Xsession Error after 19.1 KDE Kernel Upgrade

[ztrede]

I recently updated the Kernel on my computer, and now I am unable to login without receiving the following, and then the computer freezes and requires a reboot. I am running Linux Mint 19.1 KDE on a Lenovo T460s.

Xsession: warning: unable to write to /tmp; x session may exit with an error

I remember I had this problem about a year ago, but I cannot remember how I solved it. I have already tried solutions I have found in another thread by trying chmod 777 /tmp, and performing a system check, but have not had any results.

I would appreciate any help thanks!

[gm10]

Post output of these two terminal commands:

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lsblk 

and

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df

[ztrede]

I am running a dual boot of windows 10 and mint kde:

lsblk
Name MAJ:MIN Size
sda 8:0 238.5G
sda4 8:4 1000M
sda2 8:2 16M
sda7 8:7 142.6G /home
sda5 8:5 19.56G /
sda3 8:3 71.26
sda1 8:1 260M /boot/efi
sda6 8:6 3.9G (Swap)

When I ran df, it shows that my root partition sda5 has zero space available (which explains why nothing can be written to it). How do I clean this to make some free space? I have ran clean and auto clean, and have had issues with this when performing system updates but was able to clean the excess, but i guess when i did the kernel upgrade it just took up the rest of the memory.

[gm10]

When I ran df, it shows that my root partition sda5 has zero space available (which explains why nothing can be written to it). How do I clean this to make some free space? I have ran clean and auto clean, and have had issues with this when performing system updates but was able to clean the excess, but i guess when i did the kernel upgrade it just took up the rest of the memory.

Yes, as expected. If you're using Timeshift and have it configured to store snapshots to your root partition then an easy way to make room would be to delete the snapshots. Your root partition is much too small to store the snapshots there.

If that's not an option then you'll have to find out what's filling up your partition:

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sudo du /var/* -sht 100M
sudo du / -hxd 1 -t 100M

(the second one may take a while to run)

[ztrede]

thanks! since I cannot log into my system except in recovery mode, I am swapping back and forth between windows and linux to post of the forum, so I will probably not be able to transcribe the output. I do not have a timeshift installed, but after I fix this, i will be sure to get it.

[gm10]

Well, the point is just to see where your disk space went. Common culprits would be /var/log or possibly /boot, so look out for those.

[ztrede]

it didnt take too long:

du /var/* -sht 100M
174M /var/cache
1.9G /var/lib
548M /var/tmp

du / -hxd 1 -t 100M
11G /usr
1.2G /boot
2.6G /var
4.5G /lib
19G /

[ztrede]

what do you think? is this something I need to manually go into and clean out? I only have documents saved in the /home partition, so I am not sure why the root partition is filling up. Did I make this partition too small when installing linux mint?

[gm10]

First let's get you into your desktop again. From your rescue prompt, run these commands:

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mount -o rw,remount /
rm -rfv /tmp/*
reboot

After the reboot you will hopefully be at your desktop. Go Update Manager > View > Linux Kernels > Remove old kernels... - that hopefully completes without errors. After that you'll have a little breathing room, but you'll have to see what's taking up the space in /usr - probably some flatpak applications (see flatpak list) or maybe you just installed a ton of other stuff. See if you really need all of that, and if you do, then yes, your partition needs to be increased in size. You can do that by booting the installation medium and running GParted, that allows you to resize partitions.

[ztrede]

I did the following while in recovery mode:
I entered the commands you posted and rebooted through cli, but it started back through the grub menu, then gives me the same xsession error as before.
I tried the same commands again, then exited the root menu and selected resume and allowed the system to boot from recovery mode and had the same errors.

Am I not in the correct menu?

[ztrede]

I do agree, now that you have pointed it out, that the old kernels are what is taking up the root partition memory, as I have been running this system for a while and there is many installed.

If I am unable to login through the gui, is there a way to remove the old kernels through cli instead of the update manager?

[gm10]

I did the following while in recovery mode:
I entered the commands you posted and rebooted through cli, but it started back through the grub menu, then gives me the same xsession error as before.

Is it filling up /tmp again? Unusual, there shouldn't be that much data in there on boot. Well, best just skip right to the step where you resize the partitions I guess. Otherwise you'll have to make some room from the recovery prompt, E.g. rm -rfv /usr/lib/locale/* should free a couple hundred megabytes. You can remove old kernels, too, run

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apt list -i "linux-*"

and then just

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apt purge "linux-*XXX*" 

with XXX being the version number of whichever old kernel you want to remove. Don't try to remove the one you're currently using though.

[ztrede]

Thank you so much for your help, this totally solved the problem. I appreciate you taking the time to walk me through this. Now that I have been looking at it it makes so much sense, and I feel silly for not catching the old kernels, but I am back up and running again!

[gm10]

Glad to hear it. But just from the kernels you would have recovered at most 900 MB, so disk space will remain an issue.

[ztrede]

understood, I will change that partition so this doesnt happen again. Thanks again for your assistance!