OSX Mavericks Server private/var/folders/ filling up space

Question

OSX Mavericks Server private/var/folders/ filling up space

Since the upgrade to Mavericks our server is having no end of issues. The major one at the moment is private/var/folders/ filling up with files that never get erased (even after a shutdown)

Only OSX is on this 100Gig partition and quickly more than 70 gig of space disappears... until it gets to zero.

I just took a screenshot with Grandperspective with root permissions which shows on the left the many files created (all in folders). This screenshot was not taken with the hard drive full (I only got to this point once and had to boot with another drive to clear the main drive),

I disabled items launching at login, widgets... the server is barebone.

I also tried checking the hard drive and permissions.

The server has 16 gig of RAM if you wonder.

Needless to say, we never had that issue before upgrading to Mavericks, so I am considering reverting. But I'd prefer fixing this... so any help would be welcome.

MAC MINI SERVER (LATE 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Dec 5, 2013 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 5, 2013 11:14 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

Is there one particular file or subfolder that takes up most of the space?

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Answer 2

Dec 6, 2013 12:14 AM in response to Linc Davis

No just hundreds on these folders in private/var/folders/

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 6, 2013 7:06 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

The large green rectangle in your screenshot looks like it represents a single file. What is it?

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Answer 4

Dec 10, 2013 2:31 AM in response to Linc Davis

The green is the sleep image (8gig), the orange is hundreds of files in multiple folders

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Answer 5

Dec 10, 2013 4:29 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

You're running something that crashes. The files in those folders are log files showing details about each crash.

Use Console.app to look at all your logs and take a thorough look at anything that has created more than 10 log files.

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Answer 6

Dec 10, 2013 4:54 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

Looks like a bug see the following

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5499499

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5499499?answerId=23617091022#23617091022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5609696?answerId=23945830022#23945830022

and http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1654986

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 10, 2013 1:11 PM in response to NortonKnatchbull

Back up all data. Move /var/folders to the Trash in the Finder and reboot. Then empty the Trash. That will alleviate the problem at least temporarily.

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Answer 8

Dec 12, 2013 1:34 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

To John Lockwood - Yes, it seems so.

I had the issue mentioned with icon services.

And the icons in my dock eventually disappeared on Monday as mentioned by someone in one of these forums.

When they did, I reverted the OS to 10.8. I couldn't wait any longer to find a fix.

The call I raised with Apple seems to have got lost in oblivion., but you guys have been the most helpful.

So thanks to everyone who replied.

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Answer 9

im_if

Level 1

0 points

Jan 14, 2014 7:59 PM in response to NortonKnatchbull

In Mac 10.9, apparently we'll have to budget approximatly 1gb extra space per user in the /var/folders directory.

Each user may have a large (700-800MB) com.apple.IconServices folder. It's located at ${TMPDIR%/*/*}/C/com.apple.IconServices. If there's not enough room, the com.apple.IconServiceAgent process will "runaway" and strangeness ensues. Maybe we can symlink all the com.apple.IconServices folders to one folder...

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Answer 10

Jan 15, 2014 1:16 AM in response to im_if

If the mention of TMPDIR is correct, then the space is reclaimed when the user logs out. So it should be using up to 1GB only for people who are currently logged in.

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Answer 11

Jan 28, 2014 3:04 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

Except it was not reclaiming anything. It just kept piling up and considering I have 1200 users you can imagine that this 1GB file space not reclaimed would fill the hard drive pretty quickly. Assuming it is what was happening.

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Answer 12

im_if

Level 1

0 points

Jan 30, 2014 7:35 PM in response to NortonKnatchbull

My use of ${TMPDIR%/*/*}/C/ gets you to your cache folder. The offending folder is cache. Sorry for the confusion.

To see what's going on with your server, log in as an admin, run:

sudo du -shxc /var/folders/*/*/C/com.apple.IconServices

to display the size of each users Icon cache and add them all up.

If your logged in as a user, it will show your personal Icon cache.

Cheers

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Answer 13

Feb 20, 2014 8:17 AM in response to NortonKnatchbull

I had same problem.....sorted with booting in safe mode. logged in with root user and Admin user. Restarted normal and the temp files were all gone. sorted somehow!

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Answer 14

jcucdm

Level 1

0 points

Jun 11, 2014 8:18 AM in response to macmultimedia

I have been having the same problem on networked Macs in a lab environment with 200+ users. Macmultimedia's suggestion worked for me but the files reappear periodically, filling up the SSDs in our systems. I would prefer if this was done automatically, after all, computers are supposed to make our lives simpler, right? 😉.

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Answer 15

D Porvin

Level 1

30 points

Sep 12, 2014 9:46 AM in response to macmultimedia

Big THANK YOU macmultimedia for your simple solution!

Mavericks has been nothing but trouble, but I can't go back to ML since the semester is now in full swing.

Hoping, but not optimistic, that these and other woes will be fixed in Yosemite.

Thanks Again,

-DP

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