Ubuntu – Why is the .xsession-errors.old file so big

diskdisk-usage

Problem

Many users (including me) found out from one moment to another that the usage disk space is really strange. One day I had 50Gb free and the next I had 3Gb, it is just crazy.

This happened with different versions of Ubuntu (11.04, 12.04 and 12.10 just to mention).

Some of those user have create question on this site, some of them:

Solution

@NathanWienand have discovered that the problem was caused by the .xsession-errors.old file (it can be found on the $HOME directory) and he and others user solved the problem removing the file. An example of the size that can have this file is ~100Gb, not reasonable..

Question

  • Why does this happen?
  • Is deleting the file the only way to solve it?
  • Isn't there another way to solve this with a large period effect?
  • Does this problem affect only to 64 bits system's users?

If you have something to add here, feel free to edit the question.

Best Answer

You could investigate the problem. Yes, I know it's a big file, but by throwing away data and letting the computer do the work, one could: 

cat .xsession-errors* | \
    egrep -v '^$' | \
    sed -e 's/[0-9][0-9]\+/#NUM#/g'  | \
    sort | \
    uniq -c | \
    sort -rn | \
    tee counts.out | \
    less -XMersj3

Some messages (on my system without the problem) like: 

     38 /usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/exhibits.py:#NUM#: Warning: Source ID #NUM# was not found when attempting to remove it
     38   GLib.source_remove(self._timeout)
     36 (nautilus:#NUM#): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_origin: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

happen more often (38, 38, 36 times) than others, and therefore deserve more investigation.

Others: 

 1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ccp
 1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: animation

Another thing to do is to look for deleted, but still open files: 

 sudo lsof / | egrep 'PID|(deleted)'

Look for large SIZE/OFF values.

And look for large open files: 

sudo lsof / | \
    awk '{if($7 > 1048576) print $7/1048576 "MB" " " $9 }' | \
    sort -n -u
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