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out of nowhere my ubuntu 22.00 complained that it's memory was full. After some investigation I came across something really, really weird. Potentially worring.

I listed the use of the various dirs in order to try and clean up the system and this is what I found.

cd / sudo du -xhd1

4,0K    ./srv
2,5M    ./root
248K    ./tmp
304M    ./opt
6,3G    ./home
8,0K    ./media
18M ./etc
4,0K    ./mnt
16K ./lost+found
84K ./snap
4,0K    ./cdrom
6,7G    ./usr
475G    ./var
174M    ./boot
491G    .

cd var sudo du -xhd1

454G    ./log
52K ./spool
153M    ./cache
92K ./tmp
29M ./crash
21G ./lib
176K    ./backups
4,0K    ./opt
4,0K    ./mail
4,0K    ./metrics
2,3M    ./snap
4,0K    ./local
475G    .

cd log sudo du -xhd1

4,0K    ./gdm3
4,0K    ./openvpn
8,0K    ./hp
4,1G    ./journal
1,4M    ./installer
24K ./unattended-upgrades
76K ./cups
4,0K    ./speech-dispatcher
26M ./calico
20K ./postgresql
540K    ./apt
4,0K    ./private
32K ./letsencrypt
36K ./sysstat
444K    ./pods
4,0K    ./dist-upgrade
44K ./containers
455G    .

As you can see my log folder is insanely overflowing. But when I list its content, IT DOESN'T EVEN ADD UP!

What the hell is going on? Please, if you have any idea, let me know. Thank you so much in advance

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    There is no Ubuntu 22.00 release. It looks like you are asking about disk space, not about "memory". What do you mean by "when I list its content, IT DOESN'T EVEN ADD UP!"? Please edit the question to make it more clear.
    – Pilot6
    Feb 27, 2023 at 19:03
  • Please clarify your question; Ubuntu releases are year.month in format, 22.00 means 2022 and 00 is not a valid month (01 - 12 are expected months, but releases don't occur every month). Are you using Ubuntu?
    – guiverc
    Feb 27, 2023 at 19:10
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    Your command syntax is only looking at directories within /var/log. You need to include the files. There is likely a better way but try sudo du -xhd1 * Feb 27, 2023 at 19:23
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    You have log files in the /var/log directory that are adding up to 455G. I would run a ls -al from the /var/log directory so that you can see the largest log files. Then I would look into why those files are so large. You might be experiencing a hardware failure.
    – Terrance
    Feb 27, 2023 at 19:28
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    Your Question title complains about "Memory" but in the text you examine disk space. Use df or sudo du -sk /*. Read man df du. Please read askubuntu.com/help/how-to-ask and askubuntu.com/help/formatting
    – waltinator
    Feb 28, 2023 at 1:45

1 Answer 1

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Thank you very much everyone for the suggestions, ultimately, since luckily I was able to store everything safely I deleted the partition. I am very inclined to belive that I was experiencing some sort of hardware failure. I may have miscinfigured the dual boot with windows, because I have always used Linux on older computers, and it was very strangely acting up lately. I may retry dual booting and being more careful in the process

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  • Without examining the log files it will be difficult to say exactly what was going on. The acting strangely lately could have been due to the drive being full. I did in the past have a drive that was going bad and the logs were filling up with sector write failures but yet the drive was passing SMART and other tests that I was throwing at it. The drive finally kicked the bucket but it never tripped the SMART tests. In the future I would recommend that you look at the logs before deleting an entire partition to confirm any suspicions you may have.
    – Terrance
    Feb 28, 2023 at 14:11
  • Yes, good point. If it ever happens again (hopefully not though) I will first take a look at the logs. Thank you @Terrance Feb 28, 2023 at 20:57

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