Re: [rdiff-backup-users] [Errno 39] Directory not empty

[Stephen Isard]

On Tue, 17 Dec 2013, Joe Steele wrote:

> I can't say what exactly caused your problem, but I can reproduce such an 
> error this way:
>
> | $ mkdir -p src/d1/d2
> | $ mkdir backup
> | $ touch src/d1/f1
> | $ touch src/d1/d2/f2
> | $ rdiff-backup src/ backup/
> | $ touch backup/d1/d2/f3
> | $ rm -rf src/d1/d2/
> | $ rdiff-backup src/ backup/
<snip long error message>
> | OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty: 'backup/d1/d2'
> | $
>
> In the above example, a new file was manually created in the backup 
> directory.  This results in rdiff-backup getting confused.  Such changes are, 
> of course, a bad idea.

Yes, indeed, and thanks for the detailed demonstration.  But I certainly 
didn't create any new file in the backup directory on purpose, and I 
don't really see how I could have done it accidentally.  In any case, 
the only file in the .mozilla/<blahblah>/startupCache backup directory
when I checked after receiving the error was apparently the kind of file 
that firefox puts (or used to put) there and it had a creation date in 
2012.

However, the good news is that I tried Dominic Raferd's suggestions to 
exclude the (non-existent on the source) startupCache directory from the 
backup and shut down firefox, and then rdiff-backup ran successfully and 
the target startupCache directory went away, correctly mirroring the 
current state of the source.  Of course I now have no way of testing 
whether one or both of Dominic's moves were crucial to the success, but 
life is back to normal.

Stephen Isard