[RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

krsmith28p · 2015-10-29 21:51:14

Hi,
My xsessions-error log in my home/<user> folder is grwing at an alarming rate, becomng 17Gb over a couple of days running.
<edited>
see next post for details - 200 line post seemed wrong....

Last edited by hhh (2018-07-16 16:51:51)

krsmith28p · 2015-10-29 21:58:13

Hi,
My xsessions-error log in my home/<user> folder is grwing at an alarming rate, becomng 17Gb over a couple of days running.
It is filling up with messages almost entirely consisting of
"No support for device type: power_supply" - repeated many times
I'm running a desk-top, with BL debian 8.2 - lshw output below - if that helps in any way.
I have googled some, - there are lots of suggestions to suppress xsession output, on ubuntu fora, which I will do if I can't work out another way to diagnose what is going on to prevent the errors from being spit out.

Can you start me off - point me to where I should be looking in the system to discover
What is causing the error
why it is repeatedly spit out
and how I can correct it?
Thanks

https://paste.debian.net/318797/

I initially included it in my post - but its 200 lines long, so trying again with a pastebin..

damo · 2015-10-29 22:01:41

Hi kr - just put your terminal output between [ code ] tags (as described in the Forum Rules )

If you want to stop the log file growing too big, then make a script with this code, and put it in your autostart (or run it at intervals):

#!/bin/bash
##
# Remove all but last 100 lines from  if .xsession-errors gets bigger than 100kb

if [ $(du -b ~/.xsession-errors | cut -f1) -gt 102400 ]; then
   KEEP_LINES="$(tail -n 100 ~/.xsession-errors)"
   echo "$KEEP_LINES" > ~/.xsession-errors
fi
exit 0

Last edited by damo (2015-10-29 22:06:08)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-10-29 22:08:11

How exactly did you install BunsenLabs?

EDIT: Please post a representative portion of the log file.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2015-10-29 22:09:03)

hhh · 2015-10-29 22:55:25

Yes, this is weird. I was pleasantly surprised that ~/.xsession-errors in Hydrogen RC1 is quite small considering we use some GTK3 apps but don't use a session manager.

What power manager and systray applet are you using? ~/.xsession-errors, if I understand it right, logs GUI errors, so the error is probably being produced by some software's interaction with your hardware and not the hardware itself.

If everything seems normal other than the huge file, I'd just delete the file and limit further files as damo suggested, or leave the file but delete all the content and then lock the file entirely with the following command...

: > .xsession-errors; sudo chattr +i .xsession-errors

hhh · 2015-10-29 23:11:38

Hmm, I found that lock command online over a year ago and it seemed to work well when I used it (no output was logged to ~/.xsession-errors) but 'man xsession' contains the following...

OUTPUT FILES
       $HOME/.xsession-errors
              is where standard output and standard error for Xsession script and all X client processes are directed by default.

       $TMPDIR/filename
              is where the X session error file is placed if $HOME/.xsession-errors cannot be opened.  For security reasons, the exact filename is  randomly  gener‐
              ated by tempfile(1).

So maybe the output was filling up $TMPDIR (/tmp ?) and I never noticed it because I don't have uptimes of over a week normally.

hhh · 2015-10-29 23:30:59

I looked into this a bit further. The error file location is defined in /etc/X11/xsession, line 61...

ERRFILE=$HOME/.xsession-errors

On a single-user system, you could comment it out and add another line...

ERRFILE=/dev/null

http://blog.dhampir.no/content/moving-o … ion-errors

There was also this thread at the #! forums (along with a hundred others all over the internet)...
http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=26679

tknomanzr · 2015-10-30 00:20:04

I get a lot of that power supply spam as well. I have just been running a truncate command via crontab to keep it in check.

#! /bin/sh
 truncate -s 1M /home/tknomanzr/.xsession-errors
exit 0

I believe it is conky tossing the errors in there, specifically the output of cpu temp. I haven't really gotten to the bottom of it other than that. I finally just settled with trimming the spam periodically as mocp throws a ton of spam in there as well if its server isn't running.

