Odd Computer Glitch

[hrj]

Went to use my desktop machine this evening and found it was claiming issues with lack of available memory ... and sure enough, it seemed to think that it only had a couple hundred megabytes left out of a 200 GB hard disk. Well, hmm. Assuming that maybe the memory tie-up was real, I started working through the layers of folders looking for excess usage and found, deep in the library files, one "console log" that claimed to take up about 140 gigs of memory. Couldn't view it in text edit so I just deleted it and -- voila -- my memory is all back available. But it would be interesting to know what sort of inappropriate process ended up with that result. My paranoia always suggests there might be some worm at work, but based on the contents of the other console log files, it looks like it could simply have been some sort of endlessly looping process that kept writing messages to the log. Odd. Very odd. (But I'm feeling inordinately proud of having troubleshot and solved the immediate problem myself.)

In separate news, my painting contractor has finally given the house a detailed once-over to identify what sorts of pre-painting repairs will be necessary and has presented me with an estimate. I'd told myself that I'd be content if the cost was less than twice what we paid to repaint the house last time (back 15+ years ago) and it looks like I've met that goal. Now to talk to my bank about an equity line of credit to pay for the thing (and hope that the current mortgage industry panic doesn't screw me over). Oh, and put together a photoshop template to play with colors. Looks like the repainting will get done this summer as planned. Yay me.

Comments

[etfb.livejournal.com]

Take a look at the freeware version of SpaceMonger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceMonger), if you're using Windows. It gives you a map of your whole disk usage and tells you what's taking up all the space. An excellent piece of software and blindingly fast.

I'd love to know what that "console log" file was. Do you remember the file name? Nothing should accumulate 140Gb of text; it's beyond weird.

[gunnora.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest also running through the tedious but worthwhile protocol at Major Geek to ensure you don't have some kind of malware somewhere on your system.

I'd also consider having it defrag also after such an incident, just to make sure storage is contiguous and i/o is reasonably fast.

Good hunting to find the problem file!

geek stuff

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

Couldn't view it in text edit...

From which I conclude that you're on a Macintosh? If so, it's really a Unix machine under the veneer of Macness, and all the standard Unix utilities are available for you to use (mostly from the Terminal window).

I don't remember whether you have a Unix background. If not, the command I would use here is named "tail": it shows you the last however-many (12 by default) lines of any text file, even a text file 140GB long.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

(And depending on the sort of log-file, the most recent lines might instead be at the top, which would, of course be accessed using the "head" command.)

Hope you wrote down or remember the name/location of that file -- if it got that big once, it might do so again. Not a mac-user, but it could also be possible that it is logging either some innocent task that happens a lot, or some non-innocent task -- for example an attempted break-in. Perhaps that is a file that could/should be monitored -- or perhaps there's a flag (*somewhere*) to turn off the monitoring that is going to that log file if it's not something you care about.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

No Windows -- Apple all the way. But a disk usage map would have saved me some annoyances. The console log seems to be an internal message log for various system activities -- I found a discussion mentioned that it can be useful for various troubleshooting issues.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm planning to start by running my security scanner on it this evening (didn't have time to do it last night). One of the features of the current Mac operating system is that it runs an automatic defrag at various cues, such as software installation and upgrading. (At least, that's what it tells me it's doing.)

Re: geek stuff

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Well, the file is erased now. (I pretty much had to just get rid of it to be able to do anything on the machine, so I didn't see the value in keeping it around for necropsy.) I've occasionally done things on in UNIX but mostly tourist phrase-book stuff -- I'm not in the least fluent in it.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Hope you wrote down or remember the name/location of that file -- if it got that big once, it might do so again.

Yeah -- I keep a little log of "fixes" for weird shit. (Like the one that sometimes happens if I've had the system turned off for a while where I have to unplug everything and then replug it again before rebooting.)

Every once in a while while the machine is supposed to be sleeping, it'll start spinning its wheels and refuse to wake up, which suggests to me some sort of internal looping is going on -- so it could be logging something of that sort. I'm going to poke around in the other (much smaller) console log files to see if I can learn what sorts of actions get logged there. I think one of the things I'm seeing is people trying to tap into my wireless network (the message seems to indicate that they're failing due to the password protection ... funny thing, that). I have a number of security protections in place -- password for the wireless, password for accessing a networked machine, plus standard firewall protections on the network. I don't assume that they're failsafe, but at least they're a significant hurdle.

[aastg.livejournal.com]

...and hope that the current mortgage industry panic doesn't screw me over...

Based on what you've told me about your situation, you shouldn't have little, if any, trouble getting an equity line. The thing to watch for is the rate. Most of the banks are dying to do equity lines for stable, established homeowners like yourself, so you should be able to get an equity with few or no fees.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Thanks -- I love getting reality-checks from my personal Subject Matter Experts!

[hudebnik.livejournal.com]

Hope you wrote down or remember the name/location of that file -- if it got that big once, it might do so again.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. If the file was in fact created by something on your system infinite-looping (or another system attacking it in a loop), the file is probably pretty big again already.