
MacOS: Disk full; Terminal in Recovery mode won’t delete files; boot panics - jen729w
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/338721/disk-full-terminal-in-recovery-mode-won-t-delete-files-boot-kernel-panics/338724
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makecheck
I had the same issue with Mojave actually, including the kernel panic at boot.
Fortunately I was able to free enough space and find a culprit.

It turned out that not only was the disk very near full after upgrading but a
running app process was failing to do something (thanks, new sandbox rules!)
and it would fail _forever_ , growing and growing one of its preferences files
to gigabyte size.

So in my case at least, Apple’s system “protection” basically _created_ a risk
to the system. The OS simultaneously _caused_ a program to trigger a failure
condition that the app wouldn’t have otherwise had, and then the OS did not
protect the system _enough_ when the app’s failure response was to grow a file
on disk without limit! Apple even redesigned the damned filesystem, meaning a
lot of tricks to erase files didn’t seem to work. I was desperately blowing
away anything I could think of while trying to identify the process working
against me. (This is incredibly hard. Processes fail to spawn, etc. and lots
of things go to hell. If you don’t already have a couple of shells open
somewhere you’re probably screwed.)

Do _not_ let macOS fill up its disk. And I’m really starting to wonder what is
up with Apple engineering.

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jen729w
My question, and my extremely lucky answer. Posting here in the hope that this
helps others avoid the same situation.

I mean ideally this wouldn't happen in the first place. It seems far too easy
to totally screw your system.

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cerberusss
Extremely lucky? I assume you have backups, right?

Nevertheless, very clever solution, my compliments!

