Ubuntu
kdebase-workspace package

KDE should warn about disk space shortage

Bug #99044 reported by tdn
54
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
kdelibs
Unknown
High
kdebase-workspace (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
Declined for Gutsy by Henrik Nilsen Omma
Hardy
Won't Fix
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

It is impossible to login with KDM if the disk is full.
I think KDM is trying to write to a file somewhere and this failes.

The big problem here is that the user gets no information why i can't login. Thus making it pretty difficult to debug.

I had to install gdm to understand what was wrong. Gdm gave the user a fine error message while trying to login. The message told the user that gdm could not write to a specific file and therefore could not let the user login. The error message also suggested what could be the cause. It suggested that the disk might be full -- and it was.
Deleting some files and restarting KDM fixed the problem.

I would like to see a similar warning from KDM.

Maybe it would even be an idea to give the user an option to run "sudo apt-get clean" or something similar just to make *some* free space so that the user can log in to KDE and delete files. Most users won't be able to delete files if they cannot login to X.

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

Version: (using KDE KDE 3.2.0)
Installed from: SuSE RPMs

Two different ordinary users cannot log in one after the other when on the harddisk (containing / and ~) is no space left.

There should be an error msg.

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

see bug #81597 for a related comment.
note that space requirements are pretty individual, so it is hard to define some generally useful limits.
anyway, i agree that kde could check for "disk low" situations at startup, possibly by doing a ratio calculation on the df output or whatever. this is not kdm's task, though.

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

most important to me (!) is that the users do not get the feeling "it just logs me out again when I log in".
Then, there should come up a message "Logging you out again because no space left". That would make error tracking more easy.

Revision history for this message
In , N-bastian (n-bastian) wrote :

ksmserver checks for disk full and some other common problems and informs the user.

Seems like that check doesn't work too well then.

Revision history for this message
In , N-bastian (n-bastian) wrote :

I notice that if /tmp is unwritable (e.g. due to a full disk) the X server will not fully come up and startkde is never executed, so ksmserver will not have a chance to tell anything to the user.

So I suggest that kdm adopts some of the sanity checks from ksmserver/main.cpp

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

*** Bug 101446 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

*** Bug 138232 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

*** Bug 142775 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
Marco Maini (maini10) wrote :

The lack of a warning in my opinion it's a bug.

Changed in kdebase:
assignee: nobody → maini10
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Marco Maini (maini10) wrote :

Sorry, thanks for this report.

Changed in kdebase:
assignee: maini10 → nobody
Yuriy Kozlov (yuriy-kozlov)
Changed in kdebase:
importance: Undecided → Medium
Revision history for this message
jfbilodeau (jfbilodeau) wrote :

Encountered the same problem. Even the logs are silent. I'm an experienced Linux user and it took me a day to figure out what the problem was.

I've ran out of disk space in GDM/Gnome before, and it continued to function.

Revision history for this message
Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik) wrote :

I fix for this was implemented for GDM with https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/boot-login-with-full-filesystem but seems not to have made it to KDM. Targeting for hardy.

Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)
Changed in kdebase:
assignee: nobody → kubuntu-team
Revision history for this message
In , FiNeX (finex) wrote :

*** Bug 159180 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Daniel Nicoletti (dantti) wrote :

Hi,
If someone give me the directions to what is the first app called in startkde i can write a simple pach that:
Check for quotas and full disk space at startUp and simply do a
KMessageBox::Warning("You runned out of space, free some files or buy a new HD :P")
then start dolphin after that check again to see if there's is at least "5 mb" free and start kde otherwise warn again...
i can also do a system service that could check periodicaly for space and quotas, if someone know if there is some working in progress or where should i do that i'll appreciate, someone told me that solid should have something like this.

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

*** Bug 164853 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Laurent Claessens (moky-math) wrote :

One should think about a warning in the logout instead of the login.

If you try to logout while there is only 0M free, you should be warned that you will no more be able to login again.

Revision history for this message
In , Matthias Heinz (m-heinz) wrote :

Doesnt make much sense. Think of a multi user system. Why should a user care about the next user?

