• Vladimir (unregistered)

    A simpler solution for preventing a file being created is to create a folder with the exact name as the file, including the extension. Almost every program will fail to recreate the file in this case.

  • That guy over there (unregistered)
    WhiskeyJack:
    A batch file is the solution? Are you kidding? Blow away that LightScribe software.

    Besides which, the original error dialog was never explained. Why would something complain about not enough disk space when there was still so much free disk space?!

    Obviously, it wanted to create a 40GB log file.

    Also, the batch file isn't much of a solution. The program is still going to be bogging down the system and killing the hard disk.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to imbusy
    imbusy:
    Why didn't you try installing iTunes?

    Yeah, great idea, install another piece of malware that tries to take over your system with a bunch of pointless services and auto running "helper" applications.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    imbusy:
    Why didn't you try installing iTunes?

    Yeah, great idea, install another piece of malware that tries to take over your system with a bunch of pointless services and auto running "helper" applications.

    A chilling reminder of RealPlayer in the 90's

  • (cs) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    Come on, obviously the correct solution is to create a directory with the same name as the file, so the program can't make the log file in the first place. Easy.
    I would have suggested removing write permissions on it.

    Though apparently that was tried too.

    Manu:
    "After looking through various folders"

    I hope he used a tool like Filelight (linux) or Scanner (Windows)... They allow you to see the biggest folders or files in an instant !

    and

    Rabbi:
    And my vote for finding large files - Spacemonger. It's freeware (at least V1.4 is, and it works!) and gives you a direct visual representation of the size of all the files and folders on your hard-drive.
    WinDirStat! Best such program I've used. Spacemonger does look really interesting though.

    (I haven't used Scanner, but nor can I find it. Too many extraneous results. Another indication of why you should take into account how easy your product's name is to google.)

    freelancer:
    Didn't think of the folder trick, I'll keep that in mind for next time. Denying everyone in the ACL just produced a lot of access denied messages.

    My suspicion: you'd have gotten the same result as when you messed with the ACL.

  • (cs)

    They had some good suggestions on this site to get around the problem, although I haven't seen an optimal one, even though I don't have a good suggestion. Would have been nice if you can disable the logging (which might be possible, but you might not be able to find the registry, xml, or ini setting.) Without being able to completely turn it off, even if you change the permissions, you still have this program running out there trying to write a log file all the time (even though you can make it fail). It will continually suck the performance right from your computer.

  • Harry (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that Kim isn't screening phone calls from her relatives.

  • Herohtar (unregistered) in reply to freelancer
    freelancer:
    Hi, I submitted the story, and I'd like to sort a few things out. First of all, something that didn't make it to the article was that the disk was actually full when I got there. His version of "deleting the games" was to delete the shortcuts. When I had actually removed the games, the disk was down to 40GB of free space.

    40GB worth of games on a computer only used for "email, documents, and photographs"? Yikes.

  • (cs) in reply to Herohtar

    Maybe they were for the OTHER photographs...

  • Karl (unregistered) in reply to freelancer

    I also understand the burden of tech supporting relatives... after uninstalling some crap that one relative's ISP put on there only to find out it was required software I stopped worrying so much about pre-emptive cleanup. Other commenters: if it ain't broke and it's NOT YOURS, DON'T FIX IT!

    I guess the only alternative I would propose is flagging the file read-only ;)

    Cheers!

  • (cs)

    New solution: write a library that intercepts CreateFile and WriteFile calls, passes on most, and turns those referring to the log file into no ops.

    Also, on Vista, you might be able to symlink the log file to NUL... I'll have to try that when I get home. (NUL = /dev/null in Windows.)

    Addendum (2008-01-14 18:14): First, I should have said "NUL sort of = /dev/null"; the illusion isn't complete.

    Secondly, it's unfortunately not complete enough that the above works. So much for that idea.

  • Matt (unregistered)

    Reminds me of the time a typo in my samba configuration caused the smb.log file on my system to grow to over 60 GB.

