Can't create backup.

1st Official Post

    I have the same problem with error message "not enough free space" on trying to backup, except running from thumb drive on AMD64PC hardware.

    I can mount the drive and see the many .tar backups, and that there is not enough space. On trying to delete with admin privs, I do not have sufficient privs to do so. There is no option to delete old backups in libreELEC where the backup option is and backup does not delete its own previous backups.

    I'm using LUBUNTU 16.04 to access the usb drive. I'm sure that I need to logon to the thumbdrive with libreELEC credentials to delete the files, but I don't know how using PCMANFM. I'll see what I can do through SSH, although my SSH is rusty at best. Is it possible to change file permissions without the native login? Or to delete the older backups through a file manager with proper privs?

    Any guidance is appreciated, thank you in advance. You all have done a TREMENDOUS great job! Cheers!

    I'm using a USB2 thumbdrive for proof of concept and it runs surprisingly faster than I imagined once it is loaded into RAM. Startup and shutdown are the slow points, which are acceptable for me.

    Edited 2 times, last by davidrebar: Possible solution: I might have fixed my problem of not enough free space by change the permissions of backup .tar from "only owner" to "anyone." with drive mounted in filemanager PCMANFM, I navigate to the \root\storage or second partition on the thumb drive, which for me in PCMANFM file manager is /media/usb1 . Next I click on TOOLS in PCMANFM and select "Open current folder in terminal window" Now type "sudo su" and enter my admin password type "PCMANFM" to open it with admin privs in the backup folder Now select the second newest backup file SHIFT+click+select the oldest .tar backup file. The age of files can be determined by date of file creation or by file name that starts out with date and an incrementally bigger number. Right click on the group of selected backup .tar files and select properties. Select the permissions tab and change the Access Control "change content" from "only owner" to "anyone" and select OK. Now you are able to delete the older backups and should have room for newer backups. (September 25, 2017 at 9:39 PM).

    • Official Post

    I'm guessing at what's happening here .. but most archival tools work by assembling a copy of the data first and then they write that collection of data to the archive file. So if you have 2GB of original data on disk, the temp cache will also take 2GB and then you write the file (compressed) which is maybe 1.7GB, so you end up needing 3.7GB free on the disk to backup 2GB. Even if the final write is to a different disk (e.g. connected USB) you need 2GB on the original disk before it writes the 1.7GB to USB.

    So I don't know how much data and free space you have on the USB stick, but most people running from a USB stick have small(er) capacities. The solution would be to stop kodi (systemctl stop kodi) and then recurcively copy files that you want to "back up" to another USB device, e.g. cp -R /storage/.kodi /some/other/device as the copy operation isn't assembling a grand copy of all data first.

    Well Chewitt you might be on to something. I checked the the amount of free space left on the second partition of the libreELEC usb stick. After finally getting those old backups deleted, there seems to be a discrepancy between apps on how much free space is actually left. PCMANFM reports that there is plenty of room, which is accurate when you do the math. While GPARTED reports the old amount of space, prior to deleting old backups. I might try FSKing the partition, except that it seems to be working and recognized by different OSes, differently.

    Its my understanding that USB sticks are finicky when it comes to recognizing a second partition. For whatever reasons, any partition after the first is rarely recognized. So getting libreELEC to work as it does with multiple partitions on a usb drive is pretty AMAZING and a tribute to the knowledge and hardwork of the libreELEC team!