(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

PL 5.2 frugal, FF 8.0

I hope this can help someone (like me) who constantly fights to keep the pup_save file from spiraling out of space.

I was watching a lengthy YouTube video last nite and it crashed a couple of times. I had not paid attention to the free storage space but this AM when I started up the computer PL personal storage was flashing red and had gone from 442M several days before to 11M free. Naturally I assumed it was a FF/YouTube problem but when I reviewed ¨root¨ with gdmap it was Dropbox that dominated the landscape, particularly Dropbox/.dropbox.cache which contained > 25 ¨upgrade.tar.gz¨ files. By deleting all but the most current my free space went from 11M > 454M. Wow! Better than emptying the FF/default/cache.

There are still 4 gear icons in that Dropbox folder, each one worth 4M but I am not confident about deleting any of them.

how did you install dropbox? (I'm not sure, since I'm not on my puppy computer, but I don't think the portableapps version of dropbox that I installed has had this problem).

Maybe those were scheduled updates? (although that seems pretty huge)

Also, where do you have your actual dropbox folder? I would recommend having it outside your savefile to avoid accidentally filling it.

I got DB from http://theasterisk.droppages.com/Puppy+ ... et/Dropbox. It works like a charm. To use it I open it from Menu although the folder is always present in Root and since I don´t use it all that often I like that it doesn´t run on startup.

They appear to be scheduled updates as they were consecutively numbered. It didn´t seem reasonable that they should be saved - I wonder why they aren´t automatically deleted after a new update?

I have my DB folder in the save_file which obviously causes a problem when it approaches the alloted storage space but, on the other hand, I appreciate the warning that something has grabbed all that space. I can then deal with it instead of waiting to find out when my flash drive has maxed out.

I have my DB folder in the save_file which obviously causes a problem when it approaches the alloted storage space

I'm pretty sure that you could drag your dropbox folder outside your storage file. (mnt/home would be probably a good place). And then drag a symlink back to its original location.

(I would probably shut down dropbox before doing this--and maybe back things up too as added precaution).

Alternatively, I see that dropbox , in its advanced preferences gives an option to move the location of your dropbox.

I'm curious-- does it seem like your dropbox version has actually upgraded? Or merely downloaded upgrade files and not applied these? (my portable version apparently doesn't upgrade and I wonder what I'm missing. I've got 1.1.43)

If you’ve got the HD space you can make the save file big.

I should not be so smug about my sucesses. It seems that my installation of Dropbox is going to require frequent ¨housekeeping¨ and that is not acceptable.

Good point sfeeley. This morning I opened PL to a flashing red free space warning, just like a few days ago and sure enuf my Dropbox/.dropbox.cache was stuffed with 33 upgrade tar.gz files that totaled 845 M. Cleaning them out restored my free space to a healthy number as before. I had noted yesterday that DB was ¨upgrading¨ but the version # never changed (1.1.45) so apparently it was really only adding upgrade file after upgrade file to the .cache folder.

I think I shall try the portable version as moving DB out of the save folder will not solve the problem as I see it. Or maybe I could direct that .dropbox.cache folder to /tmp as another solution.

frefel,

I had this problem some time ago and found the answer on the Dropbox forum - however the link is now expired...

Fortunately I had copied that posting into my notes database, so here it is. The bit that helped me was the second half:

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Dropbox - sometimes won't sync or upgrade because there's insufficient free space on the savefile (ie in /root)

Solution? make some space by deleting/moving stuff or by enlarging the savefile.

I found that around 80 MB free, allowed things to work.
60 MB free, didn't.

----

BUT FOR SOME REASON IT ATTEMPTS TO UPGRADE ITSELF EVERY TIME IT IS STARTED - and downloads ~ 10MB of stuff somewhere (?) and the tray applet says "upgraded" - but next time, off it goes again...

CURE? --- NO, I tried (below) on 0.7.110 and it didn't change the "Dosbox updating..." process...

... Have you tried what N.N. suggested? the 0.8x series is very close to being deemed stable.

If still a problem, then you need to unlink and relink your Dropbox account.

