[Dovek916]

Hey All,

College has pulled me away from AN, but hopefully I'm back. Enough of the pleasantries, down to business. For the past few weeks now, my new base mbp that I got in August has been declining in harddrive space. From the indexing that I have done, it seems as though there are about 20 gb of stuff on the computer, which makes sense. Yet the computer says that the whole 150 gb harddrive is used, which is driving me crazy.

The slightly urgent part of this is now I am unable to run more than 3 or so applications before it tells me to force quit. I ran disc utility and it says that everything with the harddrive is fine.

Basically, AHHHHHHHH, what is wrong? I have some songs and photos and apps, but nothing large. Is there a way to tell if my computer is going batty? Is it possible fix this, aka, with code or a reset?

Thank you for all your guys help, I really appreciate it.

-Drew

[FFL]

Check Console for a runaway log - this is often the cause of such behavior.

[Brad]

See also: Disk Inventory X.

Universal Binary (and compatible with 10.6) version here: http://www.derlien.com/dixforum/viewtopic.php?t=62

[alcimedes]

Originally Posted by FFL Check Console for a runaway log - this is often the cause of such behavior.

QFT. There is likely a log file that's causing the problem. Does it persist after a reboot?

[billybobsky]

runaway log....

thirty years ago, in the forests of saskatchewan this would have meant something very different.

also disk inventory is rock star awesome.

wouldn't a log show up on the index though?

[Chinney]

How can you actually tell if it is a runaway log? And what is the cure? A simple reboot? Any prevention steps?

I think that I had this over the past couple of weeks, and it seems to have been cured by a reboot - but I am still confused about how it happened and leery of it happening again. It actually screwed up something I was working on, since it used up every single byte and I was not able to save.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by Chinney How can you actually tell if it is a runaway log? And what is the cure? A simple reboot? Any prevention steps? I think that I had this over the past couple of weeks, and it seems to have been cured by a reboot - but I am still confused about how it happened and leery of it happening again. It actually screwed up something I was working on, since it used up every single byte and I was not able to save.

Use Disk Inventory X (in Brad's post above). It will let you view files on your drive graphically. Each file is a square. Really big squares are really big files. If you find a big square that's a log file, delete that file.

[rampancy]

Some apps (FTP apps, etc.) have the option of letting you control the extent to which they write to a crash log or an error log (e.g. verbose vs. only on special events), especially if you like to play with beta builds of software. If you've downloaded any software betas you might want to check their preferences for any option to reduce or turn off logging.

[Chinney]

Thanks. I keep on eye on it with that in mind.

[drewprops]

Hmmm.
I have two Entourage files for a total of 14.5GB.
Is that a lot??



...

[alcimedes]

Yes. You email yourself a lot of porn? (rebuild your files in Entourage) Used to be hold down apple key on launch, not sure if that still works.

[FFL]

Originally Posted by drewprops Hmmm. I have two Entourage files for a total of 14.5GB. Is that a lot?? ...

Ummm.... HELL yes it is. Sounds like too many big attachments.

Sort in Entourage by size and look for some large messages to delete. If you find attachments you want to keep, save them to a folder somewhere and then delete the message.