I got a pop up notification saying "no disk space" which I clicked on to investigate. On investigation there were 179gb of Timeshift backups so I thought I should deal with this immediately as the SSD is only 250gb. I tried logging into Timeshift to delete most of the 179gb of backups and got the message "Timeshift is running doing a backup try again again in a few minutes". I watched a vid and tried again and got the same message, this continued for 5 hours, watch vid then try to login to Timeshift. I had enough of this so decided to reboot the laptop (ASUS) before I did the reboot I decided to launch a browser to do a quick task however Chromium refused to launch, this occurred many times. I then attempted to launch a different browser which I had been using to watch vids throughout the 5 hours while attempting to login to Timeshift, it now wouldn't launch either. I tried another browser same story so I shut down the laptop. When I tried to reboot the laptop I got the ASUS splashscreen along with the Zorin animation then nothing, it did not proceed to the login screen. Many startups have given the same result ... SO does anyone have any ideas about what's going on or a fix suggestion? I suspect the SSD may be completely full going on the 179 gb of Timeshift backups. At the beginning of the year I recall getting a similar Timeshift message which I dealt with by deleting most of the backup snapshots and changing the Timeshift schedule to less frequency snapshot backups.
Someone else had a similar issue here: Can I get my files back?
Yes it does seem to be a closely related issue and the solution used had occurred to me as a way of getting into the pc to investigate the issue.
Just now after 30-40 minutes of black screen a "message" has appeared which is
"[ 2392.869191] systemd-journald[423]: Failed to create new system journal: No space left on device"
Did you boot with a Zorin boot stick and then delete some of the old snapshots to get free space?
Not yet, I plan on doing this in the morning with a clear head and not half asleep.
I just tried to boot the laptop and after the ASUS splashscreen and the Zorin animation I got no login screen but instead got a bunch of error messages about Virtualbox which is installed however I never used it or opened the app, at the end of these virtualbox errors (maybe 25) there are 2 final entries (for now) that say
[FAILED] Failed to start. Wait until snapd is fully seeded.
[FAILED] Fail to start snap daemon
The 2 [FAILED] are in bright red font
If the hard drive is completely full, you often can't access the desktop anymore. The only solution is to free up some space beforehand.
It is almost certain the problem is full SSD so if I boot the pc with a live disk can I move photos and videos etc to an external drive for a quick solution to free up space to enable login to delete the Timeshift snapshots?
Yes, that is possible. You can also take a look at your timeshift snapshots from the live session and delete them.I don't know where you have saved them, but try it at /home/YOURUSERNAME/timeshift after selecting your internal drive at "other places".
If you don't find them, you could take a look at disk usage analyzer and select your drive there.
I believe Timeshift has a setting that restricts the number of saved snapshots, as well.
In average practical use, three snapshots should be more than enough.
The time shift folder is in other location zorin os the timeshift folder is usally there open it then look in the snapshot folder
when logged in open timeshift then hit the wizard till you get to this page
checkmark the top box monthly keep 2 that will only keep 2 snapshots and not fill up the drive then the finish at bottom
I tend to just delete the one there and make a new one every 2 weeks to save space. not sure if the monthly works proper at deleting over 2
I just change daily from 5 to 3. What happens when I run it, the first snapshot seems to be always present after initial install of OS (I am referring to PCLOS Debian as it is included at point of OS install), then only additional 2 or three are present each day. It does not keep each of the daily snapshots (from my personal experience).
OK here is where I'm at ...
- I download Z 17.3 and flash usb drive
- I boot off usb
- I go to files and select "other locations"
- I select "256 GB Volume ... 250.4 GB available"
- Upon opening 256GB Vol there are files so I select "timeshift" folder
- folders inside are Snapshots, snapshots-boot(empty file), snapshots-daily(empty file, snapshots-monthly, snapshot-on demand(empty file), snapshots weekly ...
- The files in timeshift are read only as far as i can determine
... So then I tried Forpil's other suggestion "Disk usage analyzer"
- Open Disk analyzer
- select 256 GB Volume which says "16.8 MB Available" (so SSD is full)
- hovering over inner red band the pop up says "Timeshift 131.7 GB"
- hovering over 2nd inner red band pop up says "snapshots 131.7 GB"
... I'm at a loss as to how to proceed further?
Can you delete the timeshift snapshots when you enter admin:// in the topbar for the path in nautilus (in live session) and then navigate to the directory you want, e.g. other places > select your internal drive with Zorin > home > your username > timeshift.
The admin command elevates you to root.
I was unsure what Nautilus is, I did a web search and it is the File Manager app, yes? I tried entering "admin://" in the search bar of the file manager and got no result. Or do you mean something else?
Hi, perhaps the solution with 4 votes here gives a clearer picture, you need to add the path after admin:
Additionally, this is why I keep a copy of a distro that can run in live mode that has timeshift as part of the OS, Linux Mint:
Yes, nautilus is the default file manager of Zorin Core.
Click on the path field or press ctrl+l, then type admin:// and press enter. You are prompted for the password, and then nautilus is opened with root rights in root directory. I made a mistake before. You need to go to other places to select your internal drive and then there go to the home folder.
You have entered it in the search field. That does not work. Leave the search (close nautilus and open it again, and enter it in the top bar in the long field where usually is shown the path. When you open nautilus, you see "personal folder" or "home folder" there at the top middle of the window (I am not sure what the english name is). Click there.
Don't click on the magnifying glass icon.
I tried this several times and it turns into a search each time?