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Warning :Unable to write to /tmp -- Help please......

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ajgoyt1

Post subject: Warning :Unable to write to /tmp -- Help please......

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:37 pm

Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:01 am

Posts: 21

Hello,

My knopmyth R5F27 install has been working great fro the last 2 months i shut it down last night and now it will not boot all the way to the x session or knoppmyth - it will give me a window with the following error.

xsession:warning:unable to write to /tmp;xsession may exit with an error and to the bottom left of the error it says ok. if i click ok it refreshes then comes back to the same error.

I have scoured/searched the help files and the wiki - The wiki suggests tapping the caplocks to get me to lilo and the it says to go to single user mode - it will not let me type anything at lilo - my only choices are reboot or linux. it appears my tmp file / hardrive is full? anyone else run into this problem?

Please help i have 80 movies i would like to save

_________________
My Frontend/Backend System in The Garage!

KnoppMyth R5F27
Case - Enermax / 420 Watt PWS
Motherboard - Asus A7N8X
Video Card - PNY 6600GT
Processor - AMD Athlon 2500
Ram - 1.0Gb PC3200 ram
HD - 250GB IDE
TV TUNER - PVR -150
Giga Lan

Last edited by ajgoyt1 on Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Gibble

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:57 pm

Joined: Thu Sep 30, 2004 12:26 pm

Posts: 468

Location: Canada

will it boot far enough that you can ssh into it?

_________________
"The amount of time needed to solve a problem is inversely proportionate to the complexity of the solution" -- Me

KM: R5.5
CPU: Athlon 3800+
Vid: nvidia 7300GT
Snd: Chaintech av-710
Tuner: PVR150
HD: 1000gb sata + 750gb sata + 500gb usb

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ajgoyt1

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:19 pm

Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:01 am

Posts: 21

You mean tunnel from the same machine?

I had WEBMIN running from a Vista pc - I cannot log in from WEBMIN from the vista computer, also MYTHWEB says database error!

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slowtolearn

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 5:56 pm

Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:55 pm

Posts: 1381

Location: Farmington, MI USA

Double-check your keyboard connection, you should be able to type at the LILO: prompt even if the disk is full.

Barring getting into single-user, see "System inaccessable:" here: http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php? ... erRecovery You should be able to delete the offending file(s) with this approach (check /var/log first). Before you delete any files take a look at their contents to see if you can determine why this happened.

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lostmyshape

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:52 pm

Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:30 am

Posts: 91

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

don't panic... this has happened to me a couple times. you filled your root partition too full. no harm done. if you can't figure out how to get yourself to a prompt, or X keeps insisting on trying to start, use a live bootable CD like kanotix or good ol' knoppix and su into a term there (no password). the file browser in a live CD might come in handy, too -- let you poke around to look at file sizes quickly.

most likely your xsession-errors file (/home/mythtv/.xsession-errors) got waaaay too big (possibly many gigs). first look through it to see what program crashes filled it up, then delete xsession-errors (it will get recreated when x restarts). check to see if any other log files got too big, delete them. lastly, check what's in your /tmp directory. i know i sometimes use it as a dumping ground when i'm doing work or problem solving. last time i checked i had almost 2 gigs of junk in there.

once you clear out some room, X will start right up.

good luck!

_________________
#R5.5#
ATSC OTA on FE/BE - EPoX EP-8KDA7I, AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512MB RAM, GeForce FX5200, Kworld ATSC-110x2
FE - Antec NSK2400, ABIT NF-M2 (w/GeForce 6150), Athlon 64 3800+, 1 GB RAM

Last edited by lostmyshape on Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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ajgoyt1

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:53 pm

Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:01 am

Posts: 21

Sorry I didn't explain enough once I was at Lilo - The keyboard will let me type - but the commands from the WIKI were not effective, Sorry not at home right will be in the next couple of hours, What commands would you use to clear/ empty the offending folder/files.

AJ

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lostmyshape

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:58 pm

Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:30 am

Posts: 91

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Code:

ls -a -l

to see file sizes (including hidden files).

Code:

rm /path/to/file

to remove (delete-be careful, this is permanent).

check /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors first.

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slowtolearn

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 7:28 pm

Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:55 pm

Posts: 1381

Location: Farmington, MI USA

ajgoyt1 wrote:

Sorry I didn't explain enough once I was at Lilo - The keyboard will let me type - but the commands from the WIKI were not effective

What did you type? AFAIK, "linux single" (no quotes) should get you to single-user. See http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu ... ingle.html

ajgoyt1 wrote:

What commands would you use to clear/ empty the offending folder/files.

You need to find them first, that's why I suggested checking /var/log (and as lostmyshape mentioned, /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors). Using ls -laS | more will show you the largest files first in your current directory.

After you locate the file(s), check the contents with tail -300 filename | more so you can see the last 300 lines of the file, which will hopefully give you some idea of what has gone wrong so you can fix it. Then you can clear out the file with >filename (Obviously substitute "filename" with the actual name of the file in the above examples). I recommend using this method over deleting the file to avoid errors if the app is expecting the file to be there.

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tjc

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:51 pm

Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am

Posts: 9551

Location: Arlington, MA

Definitely see the wiki pages indicated
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=WillNotBoot
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=DiskFullError
Because they'll also point you to other things you may need to take care of like this:
http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=RepairingMythConvergDB

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ajgoyt1

Post subject:

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:40 pm

Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:01 am

Posts: 21

Jeez in lost + found there is 16384 - to me thats 16gig right?

Not a total newb with Linux but i need to be careful - i could see the file - the /tmp directory was at 4096 which is nothing.

I tried the command to empty the lost and found but was not successful - can you guys steer me in the right direction on how to empty the lost + found? Isn't that the recycle bin?

AJ

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ajgoyt1

Post subject:

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:32 am

Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:01 am

Posts: 21

lostmyshape wrote:

Code:

ls -a -l

to see file sizes (including hidden files).

Code:

rm /path/to/file

to remove (delete-be careful, this is permanent).

check /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors first.

I can see the file sizes but when i try to go to /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors first it gives me a Acess Denied!!!!!!

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slowtolearn

Post subject:

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:14 am

Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:55 pm

Posts: 1381

Location: Farmington, MI USA

ajgoyt1 wrote:

You need to be clearer in your explanations. What exactly does "I tried the command to empty the lost and found but was not successful" mean? What did you try? As lost+found is a directory you should be investigating the files within it, if there are any.

ajgoyt1 wrote:

I can see the file sizes but when i try to go to /home/mythtv/.xsession-errors first it gives me a Acess Denied!!!!!!

Again this is not very clear. What command resulted in "Access Denied"? As .xsession-errors is a file you need to look at it's contents (with tail or more), which will hopefully give you some clue as to what is going wrong.

The same applies to the files within /var/log - Check their contents with tail or more. For example:

Code:

cd /var/log
ls -laS | more  --> Sorts files by size
more large_file
     --OR--
tail -300 large_file | more

Then, to clear the large file of it's contents

Code:

>large_file

Rinse, repeat for each of the "big" files, but not before you examine their contents to determine why they have grown so large.

In addition to tjc's links also see http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=LinuxTips

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tjc

Post subject:

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:55 pm

Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:00 am

Posts: 9551

Location: Arlington, MA

Actually at least one of the ones I pointed him to tell you to BecomeRoot, but before too long _all_ of them will. ;-)

http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=BecomeRoot

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