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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Can I delete the asl.log?

Henry Krinkle - Apr 2, 2006 - 5:56 pm

My startup disk suddenly had lost nearly 10 GB of space over the span of several days.

I ran WhatSize (an application which shows you what's taking up space on your hard drive) and, when I compared the search results to my Backup HD (which hadn't been backed up since the startup disk grew in size), I saw that the 'private/var/log/asl.log' files were the culprit.

They had grown from a single 'private/var/log/asl.log' file of 940KB to the following 3 files:

private/var/log/asl.log - 4.34 GB
private/var/log/asl.log.42 - 3.23 GB
private/var/log/asl.log.41 - 1.62 GB

So, 10% of my startup disk is suddenly taken up by these 3 files.

I ran Cocktail, and 'private/var/log/asl.log.41' was reduced to 27MB, but the other two remain.

I ran Maintidget which is purported to 'prune asl.log'. No luck.

Can I delete the asl.log files without screwing things up?

Please advise...

Thunderthud - Apr 2, 2006 - 10:41 pm

You can delete the asl.log.42 and asl.log.41 files. In general, any logs which have the same name with an integer tacked on the end are rolled over logs that have been archived and you can delete them. You might want to have a look at them to see if there's some pathological condition that is plaguing your machine but otherwise all they do is take up space.

A program like MacPilot lets you inspect and manage all of your log files. It will empty a log file but leave the file itself intact. Log files are for debug and trace purposes and aren't really necessary unless you care to look at them or have them around in case something goes wrong and you can use them to help track problems. If you eliminate a given log the system will recreate it the next time you reboot.

Henry Krinkle - Apr 3, 2006 - 2:04 am

Before I read your reply, I ran Cache Out X. No dice.

Then I tried to open one of the log files in both Console and OnyX. Both froze up.

I then downloaded MacPilot, as you suggested, and it froze up too trying to load the log file.

But, I opened MacPilot again and proceeded to delete one of the files (private/var/log/asl.log.42) as per your advice.

Another file was instantly created: private/var/log/asl.log.75 (Thankfully, this one was only 35 MB!)

I opened it and identified the culprit. There was line after line of this:

[Time 2006.04.01 08:34:39 UTC] [Facility user] [Sender /Users/Me/Library/Services/ChronosNotesService.app/Contents/MacOS/ChronosNotesService] [PID -1] [Message can't find font object for font id.] [Level 3] [UID -2] [GID -2] [Host Macmini]

Seems like StickyBrain is having some kind of font problem. When I checked the file size of 'asl.log.75' again a short time later, it had already grown to over 1 GB!

So, I went into StickyBrain Preferences and disabled the FlashNotes services. Then, I emptied the 'asl.log' and deleted the 'asl.log.75'.

This seems to have put a stop to the asl.log from growing like Bunnies From Hell.

(In a possibly unrelated matter, I installed Adobe OpenType Folio (about 2000 fonts) a couple of weeks ago along with Suitcase Fusion. I vaulted all but a couple of hundred of the fonts (all of the system fonts are installed) in Suitcase Fusion. Still, from the beginning Suitcase Folio seems cumbersome and slow. And some of the display fonts seem a little wonky sometimes... ie, in the number of emails indicators next to each mail folder in Apple Mail, the font is a little different than I recall it being before.)