Score:0

timeshift: not enough disk space error

in flag

I'm using timeshift from repository, Xubuntu 20.04. I'm trying to back up a small system (25 GB) to a 1TB disk that has 515GB free, mounted on /dev/sde3 as /archiv. sde3 is the only partition on this disk and it has a top-level folder named /timeshift, which is empty. There are two other disks in the system but they're not mounted (as shown by mount).

df /archiv/timeshift

Filesystem     1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sde3      960380520 457661428 454574940  51% /archiv

When I start timeshift, reading my mind, it selects sde3 in Settings>Location, which is what I want. It creates its own mount point for sde3 (not unmounting /archiv),

/dev/sde3 on /run/timeshift/backup type ext4 (rw,relatime)

and gives me the error message

Not enough disk space (<2.6TB)

and refuses to do anything further. What gives? There seem to be a number of people having a similar problem, but I don't find any answers.

The Cool Man avatar
cn flag
How much space does the partition have?
in flag
Sorry the formatting gets lost. This is >df in a shell. As you would see if it didn't, the backup disk has about 960GB, of which 455GB are free (or 515GB, depending on what kind of GB we're talking about). In any case, far more than the source disk, which is a 60GB SSD, could supply for backup.
PonJar avatar
in flag
I don’t think you get any choice about file path for the TimeShift snapshots. It will always use /timeshift on the selected device. I came across a similar issue with space once. See this issue: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/issues/589 It’s possible for mount points to create an infinite loop of files to backup. Check all mounts before running and unmount anything you don’t need
PonJar avatar
in flag
The permanent fix is to exclude the problem mount/loop below the relevant point in the filesystem
in flag
I seem to have fixed the problem by simply deleting (actually, renaming) /etc/timeshift.json. If any developers are reading this, here are the relevant diff lines:
in flag
$ diff /etc/timeshift.json /etc/timeshiftSVD.json < "snapshot_size" : "8017109783", < "snapshot_count" : "227368", --- > "snapshot_size" : "2623341881828", > "snapshot_count" : "4459281", 24,25c24,26 < "/root/**", < "/home/bruceocz/**" --- > "/boot/efi/***", > "/home/bruceocz/**", > "/root/**"
in flag
Sorry about the formatting. diff seems to be inserting something I don't see when I print the files with cat, namely the string 24,25c24,26. If I do cat /etc/timeshiftSVD.json | grep 25c24 I don't see anything. Same for /etc/timeshift.json, Really weird! I do wish someone would add the mini-Markdown keyword for "literal" or whatever one needs to retain formatting. I'm not going to spend an hour reading the manual.
in flag
Sorry, false alarm -- didn't realize that diff is showing changed line numbers ( 24,25c24,26). So I have no idea why the sizes were being computed incorrectly with the older timeshift.json file.
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