Revision history for this message
Adam Porter (alphapapa) wrote :

This MUST be fixed, SOON. I just spent three hours going around in circles, thinking my video card was damaged somehow, or that the hard disk had corrupted some binaries, because every time I tried to log in to KDE with KDM, it simply restarted X! I booted into Windows, Knoppix, Ubuntu 7.10, and Kubuntu 7.04, before somehow I realized that there was no disk space left after I copied a bunch of files last night. The computer was fine last night, but when I turned it on today, I couldn't log in!

And there was still 2GB+ of free space reserved for root, but there was no space left for users, so KDE failed to log in and there was no error message of any kind. I looked through every log there is: kdm, kernel, messages, syslog, dmesg, Xorg*, but none of them gave any clue at all.

As time goes by, larger and larger files are more and more common, and users will run out of disk space more often. This has got to be fixed.

Revision history for this message
Harald Sitter (apachelogger) wrote :

As time goes by, larger and larger disks become available, preventing users from running out of disk space.

This issue should be worked on with KDE (or actually Nokia) to get a very low level fix for this in Qt and a KDE wrapped warning, for any kind of Qt/KDE based file operation.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in kdelibs:
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
tdn (spam-thomasdamgaard) wrote :

> As time goes by, larger and larger disks become available, preventing users
> from running out of disk space.

While it is true that disks become larger and larger, I do not think this is a valid reason for not fixing this bug. Users will always be runnings out of space. No matter the disk size...

Note also, that this bug will affect people not only if the disk is filled, but also if the user is prevented from writing more to the disk for other reasons, such as reserved blocks, quota, etc.

Revision history for this message
jfbilodeau (jfbilodeau) wrote :

>As time goes by, larger and larger disks become available, preventing users from running out of disk space.

I strongly disagree with that statement. It's true that disks will get larger, but so will user files.

>This issue should be worked on with KDE (or actually Nokia) to get a very low level fix for this in Qt and a KDE wrapped >warning, for any kind of Qt/KDE based file operation.

I don't think it needs to be that complex. A simple test should be done during log-in to ensure that either enough disk-space is available, or that creation/changes to files are successful. Otherwise, KDM should notify the user of the failure.

Another idea would be to allow the login to succeed, but notify the user that they are out of disk space. This way, they can delete unnecessary files.

Though having a low-level fix is probably a good idea for all KDE apps, I don't think it's something that is as urgent as fixing this bug.

Revision history for this message
Harald Sitter (apachelogger) wrote :

Doods, you seriously need to join a sarcasm workshop.

Anyway.
The low-level detection is necessary because this issue not only applies to KDM. Say you are logged in and KMail explodes because you again ran out of disk space.

KDE/Qt should have a nifty system to early detect diskspace shortage and warn the user, so he can do something about it _before_ problems appear.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman) wrote :

Unassigning Almost Kubuntu Bugs.

Changed in kdelibs:
assignee: kubuntu-team → nobody
assignee: kubuntu-team → nobody
Revision history for this message
jfbilodeau (jfbilodeau) wrote :

Hey Harald,

I'll sign up for you next workshop. Sorry for the tone. I guess I was a bit frustrated that the bug has gone unloved for so long.

Revision history for this message
Harald Sitter (apachelogger) wrote :

Wouldn't have happened if we had more people on the bugs team... in case you want to sign up ;-)

Revision history for this message
Harald Sitter (apachelogger) wrote :

Stuff for Kubuntu 9.04 really.

Changed in kde4libs:
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)
Changed in kde4libs:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in kdelibs:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

I think I have an idea how to fix this, assigning from <email address hidden> to me

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

still exists for KDE from today

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

As far as I can see, kdm does not call startkde. So, yes, sanity checks in kdm are needed.

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

kdm's possible session types (KDE, GNOME etc) are defined in .desktop files in $KDEDIR/share/apps/kdm/sessions. There is also stated where the startkde resides that will be started by kdm. This brought me on the wrong track - kdm does call startkde.

