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linuxubuntu-22.04du

du command fails with error "invalid max-depth of 1"

A weird situation. I have been using this command below successfully on Ubuntu 20 and earlier to get a list of all directories with highest disk usage sorted descending:

sudo du -ah --max-depth=1  / | sort -hr

However, when I run this on a latest Ubuntu 22 server, it fails with the following error message:

du: invalid maximum depth ‘1‘
Try 'du --help' for more information.

The OS details are:

lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
Release:    22.04
Codename:   jammy

What could be the issue ? It seems like it just doesn't like that parameter of --max-depth even though it should exist and work.

Solution

  • Are you sure there's no invisible character around 1? I'm getting the error when I add a WORD JOINER after the number:

    $ du -ah --max-depth=1$'\xe2\x81\xa0'⁠⁠ / | sort -hr
du: invalid maximum depth ‘1⁠’
Try 'du --help' for more information.