Forums | MacLife

I'm having the same problem.  My hard drive, each time I click on the "Mac HD" icon I have on my desktop, says a lesser value of free space.  WTF IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?!

edit: I'm shutting my computer down until I find an update for this exact problem.
-judomeerkat

Last edited by judomeerkat (2005-02-10 12:19 pm)

I'm now posting from my laptop.  The desktop is completely crippled at this point.

I connected to its HD via target disk mode.  I can't post the screenshot, but I'll describe it.

Getting info on Macintosh HD reads a capacity of 57.26 GB [accurate] with 164 KB available.  61,487,509,504 bytes filled, or 57.26 GB.

Opening Macintosh HD and calculating all sizes yields the following folder sizes:

16.36 GB
Zero KB
34 MB
3.79 GB
12 KB
4 KB
1.04 GB
12 KB
23.58 GB

Add up the numbers: 44.804 GB.  57.26-44.804 = 12.456 GB, approximately the correct amount of hard drive space I should have per my memory [about 4 GB available before this started, deleted 7.2 GB.  It was probably 5.2 GB rather than the 4 GB I'm remembering, making the proper amount of missing space].

So what the hell?

I don't have my Mac OS X discs to perform a clean install and I don't have enough space on any of my other drives to back up my data.  The desktop's staying off until I can figure out what's going on.

PowerMac G4 867MHz [Quicksilver]
896 MB RAM
60 GB + 60 GB+ 120 GB internal storage
GeForce 4Ti

Last edited by MB38 (2005-02-10 12:42 pm)

I'm going into work at 5:00 today.  I'll ask our Mac Geniuses what the hell is going on.  In the mean time, I'm going to call AppleCare and see if I can't weasel my way past the $50 fee.

Download WhatSize to check the size of OS X's invisible folders, of which there are many. This sounds like maybe the swapfile is out of control (/private/var/vm).

I talked to AppleCare.  He was not aware of any problems with 10.3.8 thus far as it's only about a day old.  He had not heard of this particular issue happening before with any OS update and seemed about as confused as I.  He wouldn't give me a direct recommendation as I didn't pay the $50, but he said that the track I was heading down [which was thinking about a clean install] was the right one and probably about as far as he could take me over the phone.  He also said to check with the Geniuses at work.

So when I go in at 5:00, I'll ask them for their opinions.  I'll post back here when I get a better handle on what's going on.

Jill, your computer is going to become unusable inside of the next few hours.  I recommend shutting it down and cutting your losses ASAP.

For those that are having the same problem: please post your machine specifications.  Perhaps it's limited to a certain G4, a certain hard drive, a certain logic board, a certain configuration, etc.

Hmm.

private/var/log/system.log  -  11.7GB
dev/fd/3  -  11.7GB

They are exactly the same size in bytes.  Must be the same file.  This is ridiculous.

All ok here.   I always recommend that my clients don't install any updates for a couple of weeks, but for me, I grab 'em when I can.   I'm wondering if any 3rd party apps are causing the problems.   Heh, I even backed up after I installed the update!

I like living on the edge!

Actually, my battery went from 25% to dead without warning me, but that's been playing me up recently as it's been cold out.   I'll reset the power management later and expect that that will help.

Wow, I left an hour ago to go to lunch and I expected to not have any replies at this forum.  And now I know how to fix the problem.  I (heart) MAF. 

That really sounds like a commercial, doesn't it?  I need a picture of a 1950s era kid giving a thumbs up.  That would make this post complete.

-judomeerkat

Kirk wrote:

good advice

Good point.   I'd run all daily/weekly/tasks and repaired permissions.   Not because of the update, it was just coincidence.   Also, wasn't there something about third party 'hacks'?   Ah, yes...

You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. (This does not apply to normal application software installation.)

Kirk wrote:

I didn't have any problems on my set-up (G5/2GHzDP).  While its certainly possible there's something about your configurations that's causing the updater to not function right, its more likely simple housekeeping.

Before running any system updater or installing any application always always make sure your hard drive has no corruption.  Do this by booting from your Panther installation disk number one.  When the installation splash screen comes up, ignore it and select 'Disk Utility' from the 'File' pull down menu.  Once 'Disk Utility' has booted select (click once) on  your hard drive in the menu bar along the left edge.  Now click on 'repair disk' in the lower right.  Rerun 'repair disk until no errors are found. Now click on 'repair permissions'.  Rerun 'repair permissions' until no errors are found.  Now reboot from your hard drive and install system updates or applications.

That won't save you if you've got some piece of software running that's generating 3871209364123618236418234619283461829364 error messages that get written to your system logs.

MB38 wrote:

Hmm.
private/var/log/system.log  -  11.7GB

skorche's thread here:
http://www.macaddict.com/forums/topic/52172

points to here:
http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8419

which notes

Not sure if this was a freak fluke on my system but it seems the iShockXDriver doesn't quite get along with 10.3.8. It'll use 99% CPU resources while flooding the system log with errors until your startup drive is full. Fun stuff! 

I had less than 20MB free space left and a 7.8GB log file before I figured out what the hell was going on.
So, if you've got the iShock driver installed I'd suggest removing it from your startup items or altogether (it's in "./Library/Application Support/"). The affected log file is: "./private/var/log/system.log".

Someone else says,

OK, I can confirm this aswell. It's crazy. I guess Macally will not update this driver, ever, but I'll send an email letting them know about this problem.

My system.log was 10 GB.

Food for thought.

All iShock files deleted.