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My multipassd.log had grown to 200+ GB before i noticed (because my disk was full). Stupid as i was i deleted the log with rm -rf multipassd.log (file was so big i couldn't open it). This apparently deleted the file without freeing the space on disk. So now i have 200+ GB of inaccessible disk space.

The space does not show up as used when checking the file system with the du command, even from the root directory. I also downloaded DaisyDisk, which showed that there were 200 GB of "hidden files" but couldn't access or delete them, even with all privileges enabled.

Eventually I fixed it, but if anyone can explain why rm -rf multipassd.log failed to free the disk space, that would be appreciated :)

Vegard Gjeldvik Jervell
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1 Answers1

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After messing around for a couple hours, I fixed it by opening Console then creating a new log file and reloading the multipass launcher daemon with

$ sudo touch /Library/Logs/Multipass/multipassd.log
$ sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist
$ sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.canonical.multipassd.plist

Then I started an instance of Multipass and cleared the (almost empty) log from the already opened console. That freed up the disk space :)

Vegard Gjeldvik Jervell
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  • I'm facing the same issue, but we shouldn't have to maintain multipass logs.. in my case it was a almost 900G log file.. they should be truncated or something automatically – Christoforos Vasilatos Nov 09 '21 at 21:15
  • Agreed, it seems to me like multipass just keeps on writing as long as its running and never clears out the log :/ did this fix work for you? – Vegard Gjeldvik Jervell Nov 10 '21 at 17:17
  • Yes, it worked for me also (as a temporary solution)! Thanks! – Christoforos Vasilatos Nov 11 '21 at 05:51
  • Update: Better quick fix, if you just overwrite the file from command line with ```sudo -s``` and then ```echo "" > 'multipassd.log'``` Then stop and restart your running instance, i freed most of the space. Note that you need to log in as sudo to run the write command, it's not enough to run the command as sudo, it has something to do with how bash pipes the commands. Still some 50G that hasn't been freed, but i'm hoping that will free up when i restart my computer. – Vegard Gjeldvik Jervell Nov 15 '21 at 09:55
  • New update: Purging the multipass instance freed the last space :) this was quicker than the previous fix, but I've posted an issue to the [github](https://github.com/canonical/multipass/issues/2343) page to see if they have some help over there. – Vegard Gjeldvik Jervell Nov 15 '21 at 12:19
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    The issue was fixed: upgrading to version 1.8.0 solves this. That said, opening an issue on GitHub gets a quicker response from the Multipass developers. – luisp Nov 15 '21 at 12:58