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Thread: What is eating my HDD space?

  1. #16

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    Appreciate all the advice, thanks to speedygonzal for your posts and trying out all that, telnet & using PuTTY is all new to me and I haven't quite got my head round it yet, so while it might not have been a success it saved me a lot of trial & error.
    Filezilla is also new to me but I've been trying to learn and I'm going to try and follow what you ask above. I'll set it to record something tonight and report back.

    1999gtv I've disabled timeshift and today whilst trying to sort out my epg I've had no issues, prior to this I was getting as low as 32% without making any recordings.
    I'm on 5.0.0002 and appear to only have 1 folder on my hdd (media/hdd) I had 2 yesterday with a bookmark? Has turning timeshift off got rid of this? As I've said I'm in uncharted waters here and really not got a clue what I'm on about.

  2. #17

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    Haven't got round to 5.0.002 yet as mine is working ok on vix 4.2.030 (don't want to break a good setup by updating when it isn't necessary). Speedygonzal has given you some good advice to follow it sounds quite daunting when you are new to these boxes but is not as bad as it sounds and becomes clearer as you actually do it. I have only been using E2 boxes for about 18 months and found everything difficult at first but once you get the hang of it you will find yourself doing it without any problem. The good people on this forum are always willing to help when you get stuck. I really am not sure why you are having this many issues with your hdd I am guessing your problem may be different to mine. As I mentioned I had initial issues but these have been resolved for me by doing the steps from a few posts back. I cannot remember if I created the folders myself using dream explorer downloaded from the plugins section or whether they were there already. I have just tried turning timeshift off and still have both folders. Give Speedygonzals suggestions a try just take you time and don't rush, I will do a full backup tonight and try 5.0.002 tomorrow to see if I get same issue as you.
    Last edited by 1999gtv; 13-03-17 at 21:15. Reason: extra info

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  4. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by 1999gtv View Post
    Mine is fine and everything works as it should now, I was curious if the OP had the same structure on his hdd as mine and if not why are the folders not present.
    I do hope sincerely that yours is working fine 1999gtv, because that might mean there is a relatively easy fix for many machines that are like mine, and are losing disc space like they are going out of fashion.

    I wonder if you would mind doing me a favour...

    Assuming that you have been recording and deleting programmes since the last Restart/reboot of the machine, if you go into Menu / Information / Devices and look up the Free space for /media/hdd, then restart the machine by Menu / Standby and Restart / Restart, then look for the same Free space figure, are the numbers the same before and after the restart?

    I am asking because the fundamental symptom of the problem, as far as I can see, is that orphan disc space is created by timeshift, by recording, and by pressing the pause button on the remote (even if timeshift is off), and such orphan disc space is restored/reclaimed by a restart.

    Another question if I may, when you said you ran fsck 5 days or so ago, did you run it from Menu / Setup / System / Storage devices / Filesystem check, or did you actually putty/telnet/etc. into the system and execute a fsck command?

    Cheers!
    Last edited by speedygonzalez; 14-03-17 at 00:40.

  5. #19

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    Ok done as requested and hdd size is 312.37 gb ,free space 299.87 gb. After reboot hdd size is 312.37gb , free space is 303.58gb about 3.5gb more. Box has been running since 4.30 pm and 3 recordings have been done and 2 watched and deleted plus some pausing of live tv. Hope this helps

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  7. #20

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    To add to previous post I will leave box in standby overnight and turn on when I get home from work tomorrow, record and delete some random stuff and make a note at each stage of space used and space available followed by another reboot and see if there are any major differences. just saw your edit and answer is via menu/setup/system/storage devices/ Filesystem check
    Last edited by 1999gtv; 14-03-17 at 01:03.

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  9. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by 1999gtv View Post
    Ok done as requested and hdd size is 312.37 gb ,free space 299.87 gb. After reboot hdd size is 312.37gb , free space is 303.58gb about 3.5gb more. Box has been running since 4.30 pm and 3 recordings have been done and 2 watched and deleted plus some pausing of live tv. Hope this helps
    Thanks very much 1999gtv. What your result suggests, is that you are also losing hdd freespace unfortunately, though not at the vast rate as some of us experienced or are experiencing, and like us you are also able to reclaim lost space by a restart.

    Like you I also did the fsck on the hdd via the menu a couple of days ago, it did not take away the problem.

    My experiments are also indicating that the rate of freespace getting "lost" not only appears to be dependent on box use, but also settings - e.g. timeshift seems to make it worse. It is however difficult to keep track of the effect of changes, given I have tried many variations, but I have yet to find a Vix version, a drive setup, or settings that stop the problematic phenomenon altogether except don't record and don't turn on timeshift and don't touch the pause button on the remote, which I found to allow the freespace to stay constant between restarts, but imho it is not acceptable that one has to forego such functions to lessen the problem.

    Cheers!

