worked) and used the HDD for storage because. I prefer HDDs for user files, for longevity reasons. The biggest mistake I made here was not using LVM on the disks.

Any thoughts and criticism on this is welcome.

Thank you in advance.

19 points · 30 comments · view on lemmy.world

30 Comments

nesc@lemmy.cafe · 3 pts · 271d (5 replies)

Check inodes df -ih. Do you use btrfs or zfs?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 270d (4 replies)

Sistema de ficheiros Inodes  IUso ILivr UsoI% Montado em
tmpfs                  1,7M  1,2K  1,7M    1% /run
efivarfs                  0     0     0     - /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/sda3              3,0M  750K  2,2M   26% /
tmpfs                  1,7M     1  1,7M    1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                  1,7M     7  1,7M    1% /run/lock
/dev/sda6              597K    41  597K    1% /tmp
/dev/sda2                 0     0     0     - /boot/efi
/dev/sdb1               30M  133K   29M    1% /home
/dev/sda5              2,1M   94K  2,0M    5% /var
tmpfs                  348K   136  348K    1% /run/user/1000

Here is the output. I don't see anything taxed.

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 270d (1 reply)

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but doesn't that show that you only have a 30 megabytes of space?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d

df -h returns this

Sistema de ficheiros Tamanho   Uso Livre Uso% Montado em
tmpfs                   1,4G  1,8M  1,4G   1% /run
efivarfs                128K   14K  110K  12% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/sda3                46G   13G   31G  29% /
tmpfs                   6,8G     0  6,8G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   5,0M   12K  5,0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/sdb1               458G   64G  371G  15% /home
/dev/sda6               9,1G  320K  8,6G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda5                32G  9,5G   21G  32% /var
/dev/sda2               113M  6,2M  107M   6% /boot/efi
tmpfs                   1,4G  140K  1,4G   1% /run/user/1000

nesc@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 270d (1 reply)

Looks fine to me as well, so you are using ext4 and not btrfs?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 270d

Yes. Still haven't tried it.

starkzarn@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 271d (1 reply)

You haven't mentioned your distro. Are you using systemd-homed? There are some footguns there that can manifest like this.

As another poster mentioned, btrfs quotas or subvolume allocation could be a favtor as well.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 270d

I always leave something to be said when I post... added to the post. Thank you.

I'm running Mint.

bus_factor@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 271d (11 replies)

What is the output of df -h? It's hard to guess what could be wrong without some more data.

The last 5% are by default reserved for the root user, so that's a possibility.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 270d (10 replies)

Sistema de ficheiros Tamanho   Uso Livre Uso% Montado em
tmpfs                   1,4G  1,8M  1,4G   1% /run
efivarfs                128K   14K  110K  12% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/sda3                46G   13G   31G  29% /
tmpfs                   6,8G     0  6,8G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   5,0M   16K  5,0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/sda6               9,1G  4,2M  8,6G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda2               113M  6,2M  107M   6% /boot/efi
/dev/sdb1               458G   64G  371G  15% /home
/dev/sda5                32G  9,6G   21G  32% /var
tmpfs                   1,4G  132K  1,4G   1% /run/user/1000

I don't see any partition full.

bus_factor@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 270d (9 replies)

Yeah, those aren't full from a filesystem perspective. What exactly are you doing when it's saying it's full, and what is the exact message. Some things might have quotas independent of the space on the filesystem.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 270d (8 replies)

I got my first warning when trying to download some large files and at some point the browser just returned a message saying the download was aborted for not having enough space available. Nothing else.

After running a disk scan, as I know the 500GB HDD is essentially empty, is when I find out the Thunderbird folder is full. And somehow it is causing the system to flag the entire disk has full.

This is the general use computer of the house and there are more users on the system but I have the largest amount of files on it as I'm the primary user.

bus_factor@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 270d (2 replies)

What is "a disk scan"? Can you either copy the input/output of the command or take screenshots? This is too vague to be of much use for debugging.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d (1 reply)

df -h returns the following

Sistema de ficheiros Tamanho   Uso Livre Uso% Montado em
tmpfs                   1,4G  1,8M  1,4G   1% /run
efivarfs                128K   14K  110K  12% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/sda3                46G   13G   31G  29% /
tmpfs                   6,8G     0  6,8G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   5,0M   12K  5,0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/sdb1               458G   64G  371G  15% /home
/dev/sda6               9,1G  400K  8,6G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda5                32G  9,5G   21G  32% /var
/dev/sda2               113M  6,2M  107M   6% /boot/efi
tmpfs                   1,4G  136K  1,4G   1% /run/user/1000

/home has 371G free smartctl is not returning errors on the drive has well

bus_factor@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 269d

Okay, but what was this "disk scan" which said your Thunderbird was full?

Please share the actual output of the things you look at, not your interpretations.

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 270d (4 replies)

Did you check dmesg for errors? It might be smart to verify it isn't a hardware issue.

Could you post screenshots?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d (3 replies)

the dmesg output is simply huge running the command threw me a slew of messages can you point to what I should be looking at?

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 269d (2 replies)

Do you see any red ones?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d

No reds

communism@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 270d (5 replies)

I'm a bit confused. What is the actual problem? You're getting an error in Thunderbird?

Are you able to use your home partition normally outside of Thunderbird?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d (4 replies)

Thunderbird works. But I'm getting error messages about not having disk space available. When trying go make downloads, I get an error message from the browser. Using the disk analyzer in Mint, I can see the folder for Thunderbird and in there the ubfolder for the IMAP sent messages is full.

communism@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 269d (3 replies)

Folders don't get "full"—partitions do. Do you perhaps have a limit imposed inside Thunderbird's settings on how much disk space it can use up? Do you get any errors about disk usage outside of Thunderbird?

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d (2 replies)

I didn't set a separate partition for mail. Thunderbird is in the general /home. But it appears to have reached a size of 6.1GB under imap/sent and that area is flagged as being out of space.

The email ocasionallly returns an error message of not having disk space available for new messages.

But when trying to make downloads to /home/downloads several have been aborted due to not having available space.

This makes no sense. With nearly 400GB of /home free, every user /home folder should just slowly fill that space as required/needed. But that is not what is happening. The free storage space is not being accessed

communism@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 269d (1 reply)

Can you do more testing with other applications trying to write to /home? Are you sure it's not a Thunderbird bug/misconfiguration?

If it happens for other programs trying to write to /home then I'm stumped ngl. I assume you have checked for hidden files.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 268d

I risk it is. It makes no sense why the space for the mail client is getting full while the rest of the disk is nearly empty.

LibreOffice saves with no problem to the disk. The browser saves small files with no issue. Dowloading large files, on the other hand, returns a error of no available storage space.

I'm just backing up all the files and reinstalling the system.

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 270d (1 reply)

I wouldn't bother with a HDD in the future. They are slow and SSDs will last for years.

~~Anyways, could you post the output of df? It would help significantly with troubleshooting~~ Never mind, I missed your comment

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 269d

With the memory chips getting the sharp uptick they are going through right now? Pass. Speed is not crucial for me. I don't do any hardcore gaming nor run some speed critical apps. HDD's cover my necessities.

Illecors@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 253d

I realise this is an older thread, but it could be caused by deleted files not being released by the application - a reboot or killing said application would help. Can be checked with

sudo lsof | grep deleted

It can also just be corrupt metadata about a file where a small file is seen as taking up some ludicrous amount of storage. This thought was triggered by you mentioning the thuderbird sent directory. Inspect the files there.

qyron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 270d

Yes. Although recently I started getting errors with downloads, with warning of not having disk space.