Cannot find the files filling up my /var partition

Question

I'm running a python application that keeps crashing with sqlite3.OperationalError: database or disk is full, even though I have 300G in the partition where this is installed and from where I'm running it.

However, I noticed my /var partition is being filled and emptied while the application is running, and that it is 90% full. I saw this with System Monitor.

Turns out that when I see the partitions with Baobab, I see only 6G available of 50G in that partition. However...

$ sudo du -sh /var/
8.4G    /var/

I simply cannot see the files/directories saturating my /var directory,

Any ideas what could be happening?

You can use `df -i` to see the number of used inodes, which might be hurting you. This may or may not help — Barry Carter, Jul 14 '22 at 14:28
Maybe you have deleted files that are still open, check `lsof`. — pLumo, Jul 14 '22 at 14:30

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 14 '22 at 14:36

One way would be to install ncdu which is basically a combination of tree and ls and use it like below:

ncdu / or ncdu /var/ and then navigate with arrow keys to find out files or directories saturating your device.

This is not a well-known method but always works for me.

Cannot find the files filling up my /var partition

1 Answers1