Michael wrote:
> On Sunday, 14 September 2025 10:39:53 British Summer Time Peter Humphrey 
> wrote:
>> On Sunday, 14 September 2025 09:56:09 British Summer Time Dale wrote:
>>> Howdy,
>>>
>>> I was doing my backups which includes config files.  I noticed one file
>>> was shall we say, large.  The better term might be HUGE.  This is the
>>> culprit.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> root@Gentoo-1 / # ls /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
>>> -rw-r--r-- 1 dale users 13,905,915,860 Sep 14 03:33
>>> /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
>>> root@Gentoo-1 / #
>> Mine is 32K.
> The size of this log file increases over time.  If you reboot/restart your 
> desktop daily, the file will be overwritten and remain at a reasonable size - 
> my wayland-session.log is currently ~ 165kB.
>
> Dale does not reboot often, so the file will grow until it is deleted/rotated.
>

I logged out and back in when I finished my updates this morning.  It
was huge before I logged out and still huge when I logged back in.  It
seems it doesn't delete/rotate here for some reason.


>>> I added the commas to the file size.  Obviously one shouldn't try to
>>> open a file that size with Kwrite or anything.  It's just to large.
>>> Heck, it took several minutes for the tail command to get this.
>>>
>>> root@Gentoo-1 / # tail -n 100
>>> /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
>>> Service  ":1.6973" unregistered
>>> QSocketNotifier: Invalid socket 5 and type 'Read', disabling...
>>> ark.kerfuffle: Could not detect mimetype from content. Using
>>> extension-based mimetype: "text/x-log"
>>> root@Gentoo-1 / #
>>>
>>> As you can see, I asked for the last 100 lines but it only gave me
>>> that.  Obviously something is off with that file and maybe sddm as well.
>>>
>>> First, I'd like to make that file MUCH smaller, empty would be OK.
>>> Second, I'd like to stop it from getting that big again.  I tried using
>>> echo to make it only one line.  It went something like this.
>>>
>>> echo "" > /home/dale/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log
>>>
>>> I thought it worked at first but by the time my backup script got to it,
>>> it was back again, hugely back.  Now it doesn't do anything even though
>>> I'm root.  I can't seem to empty this file or really see what is in it
>>> either.
>>>
>>> Can someone share a better way to fix this file?  Oh, I googled.  The
>>> info I found was people using systemd.  They used commands I don't have
>>> since I use openrc.
>> Why not just delete it? Then xorg will start afresh.
> You can automate the rotation of this file with logrotate.  Just add it in 
> the 
> logrotate.d/ directory and specify a maximum size you're happy with, e.g. 
> "size 3M" and/or how long before it is rotated, e.g. "weekly".


Honestly, if it is logging a problem that much, I'd like to know what it
is so I can fix it.  That way the log is a reasonable size and whatever
it is complaining about is fixed and working correctly as well. 

I did delete the file.  So far, it hasn't came back.  I'll try to
remember to look when I logout and back in next weekend after updates. 
If it does, I'll look into logrotate.  I haven't set up one of those in
ages.  :/ 

Still wonder what it is complaining so much about.  o_O

Dale

:-)  :-) 

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