Linux Mint Timeshift Bricked My Laptop!

[rene]

Or, if it is easier, then checking for disk space could be done as the operation progresses and stopped if disk space runs too low.

I believe you have me filtered due to feeling me rude but for others then again: it already does, at 1G; it's just that 1G is lower than 5% on anything bigger than 20G.

[Moem]

no, it is has never been enabled by default (even if certainly by recommendation) on Mint.

This is true, and no matter how much the OP yells in all-caps, they must have enabled it themselves. There is no other way. A more correct title would have been

I used Timeshift to bork my laptop

Because it is, of course, not bricked. A fresh installation will make it right as rain.

But I'm all too familiar with anger, and we're not always our most rational selves at all times, especially when things go sideways and we believe that someone else is to blame.

[rene]

But I'm all too familiar with anger, and we're not always our most rational selves at all times, especially when things go sideways and we believe that someone else is to blame.

Oh, definitely, and not a problem whatsoever, but if this thread is turning into one where e.g. AndyMH wants to in fact do something please take note of that reserved-blocks thing because otherwise any proposed solution is going to miss the actual, eventual problem: Timeshift itself already checks (at 1G).

[GS3]

No, I'm with Moem. Timeshift is an excellent utility, but dangerous with the defaults. If it wasn't we wouldn't have the number of posts we do of newbies filling up their root partition. If teejee doesn't change the setup for timeshift, then the mint devs should change the post installation scripts for mint. Can't be that difficult:

Code: Select all

if root partition < 50GB then
   issue warnings
fi

The total size of the partition is irrelevant. It is the free space that counts and not at installation or configuration time but at the moment the backup is done.

You can have a huge partition full of free space when you set up the system and later it can be filled up with whatever and Timeshift should not fill up the disk until it crashes just because it all looked good months ago when it was set up.

[daedalus007]

I can clearly see why so few people bother to post here unless they have issues. Seems to be one of the only ways to get a response.
The responses however clearly show that nobody here has a single bit of an idea of how to approach things on the user-end of the spectrum when it comes to UX and so on.

Notify users and show a system tray icon when TimeShift is doing its thing. Maybe 'backup completed' or something. Have that as the default.

Not one single person here bothered to understand that concept. I still see a great deal of victim-blaming going on with 'they clicked through the defaults' and 'RTFM noob' (and equivalents). I'm not some 'tech noob' here. Got a github and have contributed to various projects in a variety of ways. Many of you who are fans of retro games may have even come across my work on RHDN

Timeshift installed and activated itself without consent or notification. This wasn't 'me clicking through the defaults'. I looked at the image that was posted and it doesn't match what I saw. System info tool shows Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon version 4.8.6 so yeah. I have an SSD in this laptop that is about 65ish GB in size. Didn't realize that Timeshift was ever enabled, ever making backups, or (more importantly) taking up so much space as to fill up the entire drive.
Timeshift did 'brick' my laptop in the fact that if I was less tech-saavy, I wouldn't have been able to recover any of my data or even reinstall without a BOOTABLE USB drive with Linux Mint on it.

Something messed up somewhere and instead of going through the scripts to look at a potential regression or other issue, it is 'blame the user' time. Ok then.

So let's do something a bit more constructive, shall we?

Timeshift should not be prompted to enable at all when installing, period. It shouldn't even be included in the default Linux Mint distro as many people already use their own backup systems and (most importantly) if your system is UNBOOTABLE then Timeshift won't do much if you can't even get to the desktop. Better hope you had a backup USB stick or know your way around a command prompt.

Never had a problem with Timeshift in any previous versions so maybe take a look at what has changed since then and why the sudden push to force-enable Timeshift AND have it do an obscene number of backups without notification.

The Timeshift defaults are bad, but what is worse is the lack of notification to the end-user that anything is going on. Why is this a thing?

I'd love the Linux Mint devs to either fork Timeshift and make it a Mint-flavored version and/or to use some scripts to force some 'acceptable defaults' to where it prompts the user before automagically doing backups and it also checks free disk space and then refuses to do more backups if the disk is getting below X amount of GB. I agree that % based is not all that useful anymore.

Just to double-check, I looked through TWO different 'Install Linux Mint 20.x' guides online and both follow what I saw during setup:
https://techviewleo.com/installing-linu ... reenshots/
https://olhardigital.com.br/en/2021/01/ ... -computer/

Do you see any Timeshift prompt or consent there? NOPE!
So where is it now, I wonder? In the WELCOME screen!
It has a Green button to 'Launch' but nothing else and surely no 'defaults' settings.

You know what most people used to do when installing Linux Mint? Close that Welcome Window and do things themselves.

So if that window is closed, you're telling me that it is the end-user's fault that TimeShift auto-activates and decides to do a daily backup until their entire system drive is completely filled without so much as a notification!?

This is a flop. It is bad design. Get rid of the default-enabled nonsense. Seriously. Please stop defending this broken trash and have auto-backups disabled by default with clear and prominent notifications when it is creating a manual backup.

[all41]

It's good to read the replies to this topic.
I have seen many reports regarding filled partitions, errors, and inability to boot.
This is often referred to as the dreaded 'login loop'.
See karlchen's post regarding this:
viewtopic.php?p=1769597#p1769597
You have to be root to enter the program and enable the scheduling, I suppose many just accept
the default suggestions blindly.
imho there should be NO restore points or intervals pre-selected, and perhaps a head's-up message
when Timeshift is started (Like the Welcome Screen)

Too many people get trapped by this--

The app itself is fine and does it's purpose quite well, ---- but hourly restore points?? really?