Rootffs free space problem

[fred123]

I have noticed over the last couple of days that my free space drops from 58.9M to 55.7M over a few hours after a reboot.

I have not added any apps or enabled any repos during that time, I have email polling evrey 10 minutes, 2g on auto connect scanning every 10 minutes.

I have tried to use the "Storage Usage" App to try and find the cause but although it shows the same free space as df -h, it only shows an increase in used space of 0.8M on /var.

Any thoughts on what may be slowly using upspace or why app doesn't show all used space?

[MohammadAG]

Could be a larger packages list from the repos (the packages.gz file gets downloaded to somewhere in /var/), the device refreshes the packages after each reboot afaik

[Rob1n]

There's also a whole load of state files and temporary data files that will get created during usage, so free space is likely to fluctuate a bit.

[fred123]

True but its quite a large percentage of the free space, would be nice to know what it is.

The only thing that shows up on the storage uasge app is

/var/tmp/browser_thumbnails.

This has a screenshot of every page opened in Microb and is currently over 1M.

[fred123]

I have run du -h into a file, then reboot and another du.

Free space 54.8M
528.0k ./bin
80.0k ./dev
4.9M ./etc
14.9M ./lib
80.0k ./tmp
33.2M ./var *
302.6M ./usr
2.9G ./home


after reboot
Free space 58.7M
528.0k ./bin
80.0k ./dev
4.9M ./etc
14.9M ./lib
68.0k ./tmp
32.1M ./var *
302.6M ./usr
2.9G ./home


* /var/tmp/browser_thumbnails .png's

3M not accounted for!

Thought it might be UBFS confusing df so I tried copying approx 2M of png files into var.tmp, but it reported the correct free space.

This is very strange.

[Rob1n]

I have run du -h into a file, then reboot and another du.

Free space 54.8M
528.0k ./bin
80.0k ./dev
4.9M ./etc
14.9M ./lib
80.0k ./tmp
33.2M ./var *
302.6M ./usr
2.9G ./home


after reboot
Free space 58.7M
528.0k ./bin
80.0k ./dev
4.9M ./etc
14.9M ./lib
68.0k ./tmp
32.1M ./var *
302.6M ./usr
2.9G ./home


* /var/tmp/browser_thumbnails .png's

3M not accounted for!

Thought it might be UBFS confusing df so I tried copying approx 2M of png files into var.tmp, but it reported the correct free space.

This is very strange.

Deleted files that are still held open will consume disk space (reported by df) but not be counted within any directory (reported by du).

[fred123]

Comming from a windows background it seems strange, but would explain why reboot restores the space.

I'll get used to linux ways before long.

[planetf1]

This whole rootfs limitation is very frustrating. I'd hope we see more of the standard firmware pieces migrate off onto the 2Gb partition if they don't need the speed.

moving files manually is a little dodgy as it gets out of sync with the packaging definitions

[Ronaldo]

on a fresh phone rootfs is about 60-70mb (dependin on firmware version) free after apps, so i wouldnt worry about it. i noticed mine going up and down currently 55mb but goes upto 57 mb. i try to install optified apps

[fred123]

OK I have found a way to get free space correct.

sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

Time for bed!

[Rob1n]

This whole rootfs limitation is very frustrating. I'd hope we see more of the standard firmware pieces migrate off onto the 2Gb partition if they don't need the speed.

moving files manually is a little dodgy as it gets out of sync with the packaging definitions

The standard firmware can't migrate (easily). Reflashing the firmware requires wiping the entire flash chip, so if you move core firmware onto the eMMC, a reflash will always require wiping both the OneNAND and the eMMC (including all user data).