Hey folks, just wondering if there's an explanation for this issue I've gotten a couple times. I'm not sure if it's just a PEBKAC error, or an internal one.

When I tried to move a small batch of files to the trash, less than 400MB total, I got a rather incorrect-looking error message. It read:
"The trash has reached its maximum size! Cleanup the trash manually."
The problem is that the trash was completely empty. I double-checked to be certain, and sure enough, there were 0 bytes being occupied in the trash bin. It may be important to note that I was logged in as a normal user, not as root.

Now what I did was opened a dialog that let me change the maximum trash capacity. The trash was then on a maximum capacity of 2GB, obviously more than enough to allow for less than half a Gigs' worth of files. I changed the settings so that there was no maximum capacity at all, and the problem seems to be solved. But yet...
Why was the error there in the first place? Sure, it's working fine now, but I feel that my kludging shouldn't have been necessary.

Any ideas on why the error message popped up in the first place? If more information is needed, I'll be glad to provide it. Thanks in advance.

Next time it happens, try:
lsof | grep '(deleted)'

This will give you a list of deleted files that are still open: it is possible that a program still has a large deleted file open (which will not show up in any file listings but still take up disk space until released). Rebooting (actually, even restarting X or logging out/in) should fix the problem too.

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did you check all locations in ~/.local/share/Trash for each user id that logs into your machine? I ran into this issue a long while back and had to clean this out manually. Once it was cleaned one time, it didn't have to be done again.

forgot to mention, I did not rm the dirs. edit the metadata file in the path I gave. The number in there is probably wrong and can be reset to zero. It will probably keep the correct number after you zero it, mine did. I have a link for reference if you need it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the tip, wile_coyote.

No worries, anytime...

I thank you as well.