Cannot empty Trash folder
 

Since I installed Ubuntu 11.10 on a 8GB pendrive, I need free disk space, but I Cannot empty Trash folder!

sudo rm -r /root/.local/share/Trash/files
rm: impossible remove "/root/.local/share/Trash/files/danieluvi/.mozilla/firefox/irndj1vf.default/Cache/7/9A/85658d01": input/output error
rm: impossible remove "/root/.local/share/Trash/files/danieluvi/.cache/dconf/user": is a directory

Doesn't work.

The folder is still full.

Thanks.

And it didn't show any error messages?

No! Any error message.
That's strange, isn't it?

I have no idea what's wrong, then. Maybe someone else has an idea of what might be wrong?

An italian forum told me this:

it works for all but still something left:

Here's an idea: Delete .trash


Is it possible to just do that, and make a new functioning .trash afterwards?

Sorry if I am making more problems then solving, But that seems like the simplest to me.

I am looking for answers, not for questions :-)

In Debian, I cannot do the same from command line as sudo. The thing is, this is in the /root home directory. From what I remember, you cannot operate as root in Ubuntu, at least not from command line, sudo just gives the user superuser rights. So how does files end up in the root's home directory?
Probably by using software as superuser.
For instance, I have KDE, and kdesudo installed, by issueing command: kdesudo dolphin, the kde file manager appears after entering my user password. When I delete a file from the file manager as my user with superuser rights, the file will be in /root/.local/share/Trash/files. To empty it, I start the file manager dolphin as superuser again and navigate to the /root/.local/share/Trash/files directory, right click on the file and delete it and it disappears along with the corresponding text file in /root/.local/share/Trash/info folder.
Because this is Debian, I can also just su to root and remove them from command line, but I don't think you can do that in Ubuntu. Use nautilus as superuser. gksudo nautilus

You can totally use root in ubuntu ... Easiest thing ever (just not recommended for most purposes):

Open a terminal an type: sudo passwd
You will get this in return:
After that, Log out then select OTHER... at the login screen
For username put in root. for the password, whatever you chose at Enter New Unix Password:

I'm not 100% but I would guess the trash gets stored under Root because it is a SYSTEM folder, and root is in charge of the system ... Giving it jurisdiction if you will. Of course this is just a guess ... but sounds logical to me :)

edit: not saying everyone should change the fact they can't be root, you can do what needs to be done with sudo just fine ... Just stating it is possible.

I am still here trying to delete the whole Trash folder.

In an italian forum I found this "partial" solution, but there are still error messages and undeletable files or directory:

Please HELP deleting ALL Trash content. Thanks.

Maybe you don't have permission to remove them? Try posting the "ls -l" output on the files that have error messages above.

Also, it would be helpful to know what the error messages actually say (I don't know that language, and I can't use a translator without knowing what it is).

Translation:

entrare=enter
impossibile=impossible
rimuovere=remove
directory=directory
accedere=access

Here the output of ls -l

non esistente=not existing

Moreover:

Could the "input/output error" indicate a corruption in filesystem or a bad disk?

may be.

Any solution?

I've read something about fsck, fdisk, debugfs but I don't know how use those command, do you?

Thanks.

To run fsck (File System ChecK) on your root (/) partition, first of all you need to mount in read-only. In order to do that, I first enter runlevel 1. Type on a terminal
as root, or using sudo. Then login as root, if necessary and mount your root partition read-only:
Next step, force a fsck on that (assuming your root partition is sda1):
When the check is done, mount it read-write and either reboot or enter your previous runlevel with telinit:

Thank you very much for your help, but I suppose being too newbie to understand all those "mount" "unomunt" stuff.

For instance, how could I know "my root partition is sda1" ?

If I call mount:


I do not understand where is root mounted.

I try this:

So I suppose my root partition is /cow isn't it?

Thanks.

I tried.

telinit 1

and then

mount / -o remount,ro

then

fsck -f -v /cow

I got error: fsck.ext2 in /cow not exist
or something like this since I was in terminal out of ubuntu could not copy the output.

I tried also

fsck -f -v /

and got: fsck.overlayfs not exist

Open a terminal and enter this: gksu nautilus or gksudo nautilus. Navigate to your Trash folder and open the files and info folders separately or whatever you want to delete. You can Select All or select individually to highlight files. When you have them highlighted, hold down the Shift and Delete keys and you will be prompted and asked if you want to delete whatever files are highlighted. I've done this on Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.10 and I think I found this solution on the Ubuntu forums after trying several of the standard methods suggested above which didn't work either??

Impossible.

This is the error message:

Error finding file stat "/root/.local/share/Trash/files/danieluvi/.mozilla/firefox/irndj1vf.default/Cache/7/9A/85658d01": input/output error

Hello,
Maybe the file is in use. Go into single user mode, then try it. init 1 will goto into single user mode.

cheers

Indeed I thought the same as in windows some times you cannot delete a file in use.
But I restarted as single user and the input-output error is still there, impossible remove.

Well ubuntu is keeping well hidden its secrets :-)

Indeed your root partition is /cow, although I would expect /dev/something. Maybe
give some more light, but if it realy is an overlayfs I don't know if it can be checked. In fact, I don't even know what is overlayfs.

Another suggestion.
I just ran another test and put a photo called "Wolf.jpg" in the trash through my file manager dolphin. Based on the test I did from command line posted below, I had to specify the name of the file, using a wild card did not work.
I have had similar issues in Windows, where I could not delete certain files, but rebooting into Linux or Mac OSX and deleting from there most often would do the trick. There was the odd time where I could not do it from any OS, probably because there was an error in Windows MFT where it still reported an existing file that actually did not exist anymore. If this is your case, even if the file does not exist, the space will not be marked as free space and cannot be written to.

Since your Ubuntu is on a pendrive, have you considered the idea of just mounting the disk into another OS to delete those files!?!?
it's not an "elegant solution", but it might be a workaround... ;)

good luck! :)

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