Request for explanation of error message

[Bret Busby]

On 29/07/2019, Paul Smith <paul at mad-scientist.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 2019-07-28 at 19:31 +0000, Mike Marchywka wrote:
>>  I keep suggesting to find an entire loop to post- he posted last
>> few lines before but it may help to get an entire period or go back
>> to first logfile that seemed too big and start there too.
>> Although deleting it and catching the new one starting to fill
>> may be easier.
>
> Maybe.  In my experience the last lines in the log file are more
> relevant and useful than the first ones.  The first ones are usually
> just the normal startup information, etc.
>
> It's the last lines that tell you what's wrong now.
>
> Bret Busby wrote:
>> See the first message in the thread.
>
> That's the output from /var/log/syslog.  That may or may not be
> helpful.  What we need to see is the output from the file that is huge
> and keeps growing: /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log
>
> OK I finally found the message:
>
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2019-July/297830.html
>
> All this discussion of logrotate is not useful.  That's for a system
> that is behaving normally.  Your system is not behaving normally.
>
> Also the output in /var/log/syslog may or may not be relevant.  We
> should ignore it for now.
>
> The important output is what is seen in your ever-growing log file (the
> really big one).
>
> There are two things we need to do:
>
> First, get your system back to working.  The only way to do that is get
> rid of these huge log files and free up space on the root partition.
> I've discussed how to do that: remove the huge file, then log out and
> back in or, of that doesn't work, try rebooting.
>
> However that is only a temporary solution if your log file continues to
> grow like this: the disk will just fill up again.  The only way to get
> it to stop is to figure out why it's constantly getting those errors.
>
> I saw two messages in the output of the message above:
>   (EE) Could not write pid to lock file in /tmp/.tX0-lock
> and:
>   xf86EnableIOPorts: failed to set IOPL for I/O (Operation not permitted)
>
> The first one is simple enough.  It might have been because your disk
> is full, in which case it's a symptom not a cause.  What are the
> permissions on these files?  Run this command:
>
>   ls -ald /tmp /tmp/.tX0-lock
>
> and let us know the results.
>

"
bret at bret-MD34045-2521:~$ ls -ald /tmp /tmp/.tX0-lock
ls: cannot access '/tmp/.tX0-lock': No such file or directory
drwxrwxrwt 19 root root 4096 Jul 29 03:57 /tmp
bret at bret-MD34045-2521:~$
"

> The second error also appears to be a permissions problem: I googled
> for that message and came across a number of issues discussing starting
> the X server without root privileges.  However all of them seem to be
> from 5+ years ago.  Modern X servers don't require root privileges to
> start.
>
> Unfortunately I don't know much about lightdm (I guess you're using
> Xubuntu or something like that not standard Ubuntu which uses gdm) so I
> can't provide any direct advice.  Maybe your distro still requires root
> privileges to start X.
>
> If, after you reboot and your disk is no longer full, you watch the
> size of the /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log file and it continues to grow,
> please get the last 50 or so lines and send those along; it doesn't
> look like 20 or 30 lines will be enough.
>
>
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-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................