Can't login - 'call to lnusertemp failed' after synaptic upgrade

[Morph]

I have just done a synaptic upgrade and can no longer login to my home user account. I get the error message 'Call to lnusertemp failed (temporary directory full?) Check your installation.' I can log into root and have deleted all my temp files but still no joy. Can anyone suggest what I try next ? Thanks

[Texstar]

Check to make sure you did not delete your home/username/tmp folder. If so re-create it and make sure your username owns the folder.

[Morph]

Thanks but /tmp file is still there.

I am not sure that my synaptic update was applied properly. When i re-opened synaptic and checked for upgradable packages the ones I thought I had updated were were still not applied. When I tried to apply I get an error message 'APT system reports: E: Error while running transaction. After I click OK I get a Package Manager output with the following message 'While preparing for installation: installing package ........ needs ...MB on the / filesystem' It does this for all the packages.

The / partition is 10GB and only 13% is used.

Any help much appreciated.

[Bald Brick]

Is your /home/<user>/tmp a normal directory or a symlink to /tmp?

If it isn't a symlink ~/tmp may be full even if /tmp isn't.

But lnusertemp creates the symlinks ~/.kde4/cache-localhost.localdomain, ~/.kde4/socket-localhost.localdomain, and ~/.kde4/tmp-localhost.localdomain if they don't exist, and your error may indicate that it can't do its job, either because there's something wrong with your existing links, or because there's something wrong with their targets.

So, empty /tmp and ~/tmp and reboot. If that doesn't help, remove the three symlinks and reboot.

[Morph]

I have now found several large log file in /var/log/mythtv. I had recently had a short attempt to get mythtv up and running but quickly ran out of enthusiasm and time. I removed it but did not realise that it had created such large log files.

I understand that synaptic packages are saved in /var/cache/apt/archive. Am I correct ? If so then I think this, in addition to the large log files, must have enough to fill up the partition. The packages couldn't be installed and at the next boot there was not enough space for tmp files - hence the 'call to lnusertemp failed'. Does this sound plausible ?

Anyway now logged in. Thanks for advice.

Morph. 

[pupthai]

Old link but it just saved my bottom.

This morning I booted PClos and it fell back to the msg:
call to lnusertemp failed
without internet went into root and everything looked fine
cleaned tmp folders no joy
deleted the ~/.kde4 stuff no joy
then saw the ownership issue and sure nuf my ~/tmp was owned by root

But why?  everything last nite was operating normal when I shut it down - I had been doing a load of file transfers from a usb device into a VM install that lives on another drive and partition - This was the host operating system - I don't see a relationship at all.  I am going to have to place an amulet on the box to protect it from demons