.xsession-errors grows too big

[Duncan]

xPol posted on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 09:36:01 +0200 as excerpted:

> In a few hours, my .xsession-errors  file grows over 500 MB, until my
> /home partition is full.
> I am using opensuse 11.4  kde 4.6.1
> 
> That file appears filled in with lines from nepomuk, as follows:
> 
> : [OpenLink][Virtuoso iODBC Driver]CL064: Lost connection to server)"
> [/usr/bin/nepomukservicestub] "/usr/bin/nepomukservicestub(10126)"
> Soprano:

[x-posting to the other lists removed]

Hmm... Here on Gentoo I've always wondered about references to that file, 
as I don't have such a thing here. <shrug>

Maybe it's because I don't run a *DM graphical login, preferring instead 
to login at the CLI (the *DM doesn't run by default here at all), then if 
I want to, I run a script that presets some environment and starts X/KDE 
from there.

Or maybe it's because Gentoo does it differently, I honestly don't know.  
I just know I don't have that file, tho I strongly suspect I know how I 
could create it, with a redirect in my script that starts X/KDE, if I 
wanted...

Instead, if I don't logout at the CLI, xsession errors go there.

So one suggestion might be to try that and see if it helps... turn off 
your graphical login service, login at the CLI, and run whatever command 
your distribution has that will startup a KDE session from there.  If I'm 
correct, the errors will then go to the CLI login VT, as long as it 
continues to be logged in, instead of a .xsession_errors file or the like.

Another alternative, if you tend to find nepomuk's file indexing of little 
use anyway, is to turn it off.  kcontrol (aka systemsettings altho it's 
mostly user-specific kde-specific settings having little to do with the 
global system, why they changed from the far more accurate and easier to 
google kde3 kcontrol name is beyond me...), Workspace Appearance and 
Behavior, Desktop Search applet.  On the Basic Settings tab, disable strigi 
file indexing (first), and then nepomuk semantic desktop, clicking apply 
between and then afterward.

With 4.6.1 I was seeing some sort of strange error here, popping up kde's 
crash dialog immediately after starting kde, complaining about a nepomuk 
crash of some kind.  Pushing the restart button seemed to take, no 
immediately repeated second crash dialog at least, but without visible 
effect other than that, and I'd get the crash popup again on the next 
boot.  Since I haven't really found the semantic desktop stuff worth 
anything but trouble anyway, it wasn't a big deal to shut it off, and that 
DID cure the problem.  It's likely to cure yours as well since it seems 
nepomuk related, and if nepomuk isn't running...

OTOH, if you've found some value in the semantic desktop stuff previously, 
I can certainly understand wanting to solve the problem instead of simply 
avoid it by shutting off the service.

....

Meanwhile, I found a chance Gentoo/KDE related comment on the gentoo-dev 
list interesting as it relates to upstream kde-4.6 status, recently, and 
as it DOES relate to upstream kde, it should be of interest for kde 4.6 
users on other distributions as well...

The gist of the comment was that 4.6.0 was quite good for a first release 
in the 4.6 series, but that far from being the effective bugfix further 
monthly micro-releases normally are, 4.6.1 actually had a number of 
serious regressions from 4.6.0.  As mentioned, that's not normal, and in 
fact is quite uncommon!

The explanation given was that upstream kde is currently transitioning 
from the longtime kde default of svn for most projects, to git, and the 
4.6.1 release ended up caught in the confusion as the components had to be 
individually selected from either git or svn manually, and due to 
miscommunication and the general confusion, a number of significant 
mistakes were made and code not ready or intended for release ended up in 
4.6.1.

With 4.6.2 about to be tagged the switch to git still isn't complete, but 
given the problems they had with 4.6.1, they're getting specific "pull 
this branch for 4.6.2" instructions, and where those are absent and status 
isn't clear, they're reverting to the 4.6.0 code.  So 4.6.2 should 
hopefully be 4.6.0 plus fixes, as it should be, not 4.6.0 plus code in 
random incomplete state, as it apparently was in some cases for 4.6.1, 
thus the larger than usual number of serious regressions.

Presumably your distribution will either get the 4.6.2 update itself or 
get selected cherry-picked 4.6.2 updates as they believe useful.  Either 
way, 4.6.2 should be out in a week or so (I'm not tracking the specific 
schedule), and it'll hopefully fix some of the 4.6.1 issues.  If you turn 
nepomuk off for now, that'd be the time to try it again, assuming you want 
the nepomuk functionality.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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