Re: Bug: Losing .zsh_history

[Dominik Vogt <dominik.vogt@xxxxxx>]

On Wed, Oct 05, 2022 at 03:31:07PM -0700, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> Somethig like that is the most likely culprit:  The filesystem has
> allocated space for the buffered content to be written out, but
> cutting the power brings the system down before the buffer is flushed
> to disk.  This is most often seen on "soft-mounted" NFS filesystems
> that use delayed writes, but it's certainly possible to happen locally
> on abrupt loss of power.

> If avoiding FS lossage is important enough to you ...

Not at all, I just don't want to lose the shell history.

> If the problem merely seems to be that a shell you can't see has
> started up and is trying to update the history when it shuts down, you
> could add something to .zlogin to make a backup copy of the history
> when the shell starts.

Yes, but that would considerably increase SSD wear (see other mail
thread); so I do it manually once in a while.

> The circumstances you've described are odd,
> though, because I wouldn't expect a shell to have any opportunity to
> begin processing its shutdown when power is cut.  If the same problem
> that causes the blank display has already killed the shell, there may
> be a connection between the failing display and failing disk
> operations.

Actually, what's really strange is that the shell should not be
started at all in this situation:  The display only ever fails
when powering on; once it works it keeps working.  In that
situation I don't log in because I can't see anything.  I'm not
even sure getty starts up at all.  So, why does any zsh run at
all if I can't even log in?

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

--

Dominik Vogt