Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: MarkJohnson on May 21, 2015, 04:30:43 am
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On my Mac Pro (Mavericks), my startup disk is a 120 Gb OWC SSD where I allowed for just application installations, which occupy 7.74 Gb. 'Other' files occupy 99.67 Gb!! I have Googled 'other' files and cleared trash, downloads, old app versions & associated library caches. I have had 'startup disc is almost full' and 'startup disc is full' alerts lately.
My image files, scratch disc, backups etc are on a RAID 1 pair of 3 Tb discs.
The amount and proportion of 'other' files seem inordinate.
I got the Terminal app to show hidden files and folders but there's not much doing there.
Is there anything I can do to reduce some of these files? Buying a new bigger startup disc and re-installing all apps would be a pain and a hassle.
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Look at caches. Bridge and Premiere in particular can build up huge caches over time.
On Windows these are hidden under user account > Program data, I assume something similar in OSX.
These caches go to the system drive/user account by default, but can be redirected in Preferences.
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I use a nice little program called ONYX.
http://www.titanium.free.fr
it is gratis
It uses Apples own utilities to check and clean your mac.
in their own words: OnyX is a multifunction utility for OS X which you can use to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run miscellaneous tasks of cleaning and system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of many of Apple’s applications, and more.
it works well.
What works even better is making a system from scratch- but that is a lot of work.
i just did it for after some year of working your system gets polluted with all kind of installations- system updates etc. ( i have saved this new clean base system as a DMG file to use it again if i like)
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Thank you both.
D Fosse: all caches are I think in the Library folder, which itself is only 5.82 Gb in size; I don't use Bridge or Premiere.
Kers: I ran all the Onyx processes at default settings. I still have 97.89 Gb of 'other' files in my 120 Gb startup disk - I've shed only about 2 Gb.
What are all these files? I would have bought at least a 250 Gb startup disk if I'd known how massively these files build up!
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Something is awry, somewhere.
I'm running a 250GB SSD with apps only (theoretically).
SysInfo gives me 26GB apps, 34GB other plus audio & backups ( < 1GB) Over 180GB free
Suggest you try CleanMyMac3, or similar, where you can scan for large and old files and preview search results before either deleting or alternatively 'move to folder' for review.
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hello Mark,
i always worked on a 100GB disk with Mavericks... and ran into these problems too...
about 15GB ( 15%) you need to have free otherwise your Harddisk will run less fast ...
your library is indeed small; you are talking about you -homemap library -right? if not listen up:
first make shure you library folder is always visible-
go to you homefolder - pres command+J and select library visible ( bottom- toon bibliotheekmap in Dutch) see image
Your iPhone backup ( if you have it) may take a lot of space too ... /Users/NAME USER/Library/Application Support/MobileSync
in the map application support you will find also the map adobe and adobe caches...that may be large..
your Mail folder can be very large ( mine is over 20GB) /NAME USER/pk/Library/Mail
then i do not know how much data LR stores for i do not use it...
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You will have to check what makes up so much space...
I suppose you can put some things on other disks.. for instance music files.
I have a lot of music - over 100Gb and put it on my datadisk. you can redirect itunes to it in the preferences.
normally it is in your home folder in the music map
check how large the map downloads is..
succes PK
PS some cleaning programs can make a mess of your mac- I know Onyx doesn't- but make a backup first always
do not use any programs that rearrange all your stuff more tidier- it is not necessary anymore and might ruin your system
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Daisy Disc (http://daisydiskapp.com/) is a handy app for finding out what sort of file is taking up space on your computer. I lost loads of space once to Time Machine files invisibly and without permission backing up to the same drive it was archiving until it was full. Doesn't make for a speedy computer.
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Thanks again for replies.
Manoli, I've already run Onyx - haven't bought CleanMyMac3 yet as it has varying reviews, but may need to try it.
Pieter, Library is visible, I don't have iPhone backup or Mail or Music files on this startup disc.
Jjj, DaisyDisk indeed gives more detail. The 'Private' folder has 83.9 Gb of files, Spool subfolder 80.5 Gb, then Cups subfolder of same size with multiple 1.8 Gb & smaller files, with names like d00300-001, d00286-001 etc etc. These look like the culprits but no idea what they are or where they come from or whether they can/should be deleted. DaisyDisk has a support facility which I'll contact.
For interest, DaisyDisk scan image is attached, plus scan of Cups subfolder.
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Useful info (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6533205)re private file and stuff re spool/cups here (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/987631)
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Mark, as far as i know Cups are (old) print jobs...
in onyx you can delete them...
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Mark, checked the alternatives and found OmniDiskSweeper (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7402/omnidisksweeper) and this review (http://www.macadvisor.co.uk/cleanmymac-3-review-clean-up-speed-up-health-up/) on MacAdvisor.
CleanMyMac has a free download/trial 'before you buy' so perhaps worth seeing what it finds under the Large & Old files option which will search and list the files before you decide whether or not to mark them for deletion.