  • (cs) in reply to PSWorx
    Herohtar:
    freelancer:
    Hi, I submitted the story, and I'd like to sort a few things out. First of all, something that didn't make it to the article was that the disk was actually full when I got there. His version of "deleting the games" was to delete the shortcuts. When I had actually removed the games, the disk was down to 40GB of free space.

    40GB worth of games on a computer only used for "email, documents, and photographs"? Yikes.

    He has kids ;)

  • TXOgre (unregistered)

    I've seen this on my computer and on those of a few other's, all HP. If anyone runs across it, the easy solution is to uninstall the HP lightscribe software and install the latest software from LightScribe.

  • Samic (unregistered)

    As I do tech support for living, come on! Process Monitor is your friend!

    Just capture a log and see with process image produce the log file, and then get rid of it from startup entries.

    And yeah, another WTF is to recommend WinPatrol... Why do just use free tools like AutoRuns or HijackThis ?

  • cA (unregistered)

    gosh, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's the pre-installed "super"software.

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to Alan Monroe
    Alan Monroe:
    Instead of Notepad, consider http://tailforwin32.sourceforge.net/ for watching log files.

    Or an old favorite: less - works on many OSes.

  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    A chilling reminder of RealPlayer in the 90's

    What Player? Oh, yeah... I remember that dodgy codec with a bloated player that insisted on installing 30,000 other little "utilities".

    Thankfully Real Media now only exists as a reminder of what crap software and codecs look like.

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to EvanED
    EvanED:
    New solution: write a library that intercepts CreateFile and WriteFile calls, passes on most, and turns those referring to the log file into no ops.

    Keep working on it - it could get really enterprisey with the right touches.

  • (cs)

    This reminds me of reading about a couple of old school *nixy systems. As per usual, many system events were logged onto disc. This included disk full messages.

    So, some process would try write to the full disk, and fail. The system would log this failure, to disk. But, that would fail. That failure would be logged to disk, which of course would fail. The failed logging of the failure would be logged to disk which would......

  • masher (unregistered)
    Rabbi:
    And my vote for finding large files - Spacemonger. It's freeware (at least V1.4 is, and it works!) and gives you a direct visual representation of the size of all the files and folders on your hard-drive.

    Oh yeah! Just downloaded that and now I'm doing a whole bunch of sorting on my HDDs

  • Jon haugsand (unregistered) in reply to Dennis
    Dennis:
    Alan Monroe:
    Instead of Notepad, consider http://tailforwin32.sourceforge.net/ for watching log files.

    Or an old favorite: less - works on many OSes.

    cygwin is your only friend.

    • Jon
  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to Mike
    Mike:
    Come on, obviously the correct solution is to create a directory with the same name as the file, so the program can't make the log file in the first place. Easy.
    How inventive... I would just remove write permissions from that file, but yeah, I can see how that is too plain and boring.

    It's likely that the program will start to complain (maybe the dialog was exactly from it) in case it can not create the log though, instead of skipping it silently.

    On a completely different note, I quite like that dialog. It is so... DOS-ish... brings back memories.

    Dear Gen. Failure, Please stop reading my drive. Retry/Fail/Ignore?

  • W.J (unregistered)

    I scanned my system for *.log

    • showing size
    • showing last changed

    Having 1 GB Space more on HD now.

    Any other suggestion?

  • DC (unregistered) in reply to Alan Monroe

    What I would have done just to peek into it without installing any SW would be "type LSBurnWatcher.log" in a command prompt. And let's not forget about "more". Don't need any notepad or fancy additional SW just to peek into a file.

    Text mode age rules!

  • Jimmy Jones (unregistered)

    Try setting the "read only" attribute on the file...

