Why is the .xsession-errors.old file so big?

Solution 1:

You could investigate the problem. Yes, I know it's a big file, but by throwing away data and letting the computer do the work, one could:

cat .xsession-errors* | \
    egrep -v '^$' | \
    sed -e 's/[0-9][0-9]\+/#NUM#/g'  | \
    sort | \
    uniq -c | \
    sort -rn | \
    tee counts.out | \
    less -XMersj3

Some messages (on my system without the problem) like:

     38 /usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/exhibits.py:#NUM#: Warning: Source ID #NUM# was not found when attempting to remove it
     38   GLib.source_remove(self._timeout)
     36 (nautilus:#NUM#): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_origin: assertion 'GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

happen more often (38, 38, 36 times) than others, and therefore deserve more investigation.

Others:

 1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ccp
 1 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: animation

Another thing to do is to look for deleted, but still open files:

 sudo lsof / | egrep 'PID|(deleted)'

Look for large SIZE/OFF values.

And look for large open files:

sudo lsof / | \
    awk '{if($7 > 1048576) print $7/1048576 "MB" " " $9 }' | \
    sort -n -u