Another information technology problem in the world order. This time the LBRY application installed on my Linux debian derivation distribution based computer filled up my hard drive. LBRY which is an open source software application that uses block chain technology saves large files in a certain directory.
If you browse to this location on your Linux based computer, you will notice quite a few unknown file type files. You will want to replace USER with your username that you log into.
/home/USER/.local/share/lbry/lbrynet/blobfiles/
These blob files, which is an approps name for them, can be quite large. Most of these unknown file type files were two megabytes each in size. I think this directory had over twenty thousand files in which a great majority were unknown file types.
These files slowly filled up my computer hard drive. I used a tool called disk usage analyzer on MX Linux, which was installed by default, to troubleshoot. I was able to narrow down the offending folder so to speak using this tool.
Disk usage analyzer scans your entire file system in MX Linux and displays how much disk space each folder is occupying. I then browsed to the blobfiles folder in the previous real example and quickly noticed thousands of unknown file types that were two megabytes each in size. I started deleting hundreds of these files at a time and then compared my disk usage.
I used the linux df command. In a command line terminal window you can type this command.
df -k
This df command will quickly display in percentage how much free disk space you have. My hard drive was literally full, as I started receiving hard disk space errors when trying to just open applications in MX Linux. Quite literally the hard disk was displaying one hundred percent full when using the df -k command.
I was able to reduce this percentage by a few percent by deleting these unknown blob files. LBRY application was the culprit and was obviously filling up my hard disk space. Can you imagine deleting over twenty thousand files with file explorer?
Technically, you could press your ctrl and a keys simultaneously. This will select all files in the current folder.
ctrl a
However, let me warn you about some other text files in this folder, that you may not want to delete. There are some plain text documents that are not nearly as large as the unknown file types. These plain text document files actually store your login credentials for your LBRY account.
If you delete these plain text documents, you will no longer be able to sign into your LBRY account in the LBRY desktop application. You will then have to enter in your username or email address and your password. However, you will receive an activation email.
That activation email will possess a uniform resource locator hyper link that you will need to open up, in order to allow you to log into your LBRY account, with the LBRY desktop application. You can instead move all those plain text document files to another location. Press ctrl a.
The select delete. Now wait for your computer to freeze up, I mean wait for all those files to become deleted. What you can do instead is to enter in one command once your in that blobfiles directory to delete all those unknown file type files that are occupying your hard drive.
Type cd and then the full directory path where those blobfiles are located on your hard drive.
cd /home/USER/.local/share/lbry/lbrynet/blobfiles/
Now you want to move or copy those plain text documents to a different folder location. Then type the rm command with the following variable, -fr and the star key *. This will command MX Linux, pun intended, to remove all files in this directory.
rm -fr *
You must have root privileges in order to enter in this command. You can use sudo instead, which will ask you for your root password, initiate the command, then return back to your non root account.
sudo rm -fr *
You may want to become more familiar with the rm command, which can have devastating results if used incorrectly. Once I entered in that rm -fr * command, all twenty thousand plus files were deleted. It may take the MX Linux operating system a few seconds to remove all those files.
You will eventually see your command prompt again. Removing large number of files via the command line in a terminal window is more efficient to me. Now all you have to do is periodically remove those unknown file type files that are quite large.
Also, you could script those commands and create a cron job, which would automate that process.
LBRY Application Fills up Hard Drive Fix - Video Transcript
00:02
wow
00:04
library
00:06
that open source
00:08
file sharing well it's a video
00:11
platform
00:16
my second video about libri now this
00:19
problem caused by libri
00:22
is the fact that
00:25
these files and i will show you
00:27
filled up my entire hard disk i don't
00:29
have that big of a disk
00:31
hard drive it's only 80 gigs oh i know
00:33
you're going to start laughing no no no
00:35
i keep my important data on
00:38
two other hard drives that are mounted
00:39
inside this computer i
00:42
do not keep them that much important
00:44
data on the main
00:45
disk with the operating system just in
00:47
case it ever that's a tip
00:49
here's a tip
00:51