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

(In reply to comment #4)
> I notice that if /tmp is unwritable (e.g. due to a full disk) the X server will
> not fully come up and startkde is never executed, so ksmserver will not have a
> chance to tell anything to the user.
>
> So I suggest that kdm adopts some of the sanity checks from ksmserver/main.cpp
>
 wrong. startkde IS executed, I just tested this scenario.

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

some bugs were fixed since waldo made that comment. ;)
it is still possible that it wouldn't even get to run ksmserver - e.g., if /home is shared with /tmp and the user has a strict quota or the disk is simply *completely* full.
if you want to do it Right™,you need to create pam_diskfull (google first - maybe somebody already did :).

Revision history for this message
In , Thorsten Staerk (dev-staerk) wrote :

Thanks Oswald, but I tested in a completely-full-situation.

startkde is started, but it cannot access X (no xclock, no xmessage, ...). So my proposal is the startkde should return a special value (say 5) to indicate it found there is no more space on /tmp. kdm would need to react on this value - does this find your placet, Ossi?

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

bah, so the error while writing the Xauth temp file still goes undetected and the x server later refuses to allow clients to connect. this needs to be fixed.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman) wrote :

Riddell just uploaded kdebase-workspace with a low disk space detection kded daemon.

This bug was fixed in the package kdebase-workspace - 4:4.2.0-0ubuntu5

---------------
kdebase-workspace (4:4.2.0-0ubuntu5) jaunty; urgency=low

  [ Scott Kitterman ]
  * Adjust Vcs-* for Kubuntu in debian/control
  * Update kde-window-manager conflicts/replaces kdebase-workspace-data
    versions to << 4:4.1.80 so upgrades from 4.1.4 work (LP: #324752)

  [ Jonathan Riddell ]
  * Add kubuntu_60_low_disk_space.diff from SuSE
  * Add kubuntu_61_suspend_buttons.diff, make suspect/hibernate
    options consistent text and icons with battery applet

 -- Jonathan Riddell <email address hidden> Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:10:44
+0000

Changed in kde4libs:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
In , L-lunak-5 (l-lunak-5) wrote :

*** Bug 191452 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message
In , Richih-kde (richih-kde) wrote :

Why is this severity wishlist? In the case I encountered in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191452 , the laptop was completely and utterly broken for my girlfriend. Thankfully, I was near so I could fix it for her.

Otherwise the laptop would have been, literally, useless to her.

If this happens while someone is abroad etc, this is a major issue!

PS: Warning at logout may help, but a warning within kdm, and a way to fix it, are needed.

Unless someone objects Real Soon, I will raise the severity to critical or major as per https://bugs.kde.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#bug_severity

Revision history for this message
In , Richih-kde (richih-kde) wrote :

As per discussion in #kde-devel, I am setting this to grave. It will probably not help fixing anything, but at least it's tagged correctly.

Revision history for this message
In , Richih-kde (richih-kde) wrote :

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/modules.html does not list anything which could help.

Revision history for this message
In , Richih-kde (richih-kde) wrote :

I sent email to upstream.

Revision history for this message
In , FiNeX (finex) wrote :

A related bug is this: bug #205630 .

If the disk is full the splash screen is drawn over the messagebox which indicate that the disk is full, so if the user wait for the login without a mouse click, he will never know that the disk is full because the message is hidden.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in kdelibs:
importance: Unknown → High
Revision history for this message
In , Nick Shaforostoff (shafff) wrote :

is 194806 a duplicate of this bug?

Revision history for this message
In , Oswald Buddenhagen (ossi-kde) wrote :

no, this report is currently about missing/incorrect error handling (see comment #20). the other one is about a workaround (quite a hack, in fact).

Revision history for this message
In , Nick Shaforostoff (shafff) wrote :

i'm thinking about extending disk monitor plasma applet to give a notification to user when the disk space is full

Revision history for this message
In , Richih-kde (richih-kde) wrote :

While that is helpful in general, this does not help if something else filled the disk or the user does not comprehend the warning.

Background processes, daemons or other users might have filled the disk.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in kdelibs:
status: In Progress → Unknown
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