Re: [rdiff-backup-users] [Errno 39] Directory not empty

[Dominic Raferd]

On 16/12/2013 22:17, Stephen Isard wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've just got the above error when trying to run rdiff-backup in the way
> I always do.  The directory it complains about is <backup
> directory>/home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox/i6ky0u8u.default/startupCache/
> which is indeed not empty.  The directory
> /home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox/i6ky0u8u.default/startupCache doesn't
> exist on the volume being backed up.  I don't know what it is or was,
> but it probably got wiped out by the latest firefox upgrade.
>
> Rdiff-backup normally copes just fine with deleted directories.  Can
> anyone suggest what the problem might be and what I should do about it?
> Will --force just make things worse?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stephen Isard

I see from http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/FAQ.html#dir_not_empty 
that there is (or was) a known problem giving this error message when 
running rdiff-backup over NFS. The workaround is "don't run rdiff-backup 
over NFS" which may not be helpful to you.

There was also a bug report about a similar problem at 
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=652821, which appears to 
relate to a hidden directory.

These aside, maybe the source directory is changing in some critical way 
between when rdiff-backup started the current run and when it comes to 
process this directory, so it is upset by the inconsistency? Workarounds 
you could try:

- make sure Firefox is closed when rdiff-backup is running; or
- exclude this startupCache directory explicitly from the backup

A better solution would be to back up from an LVM snapshot - but not 
easy to implement unless you already have /home under LVM.

Dominic

--
*TimeDicer* <http://www.timedicer.co.uk>: Free File Recovery from Whenever