for
00:51
numerous reasons easier backup maybe
00:55
in case
00:57
the disk drive that you're still using
01:00
or that for the operating system
01:02
that may fail
01:03
and what you can do is you can keep your
01:06
important data on separate hard disks
01:09
even if it's a usb flash drive universal
01:11
serial bus so there is a gold tip
01:13
also because your main hard drive gets a
01:17
lot of read and writes because it's a
01:19
operating system that is functioning
01:21
anyways so my computer
01:24
has
01:25
mx linux which is a
01:27
debian
01:29
derivation distribution
01:32
and i installed the library application
01:35
which is part of odyssey which is a
01:38
video network
01:40
and they have a desktop client for links
01:42
now this is only for linux i'm not sure
01:44
about windows i'm not sure if the
01:46
windows version has the exact same file
01:48
structure it may or may not
01:51
alright so let me show you i used
01:53
a tool called disk usage analyzer it
01:57
comes as part of the default
02:00
tools accessories that are installed on
02:03
mx linux
02:04
and basically all it does is it just it
02:07
when you first open it it takes a while
02:09
but it scans your entire hard disk and
02:12
it tells you how much each
02:15
what folder
02:16
and subfolders and it just gives you
02:19
details about the amount of disk space
02:22
being used hence the term the word you
02:25
know well not the word the term disk
02:28
usage analyzer
02:30
so that's what tipped me off
02:31
[Laughter]
02:33
because
02:34
the user excuse me the home folder was a
02:38
big
02:39
red
02:40
bright red
02:41
it wasn't part you know how it's part
02:44
green
02:45
one bar of green it was all
02:48
the entire little graphic was red
02:52
and so i just clicked on the arrow and i
02:54
just kept going down each subdirectory
02:57
until i found the
02:59
perpetrator
03:01
and the perpetrator was and let me make
03:03
sure that i screen capture this okay
03:06
the perpetrator was
03:08
in slash home and then user that's my
03:12
login
03:13
it will depend on your login if you're
03:15
using linux
03:16
it will depend on your login name if
03:19
it's government sucks it'll be
03:21
home government sucks and then dot local
03:26
the dot
03:27
connotates
03:29
that that folder is hidden if you cannot
03:32
see dot local llcl it could be because
03:38
the file manager you don't have hidden
03:40
files enabled
03:43
then you go to share then you go to
03:46
library lbry then you go to librinet
03:49
lbry net
03:51
and then blob files that's an apropos
03:53
title they're blobs all right
03:57
so browse to that directory then what i
04:00
noticed that there were a lot of these
04:02
files
04:03
with that were two megabyte size
04:07
you know what i'm saying i was perplexed
04:09
i was like what are these files and if
04:11
you notice these files they do not have
04:13
an extension
04:15
you know what i'm saying
04:17
and you can try to open these up
04:19
and
04:20
now
04:21
library
04:22
uses
04:24
block
04:24
chain technology i'm not sure if these
04:27
are data files i watch a lot of videos
04:30
using libri
04:31
i don't know if that those are some kind
04:33
of cache files to help watching videos
04:38
faster or
04:40
that i'm not exactly sure it is a
04:42
blockchain they do recommend that you
04:44
keep your
04:45
library
04:46
client software opened
04:51
because they
04:53
because they claim it can help the
04:54
network
04:55
i'm not i'm kind of not liking that
04:58
sound of that but whatever
05:00
so i'm not 100 sure i know that a lot of
05:03
them are two megabytes each well i think
05:05
i had over two
05:06
i'm not making this up i had over
05:08
20 000 of these files and most of them
05:12
were two megabytes each so
05:14
so it used a lot of disk space
05:17
now some of them say that they are a
05:19
type matlab some of them this one is a
05:22
pgp but if you sort by type
05:25
they
05:27
also were unknown but none of them have
05:30
an extension i don't think
05:34
here we can go back now here's caveat
05:36
emptor these files that are plain text
05:39
documents
05:40
they're not very large and also they
05:43
include your account information
05:45
so as a caveat do not delete them
05:48
otherwise you'll have to
05:50
when you try to open up libre
05:53
to view videos
05:56
you will be prompted to enter in your
05:58
username again your password credential
06:01
and then you will be sent an email to
06:03
your email account that you're using for
06:05
your library account and then you're
06:07
gonna have to open up or click on the
06:09
link
06:10
in that email and then it'll allow you
06:12
to log in again with your library so it
06:15
it deletes all your account data as far
06:17
as login i'm not sure if it has your
06:19
wallet
06:20
although here is a lecture when it comes
06:22
to computers including the blockchain
06:25
including wallets
06:26
backup
06:28
backup
06:29
backup
06:30
i can't tell you how many times as a
06:33
real world computer technician
06:36
people
06:38
do not back up their day i don't give a
06:40
what devices using android iphone
06:44
a click ovision from 1980 you know what
06:47
i'm saying i mean
06:48
i don't care if it's a computer tablet
