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For some unknown reason, all of my files, including Python scripts and data files, from my "home/KenPryor" directory have been missing since yesterday evening. When I execute a disk usage command in a bash console (i.e. du -hs /tmp ~/.[!.] ~/ | sort -h), the following statement appears: "du: cannot access ‘/home/KenPryor67/*’: No such file or directory". Is there any way to locate or recover my files? Thanks!

Hi KenPryor67, is there a particular console where you are seeing this? That is certainly quite strange and I do see that you currently have files in your homedir.

Also- would you have by any chance been doing anything like rm -rf * recently?

Conrad, Yes- this error appeared on bash console 7770383, which has since been closed. The most recent bash console that I opened today (7776949) is not showing this error upon execution of the du command. Also attached is a screenshot of my files directory. Although the page indicates that the directory is "0% full", it also shows that I'm still using "2.6 MB of your 3.0 GB quota". I did execute a "rm -rf /tmp/*" command on Saturday (27 January), I believe, to clear out my "tmp" directory since my disk quota had been exceeded. I hope this is helpful. Thanks for your quick response! Ken

PS - I uploaded the script "Z_CA_0109.py" this morning.

just a conjecture- did you perhaps type rm -rf /tmp * by mistake? You can probably check your bash history for that.

Conrad, No. But I did type rm -rf /tmp/ * (there is a space between the 2nd slash and asterisk, see line 87 in my bash history). I believe my files disappeared after I entered that command. Thanks again for your help, Ken

That would be it, because that command would have tried to remove /tmp and then tried to remove *. And if you ran it while you were in your homedir then you would have removed all files from your homedir.

Ok, thanks - is there any possible way to recover my deleted files?

We do not offer any backup/recovery services to our customers right now. But if you send us an email with the last known date (eg: 7am GMT Jan 27) that you want to restore to, and what files you want to receive, then we will see what we can do.

Conrad, That would be great. If possible, please restore to 0700 GMT 27 January 2018 with all files that are available. Just curious- why would my file storage status still be showing "2.6 MB of your 3.0 GB quota"? Thanks again, Ken

Do you have stuff in /var/log, and don't you still have stuff in your homedir?

Yes- mostly in the .jupyter and .ipynb_checkpoints directories. I removed the files from those directories, and that cleared most of my file usage. I believe I'm good to go from here. Thanks! Ken

Conrad, It appears that my files have been restored and placed in a recovery directory. Thanks again very much for your help. I depend heavily on Pythonanywhere to run programs and generate product images for my work with NOAA, and appreciate the reliability of this site. I'll look forward to more productive programming in the future! Sincerely, Ken

Great! Just to clarify and for future reference, as a rule we do not help customers restore files.