  10. #22
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    Have you tried yet to find out what is using up disc space?
    Quote Originally Posted by ccs View Post
    I you're familiar with telnet, the command

    find /media/hdd -type f -size +50000k -exec ls -lh {} \;

    may tell you what's eating up your hdd.
    (Pressing pause on live tv starts up timeshift, and rebooting will empty the disc space timeshift has used, and recordings use up disc space as well.)
    Last edited by ccs; 14-03-17 at 10:18.

  11. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by ccs View Post
    Have you tried yet to find out what is using up disc space?

    (Pressing pause on live tv starts up timeshift, and rebooting will empty the disc space timeshift has used, and recordings use up disc space as well.)
    Yes. The list, which may not be exclusive, includes 1) recording programmes, 2) enabling timeshift, and 3) pause even when timeshift is disabled.

    I have also tried pointing timeshift to a usb stick instead while it was enabled, which showed me that timeshift files were normal, the issue appears to be that the 3 activities above leave orphan hdd disc space behind, which is invisible to 'ls-a', but is reclaimed by fsck or a restart.

    Recording programmes of course use up disc space. The issue is after they are deleted not all the used space is returned, and can only be recovered by fsck or restart. Programme file size looks normal. As an illustration, if free space is 800GB (from menu setup information device), you might find 790GB left after recording a 5GB programme (observed by Filezilla, puttying ls, or the Dream-Explorer plugin), and deleting the programme leaves you with only 795GB free space. You will get the missing 5B back after a restart.

    I am speculating, those activities might have used codes that claim hdd disc space (not files, hidden or otherwise, somehow) as workspace, but fail to release the space properly after use.
    Last edited by speedygonzalez; 14-03-17 at 11:08.

  12. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by speedygonzalez View Post
    which is invisible to 'ls-a', but is reclaimed by fsck or a restart.
    If it's reclaimed by a restart then something has a (large) file open that has been deleted. The space won't be freed until the file is closed, which will happen on a restart (and in the meantime the process that has it open can still write to it and use more filespace).

    You can find open-but-deleted files by running a find command on the box (which I'll work out if you're interested in running it).
    MiracleBox Prem Twin HD - 2@DVB-T2 + Xtrend et8000 - 5(incl. 2 different USBs)@DVB-T2[terrestrial - UK Freeview HD, Sandy Heath] - LAN/USB-stick/HDD

  13. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by birdman View Post
    If it's reclaimed by a restart then something has a (large) file open that has been deleted. The space won't be freed until the file is closed, which will happen on a restart (and in the meantime the process that has it open can still write to it and use more filespace).

    You can find open-but-deleted files by running a find command on the box (which I'll work out if you're interested in running it).

    I agree what you describe sounds like exactly what is happening... I was a unix system administrator decades ago, on a multiuser system that is considerably less powerful than any low-end phone today , so my command of unix/linux is extremely sparse and rusty, to say the least. You are very kind!

  14. #26
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    Maybe lsof will show them?

  15. #27
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    Run this script (I think - not near a box at the moment, but it's fairly generic):

    Code:
    #!/bin/sh
    #
    cd /proc
    for l in [0-9]*/fd/*; do
       ( /bin/ls -l $l | grep '(deleted)$') 2>/dev/null
    done
    MiracleBox Prem Twin HD - 2@DVB-T2 + Xtrend et8000 - 5(incl. 2 different USBs)@DVB-T2[terrestrial - UK Freeview HD, Sandy Heath] - LAN/USB-stick/HDD

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  17. #28

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    Thanks again all. I did what speedygonzalez suggested last night and here's what I found.
    No other recordings are on the HDD. Timeshift is off. I started with 487gb available. I recorded a 30 minute HD prog. Looked using Filezilla the size of the recording is 1.11gb.
    I pressed the PVR button it said 93% / 435gb remaining. Using the Menu/Information/Devices it said 445gb was remaining.
    I deleted, waited several hours before checking and whilst Filezilla shows nothing my HDD available space remains the same.
    I had to reboot and in doing so for some reason I've lost all my epg settings, yeah all them days (see other forum).
    I don't know if this means anything but the pvr button now reads 99% but only 464gb available, devices method says 475gb.

    I really don't know what to do now.

  18. #29

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    Follow up on my earlier post for speedygonzalez. Did some playing today and pausing live tv seems to use large amounts of disk space about 1gb per minute is reported as used, based on 15 minute pause 15gb less space shown in devices. Then tried timeshift approx 5gb used in 10 minutes approx half the rate of use compared to pausing live tv. Once I resume playback on live tv or switch channel I get no further space loss but space is not recovered until fsck or reboot. Also with timeshift turned off I get no additional space used either but still not recovered till reboot or fsck. Recordings seem to be a different matter around 2.5 to 3 gb space is used for an hours hd recording dependent on channel used to record from. Once I delete the recording my space returns without any need to reboot etc
    Last edited by 1999gtv; 14-03-17 at 17:44.

  19. #30
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    I will be eager to know about the solution to this problem.
    I've turned off timeshift just to save space

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