snapper ignores snapshots with empty info.xml about snapper

[zoechi]

I found it with sudo find . -name "info.xml" -type f -empty (with BTRFS root being the current directory)

[anatol]

I have the same problem. It would be great if snapper reported what file has formatting problem.

[aschnell]

The error messages look as if a XML file cannot be read because it is empty.

Please check whether any file of /.snapshots/*/info.xml is empty or otherwise looks broken.

zypp-plugin.conf is of course also a XML file but that should only be read when using zypper.

[mdhooge]

You were right (of course…)

For the root & my home, both had an empty info.xml at the same date. I copied & adapted another file. Then the corresponding date re-appeared in snapper's lists and the warnings are no longer in my syslog.

If you want, I can change the “issue title” to request a better handling of an empty info.xml.

Thanks

[aschnell]

Do you know whether your filesystem was full or the system crashed at that time?

Yes, please change the subject.

[mdhooge]

[title changed]
It looks as if the system crashed on that day…

But since snapper doesn't save the logs and it took me a while to find the problem, the syslogs are gone :-( But by looking at other logs, the system booted twice that day.
And it seems unlikely that both / and /home became full at the same time.

So I think a crash is a good guess.

[rumpelsepp]

It would be great if snapper reported what file has formatting problem.

That would be nice! Idid a

$ find . -name "info.xml" -exec ls -la {} \;

and I found the corrupted file very quickly…

[maridonkers]

find /.snapshots/ -maxdepth 2 -name "info.xml" - -lls

or even:

file /.snapshots/*/info.xml

[equaeghe]

Would it be possible to have the log message show the file that causes the parse error?

[aschnell]

For once snapper does a fsync now after writing info.xml files (see #548). That could help to get rid of empty info.xml files in case of system crashes.

On the other hand the log does include the number of the snapshot that failed to load:
Snapshot.cc(read):266 - loading 370 failed