What is .goutputstream?

Linux Support
1

Peppermint 5 on a Dell D505 laptop.
I have about a hundred files of the following type in my home directory:

keith@D505 ~ $ ls -lt .gout*
-rw------- 1 keith keith 0 Aug 12 22:54 .goutputstream-FF94JX
-rw------- 1 keith keith 0 Aug 8 22:29 .goutputstream-W1K8JX
-rw------- 1 keith keith 0 Aug 3 22:05 .goutputstream-EC6OJX
-rw------- 1 keith keith 0 Aug 1 19:47 .goutputstream-AGL0JX

…the date range is almost exactly one year to the day.

Would someone please explain what they are and whether I need to keep them? They’re reminiscent of Windows’ KB files that just kept accumulating.

Keith

2

Hi Keith

from what I can gather they’re temporary files created by some program or utility you’ve ran that should have been deleted, it’s considered a bug although it seems quite harmless

Graeme

3

Remove them all:

rm -v ~/.goutputstream-*

then shut down your PC … fire it back up, and see if another one has been created.

4

Thanks Graeme and Mark.

Thanks for the link. I chased through several links listed there and became quite engrossed! The most informative one that I found is: Bug #984785 “.goutputstream files polluting $HOME” : Bugs : X.Org X server.
The cause of the files has been attributed variously to Ubuntu One (extinct), evince, lightdm, Dropbox and simply booting and shutting down the system. Posts 27 onwards of the link are the most interesting. Many people are dealing with it by logging out then running a script just before shutting down to remove the files: sh -c “rm ~/.goutputstream-*” - just as Mark suggests.

The upshot seems to be, as you indicate, an inoffensive if annoying bug. Thank you for the guidance.

Just out of interest: how does one run such a script automatically at boot-up?

Keith

5

[UPDATE]
Running the rm command just before shutting down shows no goutputstream file upon rebooting.

Just found a possibly-related file in the home directory:
keith@D505 ~/.gstreamer-0.10 $ ls -l
total 868
-rw------- 1 keith keith 887018 Jun 8 09:39 registry.i686.bin

though I don’t know what happened in June.

6

Do you occasionally stop a copy operation in the middle of a file copy ?

You’re going to either have to figure out what is causing them to appear

or

apply a workaround, such as an autostart file that deletes them at boot time, to stop them building up … deleting them should be perfectly safe.

If one appears again, open it in a text editor, and post what its contents are.

7

I don’t remember ever interrupting a file copy process. I doubt that I would be quick enough to do so!

OK - I shall keep an eye on it and report back.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Keith

8

I read somewhere Dropbox could be causing it so if you have Dropbox installed it might be worth uploading something to your Dropbox folder and see if it creates any of these files in your Home folder

Graeme

9

Yes; Dropbox was mentioned in the link I reported, but as many people denied it as suggested it, so “you takes your pick”.
I’ve just tried uploading a file to Dropbox but no goutputstream file was created.
I shall report back if I get anywhere.

Keith