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Q Timeshift takeover
I am apparently out of space on my SSD, which is odd and shouldn’t be the case. I tried to clear up some space (around 15GB) and nothing seems to free up room. I then noticed that Timeshift is running, because the logo is visible on the bottom-right side of my screen (it usually isn’t there). When I hover over the logo it says, “A Timeshift system snapshot is being created.” It doesn’t let me open Timeshift or any program really. When trying to open Timeshift, it says “Scheduled snapshot in progress…”
I went into my recycling bin to try clearing it for space and it doesn’t let me do that either. It says, “Failed to delete this item from trash, do you want to skip it?” After learning that clearing space or my recycling bin won’t do anything, it’s been over a day, and I haven’t turned my PC off because I’m scared it won’t turn back on.
A It appears that Timeshift is stalled mid-backup because the filesystem is full. You could kill Timeshift but that would most likely leave you with a corrupted backup. A safer approach would be to free up some space to allow Timeshift to complete the current backup. Start by deleting downloaded package files from software installations. To do this, fire up Synaptic, go to Preferences > Files and press Delete Cached Package Files. You may also want to select Delete Downloaded Packages After Installation to stop the cache filling up again.
Now open the file manager, set it to show hidden files and look at the .cache directory in your home. This contains all sorts of files that are not necessary but can speed things up a little. Begin by deleting the thumbnails directory, and then delete the rest if you are still short on space.
You should also get rid of any large data files that you have hanging around that you know are not necessary for the system. Things such as videos and photos can be deleted or moved to an external drive to gain space. If all of this is enough to allow Timeshift to complete the currently running backup, you are free to enter Timeshift and remove older backups to regain space.
If not, you will have to force Timeshift to close with this terminal command: $ killall timeshift
This sends a TERM signal to the Timeshift process, asking it to shut down cleanly. If you get an error saying you don’t have permission to do this, prefix the command with sudo . Give Timeshift time to shut down and clean up after itself, then try opening it. If it will not close cleanly, you need to be a bit more brutal with: $ sudo killall -KILL timeshift
This sends the KILL signal to the Time