06:50
dumb device i mean smartphone
06:53
always back up your important data
06:55
because you just don't know
06:58
you don't know always back up your
07:00
blockchain wallet
07:02
because
07:04
most of those blockchain wallets
07:07
if you do not know the what is it the
07:11
special
07:13
answer or whatever which is just usually
07:15
a bunch of words that you select
07:17
you're
07:19
here i'm saying all right
07:22
so
07:23
say you might want to copy these plain
07:25
text documents you might want to move
07:27
them
07:28
but don't delete them because i just
07:30
remember that now these two megabyte
07:33
files the matlab delete those
07:36
anything plain text leave them the other
07:38
ones the pgb keys delete delete delete
07:41
that's what fixed my issue i found my
07:43
culprit it was the liberty
07:45
application on linux that filled up my
07:48
hard disk eventually because i just kind
07:50
of put it off i i knew this like six
07:52
months ago and then i just yeah i was
07:54
like yeah
07:56
and then i started getting warnings
07:58
[Laughter]
08:00
when i tried to open up some programs
08:03
out of memory i'm like wait a minute
08:05
and then i just use the disk analyzer
08:07
and bam i found the culprit
08:09
so what you can do now i had over 20 000
08:12
files i'll give you a quick tip towards
08:13
the end about that but for now if you
08:15
don't have that many files
08:17
it and i will have the same problem if i
08:20
don't clean these up and i'm not too
08:22
happy about that with libre i haven't
08:24
really investigated i'm going to try to
08:25
find out what these files are for
08:27
and
08:29
i'm not you know what i'm saying
08:33
so you just go ahead and select a bunch
08:35
of them
08:37
you
08:38
know well
08:46
you just go ahead and select a bunch of
08:47
them and then move either delete them or
08:50
move them to the trash
08:51
however
08:52
you know what i'm saying that's all you
08:54
have to do just delete them all
08:56
and that's what fixed my issue what i
08:58
did is i tested
09:00
the disk analyzer tool excellent because
09:02
it
09:03
told me exactly what folder
09:06
occupied like what was it 60 gigabytes
09:09
or 80 whatever the i know you're
09:11
laughing no no
09:13
this is a old hard drive however it
09:17
still functions fine and i keep my
09:20
operating system the the hard drive that
09:23
i keep my operating system files on i
09:25
keep it to a minimum and the programs i
09:27
don't load that much software unless i
09:30
try to keep that to a minimum and i try
09:32
to
09:33
you know
09:35
i have other hard drives that are
09:37
separate physical hard drives that have
09:38
my important data that's a another tip
09:41
that could be a gold tip here's a gold
09:42
tip
09:43
i'm not going to argue i'm not going to
09:44
discuss about the read writes but
09:47
obviously the hard drive that has your
09:49
operating system is going to have
09:51
pop
09:53
more likely
09:54
more reading rights
09:57
unless you're a video creator and unless
09:59
you process
10:01
you you create you know like
10:03
documentaries
10:05
and you have a huge video file open on a
10:07
separate hard disk and you're out and
10:10
you're continually working on that
10:12
generally the hard disk that has your
10:14
operating system is going to be the one
10:16
that's used the most and it's going to
10:17
have the most read and writes that's
10:19
just how it is
10:20
so that's a goal potential goal tip
10:23
keep your
10:24
important data on separate physical hard
10:27
disks just just in case
10:30
the hard disk that has your operating
10:31
system
10:32
kicks a bucket because of reading right
10:35
and it's used more and blah blah that
10:38
even if it weren't that that is a
10:40
potential tip you know i'm saying just
10:42
in case you just never know
10:44
i like to separate my important data
10:46
from my the operating system files
10:50
and programs
10:51
okay so that's what fixed my issue i
10:54
tested i deleted a bunch of these i had
10:56
over twenty thousand
11:00
and i was a bit pissed off i was like
11:03
you got to be kidding me
11:05
anyways so i deleted i don't know a
11:07
thousand whatever and then i noticed
11:09
that
11:10
it freed up a bunch of space and i knew
11:13
the culprit right there so that's that's
11:14
the solution now as a tip before i run
11:18
i don't know if i'm going to demonstrate
11:20
i guess i could but let me
11:22
transition you're going to see what well
11:24
i'm at the 11 minute mark really quickly
11:27
now if you're in my oops
11:30
you're going to see a blank window
11:33
now if you were in my
11:35
predicament
11:38
can you imagine using file
11:40
explorer now you could you could
11:43
potentially do a control a yes
11:45
move the text document files that i
11:48
warned you about move them out of that
11:50
directory
11:51
and then
11:52
click control a which which selects all
11:56
and then click control c
11:59
well do you realize how long that would
12:01
take
12:03
holy f and your computer might freeze up
12:06
because that's a lot that's a lot of
12:08
files so here's what you could do
12:12
is what you're gonna do is you're gonna
12:14
browse to that
12:15
directory i should have
