"Structure needs cleaning" message
As part of general housekeeping, I was searching my HDD for large files for possible deletion. ($find . -size +1G)
The search returned eight Mozilla cache2 files larger than 1GB, along with the message:
.cache/mozilla/abrowser/q*****.default/cache2/entries/E3E53E57*****’: Structure needs cleaning.
There are six such entries from abrowser and two from Icedove. Both applications seem to be running fine. Strangely enough, the actual cache2 folder in Caja is showing only 11.1MB.
Any help would be appreciated!
This is an indicator of file system corruption. I hope you have a good backup of your system. If not, now would be a good time.
Then boot up from a live ISO and run fsck on the affected drive.
Everything under ~/.cache can be safely deleted, especially browser cache, because they could leak your privacy. Try the command
rm -rf ~/.cache/*
If such possibly problematic entries don't re-appear, you probably needn't to run fsck.
Thanks. I will try removing the cache files first. Query: I have Libreboot and an encrypted disk. Will I be able to run fsck from a live disk? Or will fsck only run if the disk is decrypted?
I do have a backup of my home folder, so my data is safe in any event.
You have to decrypt your LUKS before you could do any other thing. You also have to have logical volume manager to recognize the logical volumes on the LUKS.
Before you make any backup of home directory, it's strongly recommended that you delete any cached files. By doing so, you could save time and storage space, and also reduce the probability of privacy leak. I use zstd-compressed squashfs for such purposes.
Thanks.
Removal of a bad cache file failed. I tried to remove one of the bad cache files via terminal and here's what happened:
rm: cannot remove '/home/ege/.cache/mozilla/abrowser/q6****.default/cache2/entries/E3E53**********': Structure needs cleaning
Fixed.
I booted from a Linux Mint XFCE Live USB that I had laying around. Then I used the Disk tool to repair the partition. Once I figured out how to use the Disk tool and identify the correct partition, the fix was quick. Thanks to all who commented.