kdenlive folders

English Applications
1

Hi Guys,
I’m trying to find out why kdenlive is using space in the /tmp folder. In the Settings->Configure Kdenlive dialog there are some folders for temporary files, the capture folder and the library folder. I have these set thus:

Temporary files    /FastData/tmp
Capture folder      Use project folder
Library folder       Use default folder

I’ve also found I can configure folders for the project under Project->Project Settings. I.E. the folder for the custom project, that also points to /FastData/tmp
Yet kdenlive still puts files in /tmp. I only have a small partition, 16G to be precise, which is about %76 full before using kdenlive. I.E about 4G remaining.
When I try to load a large video for editing kdenlive creates audio thumbnails, that I use, but these fill up the partition before the thumbnails are 100% complete. They then can’t be read and are lost.
Does anyone know how to stop kdenlive using /tmp? Is there another configuration option somewhere that I’ve missed?
Thanks in advance guys.

Mike Railton

2

You are talking about the partition, it being small and 16G, but you fail to tell what is in that partition. (or anything else about your partition setup). Is that a partition for /tmp, or is /tmp part of the / partition? We are not clairvoyant :(.

3

Sorry, wasn’t thinking. The 42.3 installation I have fits onto a single 16G partition; occupying about 12G at present. All permanent data, and some temporary data, is held on another partition: “/FastData”, but there is little user data occupying space in the / partition. My home area consists mainly of configuration files etc.

Mike Railton

4

Still no real partition table and usage posted *), but I guess you have a / partition then of 16GB. Now the default for an ext4 / is 20GB and for a btrfs one is 40GB. Depending on what you use it is a bit small or rather small. And those defaults are normally OK when having a separate /home, which you haven’t if I understand your vague note about a “home area”. I know that in literature it is furthered to use different wording from time to time, but in computer technique it is better to stick to the same terms all the time., they have a precise meaning and others depend on them for understanding you, thus when this is about all inside the /home directory, please say so. Thus when “home area” means all that is in the /home directory and you say that there is almost nothing there, then the could go into 20GB/40GB easily.

You could also try to find out what are those file in /tmp. Many small ones, some large ones? Call names and numbers then people have something to discuss. Thus something like

ls -l /tmp

or a subset of what is there.

*) It is always good to inform your potential helpers as good and as extensive about your relevant computer facts by posting computer facts a simple

fdisk -l

with a short explanation where each partition is used for is better then a lot of story telling.

5

I’m sorry I didn’t supply the system configuration information you were expecting; but I don’t see it’s relevance to my question, which is about how to configure kdenlive. I have put the system information you mentioned below; because you have requested it, and it would be impolite of me to ignore that request. But the system is not simple and I wouldn’t want you to waste any time on what I do not consider to be relevant. I’m looking for a solution within the application. Changing the layout of the system or resizing and moving partitions is not something I’d normally undertake just because I can’t configure an application. I’d normally only do that if I’m doing a major system update. It ain’t broke…

If I can’t configure this application as I need, I.E. to put its’ temporary files were there is sufficient space, then I would consider doing the work necessary to change my system to have larger partition sizes for the Linux installations (/dev/sdX6 & /dev/sdX7 on each of the disks). However, as this is only a problem when dealing with large video files - which doesn’t happen very often - I’m more likely to just use the laptop (Windows), so please don’t consider this an important request.

The partition I’m currently using is /dev/sdc6. It contains /tmp, /home, the lot.

The disk layout

desktop:~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0004db9e

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *           63 134239139 134239077    64G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       134239140 976768064 842528925 401.8G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       134239203 142432289   8193087   3.9G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       142434304 175992831  33558528    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       175994880 209551359  33556480    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8       209553408 976766975 767213568 365.9G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xa3725979

Device     Boot     Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *         2048    1026047    1024000   500M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2         1026048  262189551  261163504 124.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       262191104  263921663    1730560   845M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sdb4       263921664 1953523711 1689602048 805.7G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5       263923712  272318463    8394752     4G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6       272320512  305876991   33556480    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7       305879040  339437567   33558528    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8       339439616 1953523711 1614084096 769.7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdc: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0006a2a9

Device     Boot    Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *        2048 976773119 976771072 465.8G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5           4096  10489855  10485760     5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc6       10491904  44050431  33558528    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sdc7       44052480  77611007  33558528    16G 83 Linux
/dev/sdc8       77613056 976773119 899160064 428.8G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

My fstab

miker@desktop:/tmp> cat /etc/fstab
/dev/sdc6       /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/sdc5       swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/sdc8       /FastData            ntfs-3g    users,uid=miker,gid=users,exec,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/sda8       /Data                ntfs-3g    users,uid=miker,gid=users,exec,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/sdb8       /Backup              ntfs-3g    users,uid=miker,gid=users,exec,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0

An elided listing of /tmp showing the kdenlive files after a short time creating the audio thumbnails;

miker@desktop:/tmp> ls -l
............
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.kn8030
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.Lh8030
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.nS8030
-rw------- 1 miker users     19889 Mar 15 12:42 kdenlive_rendering_h11040.mlt
-rw------- 1 miker users     19889 Mar 15 15:44 kdenlive_rendering_xC8030.mlt
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.Ti8030
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.TJ8030
-rw------- 1 miker users 171704320 Mar 15 16:24 kdenlive.XM8030
........

Thanks for you time.
Mike Railton

6

Sorry I asked so much, but you started a story about your partition size, etc. and thus maybe you thought it is relevant. And as we in most cases do not trust stories told, but we do trust computer facts, I asked for the computer facts mainly to confirm and make 100% clear what you told.

I understand your goal to have those files elsewhere and not changing the partition layout.

In any case, the list of files you have in /tmp might help kdenlive users to understand where it goes wrong.

7

Spoken like a true developer/support engineer (I was a developer for 35 years)

I don’t know if this is a bug (because there is an option to specify where temporary files go) or if I’ve just missed a different configuration option.

Perhaps I’d better ask the kdenlive people. It might be a known issue.

Thanks for you time.

Mike Railton

8

I don’t know whether it’s possible to make kdenlive not use /tmp at all, but you definitely could move /tmp to a different partition…

In case you don’t want to create a new partition for /tmp, you can also use a bind mount to move it to a folder on an existing partition.
A corresponding entry in fstab could look like this e.g.:

/FastData/tmp            /tmp           none    bind              0 0
9

Now that’s interesting. I didn’t know about the bind option - I’m a programmer not a sysadmin - but this seems to be what I need. I only want the minimum of stuff in the / partition and this will allow me to save space. And it’s not a major change; I think I’ll give that a go.

Thanks wolfi232.

Mike Railton

10

Thanks again wolfie323, I can now edit the large video files I have:). It would be nice to know how to get kdenlive to not use /tmp, but this is a good workaround.

Mike Railton