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A full Linux filesystem could have disrupted the process sending your 24/7 stream, but the timing alone does not prove that disk exhaustion caused YouTube to stop receiving it. Compare YouTube’s timestamped stream-health errors with the server’s disk and inode usage and the streaming service’s logs. Preserve useful evidence, free space safely, then restart or reconnect the encoder and confirm that YouTube is receiving the feed.
First, establish what stopped and when
Record the approximate time the stream stopped, including the server’s timezone. Open YouTube’s Live Control Room stream-health and error messages. Note the timestamp and wording of any errors, and whether YouTube shows the broadcast as ended, disconnected, or still receiving an encoder feed. YouTube’s error display can include when an issue was observed.
Compare that timeline with the Linux host’s service logs and, if you use OBS, its logs. Look for messages around the same time about failed writes, a process exit or restart, or a network disconnect. A full disk is a plausible contributor, but a stream stopping at roughly the same time is not proof of cause. OBS identifies dropped frames and intermittent disconnections as signs of an unstable connection to the remote ingest server; those clues point to a separate possibility from a local write failure. See OBS connection troubleshooting if OBS is your encoder.
Check filesystem capacity and inodes
Run these commands on the Linux server:
df -h
df -idf -h reports filesystem capacity in human-readable units. df -i reports inode use: filesystems can run out of slots for file metadata even when there appears to be space for more bytes. These are distinct limits, so inspect both rather than treating “disk full” as a single condition. The GNU df manual documents both reporting modes.
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Check the filesystems that hold the streaming application’s logs, media, cache, temporary files, and service data—not just the root filesystem. A service may write to a different mount from the one you first inspect.
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Use a shallow directory scan to locate likely sources of usage, replacing /path with the relevant mount point or directory:
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du -xhd1 /pathOn systems whose du implementation does not support those flags, consult its local manual or use an equivalent directory-level scan. The -x option keeps the scan on one filesystem in GNU du; the depth limit helps identify which top-level directories merit a closer look. du estimates usage by walking directory trees, so it is a locator rather than a guaranteed reconciliation with df. See the GNU du manual.
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Review logs and the system journal before cleanup
Inspect the streaming service’s own logs and the system journal around the recorded stop time. If OBS is involved, check its log as well. Match any write errors, process termination or restart, and network-disconnect messages against YouTube’s health timeline. This helps distinguish a local disk-related failure from an ingest connection problem.
To see how much space the systemd journal uses, run:
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journalctl --disk-usageDepending on configuration, systemd-journald may store persistent data under /var/log/journal or volatile data under /run/log/journal. The journalctl manual describes journal inspection and cleanup controls; the systemd-journald manual explains its storage behavior.
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Free space, fix the source, and restore the stream
Choose cleanup based on what the checks actually identify. Avoid deleting files simply because they are large, and retain evidence needed to understand the failure.
- If old archived journal data is the identified consumer, use the supported journal rotation or vacuum controls deliberately after preserving useful evidence.
- If a service’s logs are growing continuously, identify the service and configure suitable rotation and retention rather than repeatedly deleting its current log.
- If the issue is inode exhaustion, identify the directory containing very large numbers of files; freeing a large file may not resolve a shortage of file slots.
- If a virtual server’s provisioned volume is genuinely too small, consider expanding it only after confirming the server type and the limiting filesystem. A hardware upgrade is not a universal fix.
The logrotate manual describes time- or size-based rotation, compression, and removal according to configuration. Choose retention that suits the service and keeps enough logs for troubleshooting.
- After freeing enough space or inodes, confirm the relevant filesystem can accept writes.
- Check the streaming service’s state and restart or reconnect it using the procedure for your actual encoder and service setup. There is no single restart command or recovery behavior that applies to every Linux streaming stack.
- Verify in YouTube’s Live Control Room that the encoder feed is arriving and that stream-health indicators clear. Continue checking the server and YouTube timelines for a recurrence.
Prevent another disk-full interruption
- Set up log rotation and retention for the service that produced the growth; confirm that the rotation configuration is actually applied.
- Monitor both filesystem capacity and inode use on the mounts the streaming service writes to.
- Keep an eye on logs, media, cache, temporary files, and service data as separate possible consumers rather than assuming the root filesystem holds everything.
- Retain enough diagnostic logs to investigate failures, while avoiding unbounded accumulation.
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