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Thanks again Pieter & jjj. I cleared CUPS jobs in Onyx but it made no difference to size of 'Other' files fraction of the startup disc. However, the private/var/spool/cups folder has a 'no entry' symbol on the folder icon and you can't look inside, so were the CUPS jobs in fact deleted? Other strategies go into deeper water than I've thus far ventured with my Mac Pro.
Interestingly, I've done a lot of printing lately, but just from Lightroom 6. My LR catalogue files are not on the startup disc. Wouldn't it be great if LR Print module could do its work without such print job files being separately generated in OS X Mavericks? I'll email Adobe and see what they think.
Manoli, your post just appeared and I'll check out your links and suggestion with CleanMyMac.
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Mark,
Our posts are crossing each other!
CMM is a free tryout but just checked Daisy Disk and bought it ( thanks to jjj for the heads up).
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Manoli, CleanMyMac 3 found only about 4 GB deletable files and the free trial version deleted I think about 500 MB of this. Haven't decided whether to spend £35 to clear out another few GB. OmniDiskSweeper only finds 22.6 GB of files on the disk (whereas Mac System Information reports 105.3 GB on the disc) although it does report nothing in the CUPS folder.
Both nature of problem and way forward seem unclear at the moment.
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DaisyDisk still reports 80.5 GB of files in private/var/spool/cups, each between 342.6 MB and 1.8 GB.
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can you go to private and Cups and get Info command i
like i did below...
as you can see Private = 3.25 GB and cups = 0KB
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Thanks for staying with the case Pieter! Had difficulty changing permissions of cups folder but I just resolved that and can now see all the cups files - see attachment. All the present cups files date from March this year. Total size of cups folder this morning is 80.95 Gb. The cups tmp subfolder is empty. I think I can now just delete all the cups files although I would like to know how they got there and stayed there. Maybe I need to go through Terminal app and maybe CUPS web interface (no idea how in either case) but I would have thought there could/should be an option for these files to be deleted at the end of a printing session, or not even created in the first place as Lightroom has its own catalogue with printing details. Am I wrong?
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Info window on a cups file also nnow attached.
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Info window on a cups file also nnow attached.
I would not be surprised it is a LR mistake...
to my knowledge cup files are temporary printerfiles for the printer to understand and then deleted after use...
If you have made a backup you can delete them and see what problems you get
- i guess just a clean computer... with 80 GB more space...
cheers PK
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Info window on a cups file also nnow attached.
Mark, permissions in the info window on the cups file is showing 'Everyone - no access'
Seems surprising and I suspect it may be the reason the files aren't being deleted after use.
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Thank you both. I just changed the permissions of all those cups files to 'everyone' - 'read & write' and restarted: they are all still there. Don't know at what stage they would have been deleted but I'll manually do it now. 'System' permission for those files had been 'read & write' all along which I would have thought would have sufficed for their systematic autodeletion. Interesting problem now hopefully fixed.
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I resumed printing today and am watching the cups folder again fill up with files. At the start of each print from LR, a c0000x file of constant size 16 Kb is generated and a d0000x-001 file of between 218.1 MB for an A4 and 1.8 GB for a 20"x24" image on a 24" roll. The oldest of these files I deleted yesterday was from last March; I installed LR6 in April so I guess it's not specifically LR6 doing it.
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hello Mark, interesting problem...
the question is who is responsible for cleaning up the cups?
Maybe you can check the permissions- maybe they are wrong and some program does not have permissions to clean up..?
What printer and software do you use? Maybe reinstall some printing software..
Is it the system? you can always run the 10.9.5 combo updater to have a reborn system to some degree...
you can check the console ( in utlilities) if there are any messages after printing about not being able to clean up the cups...
and at last i have come up with this
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203343
cheers PK
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I installed LR6 in April so I guess it's not specifically LR6 doing it.
What other applications are you printing from ?
I'd suggest you change all the permissions to 'read and write' and systematically work through them and the printing app(s) to see at what point (which user group & permission combo) and with which app, the files remain undeleted.
The uniformity of the file sizes suggest that these are imaging print files.
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Pieter, I print from LR to an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 (using a custom paper profile) - same set up for the last 4-5 years. Console has a vast amount of information but I can't see any note about cups today. I've emailed Adobe about the issue and will await any reply before trying the 10.9.5 updater.
Manoli, I just print from LR6, and also Epson Printer Utility 4 for nozzle checks. The c0000x files are of constant small size but the d0000x-001 files vary accoriding to print size, as mentioned, from between 218.1 MB to 1.8 GB. Definitely imaging print files as you can see them popping up in Finder as soon as the LR printing is initiated. I changed permissions of all the files yesterday but it didn't make any difference. Could you detail precisely the further permission checks you had in mind?
Thanks very much again to you both for your further suggestions.
Meanwhile, it's no big deal to manually delete these files while awaiting a definitive understanding and solution to this issue.
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Viewing my CUPs folder, a mere 1.9mb so something is way overloaded on your end.
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I assume it's normal for those files to enter cups folder during LR printing. As mentioned, I can see them appearing in the folder at the start of a print job. Then I assume the files are cleared by the system soon after. Could you observe your cups folder while printing from LR and see what happens?