rm: cannot remove directory `ff': Directory not empty

blancs · 03-05-2005, 05:58 PM

Nothing I do will delete this dir, and it couldn't be anyome empty! what the ....?

acid_kewpie · 03-05-2005, 06:04 PM

there are no dot files in it? show use the output of "ls -la /that/direc/tory/"

Brian1 · 03-05-2005, 06:05 PM

Have tried the following command ' rm -drf ff '. Requires root to do this operation.

Brian1
" Google the Linux way @ http://www.google.com/linux "

blancs · 03-05-2005, 06:18 PM

here is a the 'ls -la output'
//
dhcp-17:ff # ls -la
total 8
drwxrwxrwx 1 root users 4096 Mar 5 18:07 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 root users 4096 Mar 5 18:07 ..
//

also:
# rm -drf ff
rm: cannot remove directory `ff': Directory not empty

blancs · 03-06-2005, 02:02 PM

anybody?

david_ross · 03-06-2005, 03:17 PM

What about rmdir?
rmdir ff

blancs · 03-06-2005, 03:46 PM

same output error

tredegar · 03-07-2005, 04:04 AM

Have you tried running fsck on that partition? Maybe the filesystem has errors.

You can reboot and force fsck to run as it reboots if you use shutdown -Fr in a console.

blancs · 03-07-2005, 10:23 AM

That was it, not sure why i didnt think about that... thanks tredegar

Cyhaxor · 05-08-2008, 01:46 PM

Try:

Code:

rm -R directoryname/*
and then 
rm -R directoryname

Omer Fadul · 05-08-2008, 03:29 PM

also try: find . -name 'directoryname*' |xargms rm -fr

tredegar · 05-08-2008, 03:53 PM

@ Cyhaxor & Omer Fadul,
I don't know how you reached this thread, or why you thought you should post to it, but it was answered three YEARS ago.
It is DEAD and should be left to rest in peace.

SlowCoder · 05-08-2008, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tredegar

It is DEAD and should be left to rest in peace.

Go easy. I've accidentally posted to old threads, too. Generally due to a search I did on a subject, and didn't look at the last post date.

Omer Fadul · 05-12-2008, 01:28 AM

Dear tredegar
firstly, there is no rule stopping me to post to any threads on this site. beside i was facing the same problem a few weeks a go and i was unable to remove all the files on /var/log/clientmailqueue because i am not using sendmail or postfix services and all root emails was logged to that directory; the total number of files exceeded 635,981 files, the ususal rm -f did not work, and after alot of work i reach to that solution. all i was trying to add was to share my knowledge with others.

Sabastian.xu · 06-03-2008, 03:06 AM

i have the same problem
# rm -R Qtopia/*
rm: cannot remove `Qtopia/*': No such file or directory

check
# df -h Qtopia/
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 3.0G 69M 2.8G 3% /opt/Qtopia

U can try
# umount Qtopia/
# rm -rf Qtopia/