12:18
i do not script my videos but i should
12:19
have kind of had this set up but it's
12:22
all good
12:23
this is freeze i freestyle all my videos
12:25
actually so this is a big deal so what
12:27
you can do is you can just
12:30
here
12:31
yeah i think i can screen capture this
12:33
now oh i i was all right just want to
12:35
make sure
12:36
so you just copy and paste that
12:38
directory to make it
12:40
quicker and you just type in cd in a
12:44
terminal window this is where
12:46
learning command line can be very very
12:49
very productive and it can save you a
12:51
lot of time so now i'm in that folder
12:53
and i
12:54
type in ls minus al that'll list you
12:57
notice all these files and let me max
12:59
maximize there it's the same folder they
13:02
don't have an extension
13:04
i'm assuming they're blockchain files
13:06
but you notice the bit count they're
13:08
quite large
13:09
so now be very very careful i already
13:12
warned you and then i'm just i'm warning
13:14
you about the rm command in linux you do
13:17
not type in delete or you type in rm
13:21
which stands for remove so you would
13:23
type in an rm
13:26
and then however since these files don't
13:28
have an extension it makes a little bit
13:30
more difficult
13:31
what i'm going to do is i'm going to
13:32
show you how to remove all those
13:34
files at once using one command the
13:37
caveat mtor you
13:39
buy or beware you don't know what you're
13:41
doing and you try this with some other
13:44
data
13:45
i'm not responsible for you deleting
13:47
your operating system files i mean
13:51
anyways i digress all right
13:54
you would do you would perform a star
13:58
or carrot but that's a star actually
14:01
star dot
14:02
and then
14:04
it doesn't have an extension however
14:06
what you could do is you could do you
14:08
could perform
14:10
here you know what
14:12
let me transition and or you'll just see
14:15
my terminal now i'm doing this
14:17
freestyling what i'm going to do is i'm
14:18
going to sort it by
14:21
file type i got to run the videos
14:23
getting too long already
14:25
so
14:26
type and let me see
14:29
there's not that many plain text
14:32
okay so
14:36
i don't want to have to relog in again
14:40
how many of them are there
14:43
oh
14:48
oh come on there's a lot more than i
14:50
thought
14:54
anyways i'm not gonna i'm not gonna do
14:55
it then
14:57
okay i'm not going to hit enter but what
14:59
you can do is you can do a remove
15:03
asterisk
15:04
or remove
15:06
minus fr
15:08
asterisk
15:09
what that tells
15:12
linux to perform is to remove everything
15:14
in that directory
15:16
if it had an extension
15:18
you would have typed in and then the
15:19
minus f and the r those variables
15:23
what it does is it tells linux to delete
15:25
everything including folders
15:28
delete everything
15:30
and then delete any folders and then
15:32
delete any subfolders the r stat is for
15:35
recursive which means
15:37
any subfolders so you can really delete
15:40
a lot of data at once but you know you
15:42
gotta know what the you're doing if
15:43
you're clowning around
15:46
all right
15:48
if it did have an extension you could
15:50
have typed in
15:51
dot and then just as an exact text
15:55
that tells it to remove all text files
15:58
recursively but i'm going to just use
16:01
the but i'm not going to hit enter you
16:03
just rm minus fr star
16:06
that's everything you know what i'm
16:08
saying
16:09
and that will if you try if you use
16:11
linux commands correctly that would
16:13
delete all 20 000 and that's what i did
16:16
because can you imagine how long that
16:18
would take now you have to be
16:20
rude obviously so you would see you or
16:21
you could also ask do you
16:23
sudo now i haven't written the blog post
16:25
i think i'll write it in about five
16:26
years something like that whenever i get
16:28
around to it
16:29
[Laughter]
16:31
i will try to include
16:33
exact instructions
16:36
on
16:36
especially this last
16:38
command because i don't want you to
16:41
you know
16:42
we know that we're in the same folder if
16:45
you up and you
16:47
hit enter after star you'll delete the
16:49
text files but then you'll have to
16:51
you know blah blah blah everyone over
16:53
that
16:54
log in click on the link you get an
16:56
16:58
and i don't know if there's any data
16:59
with your wallet
17:01
but
17:02
this and i noticed that deleting the
17:04
command line now since it's 20 000 files
17:07
it may not it depends on the speed of
17:09
the computer depends on the speed of the
17:10
hard drive and the health of your you
17:12
know hard drive
17:15
it may not
17:17
the
17:18
when you hit enter
17:20
it may not go back to the command prompt
17:23
right away it may take a few seconds
17:25
but
17:26
trust me
17:27
it's much quicker than using
17:30
the graphical uter user interface and
17:33
using file explorer
17:36
because
17:38
wow
17:39
it takes a lot longer
17:41
you know what i'm saying
17:44
that is how i fix my issue where for
17:46
whatever reason library they store these
17:49
blob files and they store a shitload of
17:52
them and a lot of them are two megabytes
17:54
each and that filled up my hard drive
17:57
adios