  • sewiv (unregistered)

    My preferred disk space viewer thingy is sequoia view

    http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview//

  • Your Name (unregistered) in reply to freelancer
    freelancer:
    Herohtar:
    freelancer:
    Hi, I submitted the story, and I'd like to sort a few things out. First of all, something that didn't make it to the article was that the disk was actually full when I got there. His version of "deleting the games" was to delete the shortcuts. When I had actually removed the games, the disk was down to 40GB of free space.

    40GB worth of games on a computer only used for "email, documents, and photographs"? Yikes.

    He has kids ;)
    In a situation like this, you'd better have at least kept the savegame files for those games.

    Wiping out 80+ hours of effort is a good way to have your kids hate you forever. And to start having your important files mysteriously disappear.

    In before ignorant posts confirm the new generation gap and before statements like "kids should be outside playing" (apparently in traffic or something).

  • Dave C. (unregistered)

    Wow. I don't often read something here on the Daily WTF that makes me want to physically hit the programmer responsible, but in this case...

  • (cs) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    mallard:
    So why not try one of the other tricks, like changing the log file's ACL to deny everyone or creating a folder with the same name?

    Probably because those solutions aren't any improvement over a batch file...

    Of course they are an improvement: they get rid of the file altogether (or keep its size constant) rather than just hoping that you'll next reboot your computer before the logfile grows too big and eats up your entire drive space.

    40GB divided by "a few" hundred (let's say 200) kB/s equals 209715 seconds equals 3495 minutes = 58 hours. Even Windows XP can manage an uptime of two and a half days!

  • (cs) in reply to Herohtar
    Herohtar:
    freelancer:
    Hi, I submitted the story, and I'd like to sort a few things out. First of all, something that didn't make it to the article was that the disk was actually full when I got there. His version of "deleting the games" was to delete the shortcuts. When I had actually removed the games, the disk was down to 40GB of free space.

    40GB worth of games on a computer only used for "email, documents, and photographs"? Yikes.

    If you install the entire game to your drive, so you don't need to use the disc to run it, and considering that games come on a DVD or multiple CDs these days and are stuffed full of hi-res texture graphics.... then that's not really surprising, it's probably less than forty games installed at more than a gig of drive usage each.

  • YourParadigm (unregistered) in reply to vt_mruhlin

    Cygwin will do it for you. :)

  • (cs) in reply to SuperousOxide
    SuperousOxide:
    mallard:

    So why not try one of the other tricks, like changing the log file's ACL to deny everyone or creating a folder with the same name?

    If the program was complaining that the disk was full because its log file was too big, it would probably

    Yes, but it wasn't. The disk actually was full. Read OP's follow-up post that clarifies the full-vs-40GB-free confusion. Plus this is Windows XP: we can assume the drive was using NTFS, which is not subject to anything like FAT32's 2GB/32-bit-filesize limits.

  • MattC (unregistered)

    "For those keeping score, that's one reboot a minute for nearly seven centuries."

    There is about a 50/50 chance people will get tired of Windows before it comes to that.

  • (cs) in reply to Your Name
    Your Name:
    freelancer:
    Herohtar:
    freelancer:
    Hi, I submitted the story, and I'd like to sort a few things out. First of all, something that didn't make it to the article was that the disk was actually full when I got there. His version of "deleting the games" was to delete the shortcuts. When I had actually removed the games, the disk was down to 40GB of free space.

    40GB worth of games on a computer only used for "email, documents, and photographs"? Yikes.

    He has kids ;)
    In a situation like this, you'd better have at least kept the savegame files for those games.

    Wiping out 80+ hours of effort is a good way to have your kids hate you forever. And to start having your important files mysteriously disappear.

    In before ignorant posts confirm the new generation gap and before statements like "kids should be outside playing" (apparently in traffic or something).

    Maybe I should clarify; his kids don't use that computer anymore, so no problem with savegames. And I know exactly what you mean, I'm 19 years old myself.

  • KLacerte (unregistered) in reply to akatherder

    I thought I was the only one who told the kids to get out when they asked if we were there yet! Now that they're teenagers, it's not an issue, but it sure cut down on the questions when they were little.