Go to your Dropbox icon then click on it to select preferences, go to account tab, then click on unlink.

A window will pop up asking for an account.

Input your email and pass and make sure you point to your Dropbox folder (if it's located in a Non-default Location). [By MrToad: you get this choice later - be careful to give the location of the Dropbox folder - don't go and open the Dropbox folder or it will nest!!!]

It will reindex then that should fix it.

Posted 9 months ago

# 5. Gondo

(From http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=17549 )

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I hope that helps.

MrToad

if you decide to go the portable route, I found the link for the one I used, several posts down here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=65624

you could try using the portable one here http://sourceforge.net/projects/portabl ... 3/download

once downloaded, you may need to right click on it, and choose 'permissions' the make searchable/executable. for it to work

oddly, it seems to be the only place I could find a portable version.

Mr Toad's solution looks helpful too . . .

frefel wrote:Naturally I assumed it was a FF/YouTube problem but when I reviewed ¨root¨ with gdmap it was Dropbox that dominated the landscape, particularly Dropbox/.dropbox.cache which contained > 25 ¨upgrade.tar.gz¨ files. By deleting all but the most current my free space went from 11M > 454M. Wow! Better than emptying the FF/default/cache.

There are still 4 gear icons in that Dropbox folder, each one worth 4M but I am not confident about deleting any of them.

The directory ".dropbox.cache" should not be present in the Dropbox application directory in /root, but it may be if that's where you've chosen to save your sync'd folder. I've never had it store multiple upgrade archives there, but I have had it balloon in size pretty dramatically when uploading & downloading to/from my account.

As to symlinking, it should work, but you could also just close Dropbox, move the folder by hand, and switch the sync'd folder (in Dropbox's preferences) to that location. Either way would work.

In any case, that's why I mentioned in my extra setup guide (linked to from the download page you specified on my little site) that placing the sync'd folder outside the savefile is usually a good idea, be it in /mnt/home or /mnt/sdb1/some_directory, and so on.

Finally, if you're still on version 1.1.45, it might be stuck on the upgrade because your savefile runs out of space. To upgrade, you need the sapce required by the old version as well as the new version, simultaneously, and the whole process usually uses up some more on top. You can increase the savefile size if you're against symlinking the whole directory elsewhere. [EDIT: MrToad brought this up as well, I see.] I usually have upwards of 1 GB free in my savefile, so the problem may never have occurred to me, so I apologize if this is the case, and I'll add a note to the download page.

Otherwise, you can manually upgrade by uninstalling the old dot-pet and removing the /root/.dropbox directory, and then installing a more recent one, like the stable 1.2.52, or the beta 1.3.34, both available from the same download page. (I update it from time to time.)

sfeeley wrote:if you decide to go the portable route, I found the link for the one I used, several posts down here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=65624

I would expect the same issue to eventually crop up with that package, too. It's just the updater/installer, and will download and then install the actual program to /root/.dropbox, so you end up mostly in the same situation.

It's just the updater/installer, and will download and then install the actual program to /root/.dropbox, so you end up mostly in the same situation.

hmmm . . . this is very good to know. Indeed there is a /root/.dropbox on my computer, and I was beginning to wonder if this was really "portable" afterall.
After installation, if I click on the same file it turns on dropbox, rather than going through the installation again. I haven't had the described problems . . . . yet after several months. Instead it seems that I'm still at the original version 1.1.43.

Thanks everybody. I hadn´t realized that my DB version was outdated, especially since it kept saying ¨updating¨ but really all it was doing was adding tar.gz update files that did not function - many of them.

I removed the old version and installed the stable 1.2.52 and it seems to be working without the former problem. By the way, it chooses to place Dropbox (with /dropbox.cache/ inside) in root upon installation - was not my election.

I still maintain that, for me, it is a good idea to keep my DB folder in pupsave. I would not have been aware of the problem so soon if it had been growing exponentially on the free partition of my flash drive. I have had plenty of free pupsave space all along until the sudden appearance of all the tar.gx file problem and I do not like to add free space without a valid reason - it reminds me of ugly chronic monetary ¨inflation¨.