Last edited by tknomanzr (2015-10-30 00:20:50)

krsmith28p · 2015-10-30 00:39:25

Thanks for your quick replies. I'm in UK so typing from phone in bed not at computer any more - will follow up when I get back home on Saturday, but std install from iso downloaded a few days ago burned to disk manual install to ssd drive in comp then apt-get updated and upgrade. Will copy part of the file but most is repeated lines of the phrase in first post, a gazillion times. K

ohnonot · 2015-10-30 06:55:11

you never showed us the actual file, or that repeating line.
"No support for device type: power_supply" - aren't error messages like that usually prepended with the app's name that is producing them?

in any case, it's plain english and should tell you something. i mean, there's only so many parts of your system that can be worried about not finding a power supply (which i take to mean a battery, which makes sense when you say you installed to a desktop).

krsmith28p · 2015-10-30 10:08:13

Thanks for your replies. Unfortunately it really is that line without any other info. I figured it will be something to do with power systems so maybe acpi, but my ignorance of how it works is almost complete. I'm no sysadmin. K

Last edited by krsmith28p (2015-10-30 10:13:00)

tknomanzr · 2015-10-30 13:49:39

I was able to figure out the culprit. It is fdpowermon, which provides the battery info on tint2 panel. Killing it stopped the spam. If on a desktop and you don't need battery info then just comment out its entry in ~/.config/openbox/autostart.

damo · 2015-10-30 14:15:02

After a BL install on a desktop, there is a test in bl-welcome, and an offer to remove fdpowermon, iirc

tknomanzr · 2015-10-30 14:58:42

Good to know and somehow I must have missed it. I hated having to truncate .xsession-errors, given that it is usually useful when troubleshooting.

hhh · 2015-10-30 15:17:17

damo wrote:

After a BL install on a desktop, there is a test in bl-welcome, and an offer to remove fdpowermon, iirc

I don't think this made it into the RC1 ISOs, but I can't remember.

tknomanzr · 2015-10-30 15:19:39

Am I correct that the backported xfce-power-manager will end up in the next release? If so, then this will eventually become a moot point.

hhh · 2015-10-30 15:22:23

We've been discussing it, yes. jessie is an awesome release, but there are a few backports that the BL team are using consistently (compton and yad also come to mind).

damo · 2015-10-30 15:28:58

hhh wrote:

damo wrote:
After a BL install on a desktop, there is a test in bl-welcome, and an offer to remove fdpowermon, iirc
I don't think this made it into the RC1 ISOs, but I can't remember.

I just ran bl-welcome again, and get

 LAPTOP CHECK
  ------------
  
  This does not seem to be a laptop computer.
  You can remove the battery icon package fdpowermon.
Remove fdpowermon? [Y/n]

Then

  Successfully removed fdpowermon
  Commenting out fdpowermon from autostart file...

Niceone @johnraff

hhh · 2015-10-30 15:31:50

@damo, right, but did that version of bl-welcome make it into the ISOs? I mean that if it didn't, first boot will run bl-welcome and it will upgrade your system which will upgrade bl-welcome, but that part of the script won't be there unless you close bl-welcome and manually restart it, I think.

damo · 2015-10-30 15:37:53

^ Don't know

#1 2015-10-29 21:51:14

[RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#2 2015-10-29 21:58:13

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#3 2015-10-29 22:01:41

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#4 2015-10-29 22:08:11

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#5 2015-10-29 22:55:25

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#6 2015-10-29 23:11:38

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#7 2015-10-29 23:30:59

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#8 2015-10-30 00:20:04

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#9 2015-10-30 00:39:25

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#10 2015-10-30 06:55:11

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#11 2015-10-30 10:08:13

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#12 2015-10-30 13:49:39

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#13 2015-10-30 14:15:02

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#14 2015-10-30 14:58:42

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#15 2015-10-30 15:17:17

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#16 2015-10-30 15:19:39

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#17 2015-10-30 15:22:23

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#18 2015-10-30 15:28:58

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#19 2015-10-30 15:31:50

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

#20 2015-10-30 15:37:53

Re: [RESOLVED] xsession-errors file growing to very large size

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