  • Walter (unregistered) in reply to Harry

    Never assume someone called Kim is female.

  • (cs) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    mallard:
    So why not try one of the other tricks, like changing the log file's ACL to deny everyone or creating a folder with the same name?

    Probably because those solutions aren't any improvement over a batch file...

    Depends on how often the user reboots.

  • Mark Roy (unregistered) in reply to Harry

    I had this exact same problem on a friends computer a few months back.

    LSBurnWatcher is some stupid program that sits and runs in the background. It is included with all LightScribe burners I believe. For whatever reason, this program seems to look for iTunes, and I think if you have installed iTunes and removed it, it causes this problem (or something like that).

    I fixed it by just finding the LSBurnWatcher.exe file and renameing it to prevent it from being executed in the future (it is not needed, by any means). This solution seems leagues ahead of just deleting the file periodically, as your computer will still be constantly thrashing while continuously writing to the file.

  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to Mark Roy

    "I fixed it by just finding the LSBurnWatcher.exe file and renameing it to prevent it from being executed in the future (it is not needed, by any means). This solution seems leagues ahead of just deleting the file periodically, as your computer will still be constantly thrashing while continuously writing to the file."

    You could also run msconfig and stop it from being invoked at startup.

  • Alan Balkany (unregistered) in reply to Mark Roy

    "I fixed it by just finding the LSBurnWatcher.exe file and renameing it to prevent it from being executed in the future (it is not needed, by any means). This solution seems leagues ahead of just deleting the file periodically, as your computer will still be constantly thrashing while continuously writing to the file."

    You could also run msconfig and stop LSBurnWatcher from being invoked at startup.

  • Kim (unregistered) in reply to Harry
    Harry:
    The real WTF is that Kim isn't screening phone calls from her relatives.

    Actually Kim is a male. Kim is usually a male name in Scandinavian countries. Short for Joakim.

    I'm a different Kim than the submitter, but as a man I can tell you that it's very irritating when Americans assume that I'm female. Getting excited posts from horny geeks that think I'm a female geek has lost its humour

  • Tei (unregistered)

    the real wtf is notepad soo crappy can't open a 75 GB file. all the text editors i use can.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Harry
    Harry:
    The real WTF is that Kim isn't screening phone calls from her relatives.
    ...Kim is a dude, dude!
  • Daniel (unregistered) in reply to Harry
    Harry:
    The real WTF is that Kim isn't screening phone calls from her relatives.
    From the first sentence, "As the only computer programmer in HIS family, Kim Johnsson ..."
  • v (unregistered)

    Try using Linux practices. With logrotate :).

  • Kawazoe (unregistered)

    The real WTF is the solution ... Isn't putting the file in read-only state too complicated?

  • GZero (unregistered) in reply to Druas

    "google "LSBurnWatcher.log" looks like a troyan or virus ,well badly coded yes, but some annoying junk."

    You're the real WTF buddy.

  • Fred Biggins (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that the person named Kim is a dude.

  • Rodger Combs (unregistered)

    This is some really nice Déjà Vu for me. I once made a slight change to a database that a PHP script on my site used, and forgot to test it. Being in 8th grade, I had to get to school, and I thought forgot all about the edit. However, a few days later, the server (also my personal Mac) started giving "low disk space" errors. I figured I'd filled my HDD, and deleted my downloads dir and emptied my trash (cleaned out 80GB [TRWTF]). That cleared it up for the day, but the next day, it was full again! I fired up OmniDiskSweeper and found that my Apache/PHP logs were expanding at a rate of several MB/minute. I checked the PHP script and realized that there was a while() loop that was never completing due to the DB change, and a few people were opening the script from time to time. Eventually, it would hit PHP's maximum runtime, but then the user would refresh the page again after a few minutes. I fixed the DB and deleted the logs. This is why I run ODS every couple months now.

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