Incorrect Free Space Reported

[jerryfudd81]

Hi,

Oddly MakeMKV is reporting 138.5GB remaining (and dropping as its currently ripping - see screenshot) when finder reports 229.89GB. There is also nothing in the trash, any ideas on where MakeMKV is getting its information? as it keeps reporting I may not have enough space to rip the disc.

(The machine I'm using is mainly used as a server so has no requirement for a big bootable disk and only use it before moving the output file to external storage).

[Woodstock]

Does your machine have multiple partitions making up the file system?

If you do, it is likely that the one MakeMKV is writing to makes up only part of the free space you see.

MakeMKV asks for free space available many times during the ripping process; I've watched the free space change as I do clean-up of old files on the NAS it's writing to. Delete a TB of old rips, the free space jumps by a TB. Copy 500GB from another machine, the free space falls 500GB.

But MakeMKV is only concerned with free space associated with the partition it's writing to, because spanning partitions is rarely available.

[jerryfudd81]

Thanks for the reply - its a single partition... so not sure what's going on there but as you can see the screenshot the space is available.

[Woodstock]

I'm not an expert on MacOS by any stretch of the imagination, so I would have to defer to others here. I do know back when Windows first allowed on-the-fly compression of files on the drive, the free space numbers could vary wildly. I couldn't disable that fast enough!

[jerryfudd81]

I'd hope I know more than most but couldn't come up with anything... its not the end of the world though so sure I can live with it until a solution presents itself.

thanks anyway

[aromaza]

So, I'm not finding any other discussions here pertaining to this issue. I wonder if a solution has been found. I've used MakeMKV for over a year, just decided to purchase yesterday, and the first rip out, I get a message that I don't have enough free disk space. There are 638GB free on this laptop so I'm not getting it. I do have the option to 'proceed' but have hesitated until I know why... Any help is appreciated.

[jerryfudd81]

Hi,

No fix but with no progress and not my main machine I just ignored it, I usually rip and move to external storage and it's only if I did a couple without moving (while still having plenty of space) I get the message pop up.

I'll have to check the free space vs what the app reports next time.

[aromaza]

Thanks, jerryfudd81, for the response. I've stopped ripping since I hesitate to proceed and not know what I'm doing - something I've learned in 70 years! Ha! I realize you are using Mac OS while I'm using Windows 10. Not at all sure it has anything to do with anything. I'll retry tonight when I get home and see what happens if I try to rip it without enough 'free space'. Puzzled for sure.

[aromaza]

After a couple computer reboots, and a real hard look at what was on the MakeMKV screen, I'm back in business! Have no idea why it saw a 'free space' problem. Now it's reading 621gb. And, I'm ripping Avengers - Endgame for the grandsugars!! Life is good! Thanks for your response!

[HutcH]

I believe this issue is actually related to the underlying file system used by MacOS. It's very similar to other Unix/Linux formats.

What I've noticed is that if you right-click on your HD where your MakeMKV is looking at disk space and select "Get Info" what you'll notice under the top section (General) there are 3 entries at the bottom of that section, Capacity, Available, Used.

If you look at "Available" you'll see how much space you see available and then how much is "Purgeable". If you subtract Purgeable from Available you get the value in MakeMKV.

The OS is reporting to FInder the overall available space including space currently awaiting purging. So, technically the space is in use and eventually it becomes 100% available. But, because it's purgeable you should still be able to utilize that space but for some reason MakeMKV has decided to not include that Purgeable space in the overall available disk space. It may be that they are using an API that provides that data specific data rather than one that doesn't account for space awaiting purging.

It's quite frustrating because it makes me answer a question that I shouldn't be asked because there is enough free space...

[hamsterdance]

The issue is due to Time Machine. I'm currently being moderated if I post links (fair enough), so do a search on your favourite search engine for "time machine local snapshots", and hop over to the support document on Apple's website. The full details of what's going on are there.

It's mostly a useful thing, but MakeMKV doesn't know how to find out about the purgeable space, so it only looks at the 'completely' free space on the drive. Hence the error. If you just proceed with the rip, you should be okay as long as Finder's reported free space is adequate.