Cannot empty trash ADVANCED

[Ares0311]

So I know about the short cuts, terminal commands and Trash It! app. But what do I do when none of those work? Terminal asks for my password and then does nothing, option +empty trash does nothing, same for secure empty trash and the Hail Mary - Trash It! - freezes up...

Ive restarted and shut down, retired all options both ways. Nothing.

My trash HAD the regular files and folders that any of us would delete at any given time. After trying these various options my trash now has 11 folders in it... each one named similar to "2013-10-22-094026" each with different dates and end digits. File size for each is over 22 GB!!!! I tried moving one to my desktop to then use Trash It, but it failed to copy over.

When I open on of the folders it looks like it is literally my hard drive... So I thought maybe a virus, ran SOPHOS, came back clean. Hmm...

Prior to this headache I was using Lightroom to move and delete images from an IPhoto alias folder. Don't know how that could relate but someone else might :-D

Anyway, my machine runs fine aside from this issue. Still able to use Lr, IPhoto, the full creative suite and nothing is getting hung up.

Ideas? (IMac, 3.06, Snow Leopard 10.6.8, 12 GB DDR3 ram)

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Looks like you tried to trash some folders from Time Machine.
If you right click on one of those folders in the Trash, choose "Get Info", what does it say by "Where:"

When you say you cannot empty the trash does it start emptying and then appears to get stuck and do nothing?

What commands were you trying to run in the Terminal?
Note that when you enter your password into the terminal it does not echo back anything, you type your password blind and then press enter.

 

[Ares0311]

If you right click on one of those folders in the Trash, choose "Get Info", what does it say by "Where:"

/Volumes/My Book/.Trashes/501

So this looks to be the case. I just checked three different folders and each say the same thing.

So can I revert back to an earlier time for my Pictures folder and have it fixed?


For Terminal - I was using the command:
"sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*" (without quotes)

Thanks!

 

[Dark Dragoon]

/Volumes/My Book/.Trashes/501

So this looks to be the case. I just checked three different folders and each say the same thing.

So can I revert back to an earlier time for my Pictures folder and have it fixed?


For Terminal - I was using the command:
"sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*" (without quotes)

Thanks!

Is that "My Book" drive your Time Machine backup drive?
By deleting some of the files off of it you may have mucked up your backups.

If it is a Time Machine backup drive you could try placing the folders back into their original location, which will likely be the folder:-
My Book > Backups.backupsdb > [Computer Name]

Though I'm not sure whether I would trust it after that.

As for the terminal command, it won't delete those folders because they aren't in your home folder,
instead they are on your external drive. So you would have needed to run this instead:-

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/My\ Book/.Trashes/*

 

[Bruno09]

You could also use Onyx or Maintenance (both from Titanium Software).

I have used Maintenance to empty the trash for the very same issue (folders from Time Machine).

Successfully.

 

[Arelunde]

If you have just a balky trash can that refuses to delete some files, hold alt/option and click empty trash. If this doesn't work at first, try restarting (or a hard reset - press/hold the power button, then turn it back on) and doing it again.

 

[Bruno09]

If you have just a balky trash can that refuses to delete some files, hold alt/option and click empty trash.

This normally does not work for Time Machine backups folders.

 

[Ares0311]

Thank you all for the help. Issue has been resolved.

Arelunde - I had tried that option along with the soft reboot and hard reboot. Neither did anything.

Bruno - Thank you for the recommendations. If this happens again I will look into those programs.

Dark Dragoon - Thank you for the help. I ended working in Terminal with a slightly different approach, because the code to gave me wasn't doing anything for some reason. I ended using the 'cd' command to directly get into the '.Trashes' drive then did the 'rm -rf' command on 501/*. Took about 2 hours to delete it all but it seems to be okay now.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[ElectricSheep]

You should bear in mind that if these were in fact Time Machine snapshots that you had tried to prune manually by moving to the Trash, by forcibly removing them this way it is highly likely that you have destroyed the integrity of your Time Machine backups. If you use Time Machine, now is the time to check it to make sure it still works or start from scratch.

 

[Dark Dragoon]

You should bear in mind that if these were in fact Time Machine snapshots that you had tried to prune manually by moving to the Trash, by forcibly removing them this way it is highly likely that you have destroyed the integrity of your Time Machine backups. If you use Time Machine, now is the time to check it to make sure it still works or start from scratch.

Indeed, that was what I was trying to get at earlier.

If this was me I wouldn't trust the backup anymore. So I would remove that drive from the list of Backup disks for Time Machine, reformat it, and then set Time Machine up again to backup to the now reformatted drive.

 

[Ares0311]

Thanks guys,

I figured that my backup was compromised and removed it and reformatted it. Starting from scratch, essentially.

Thanks again!

 

[gurucat]

Thank you all for the help. Issue has been resolved.

I ended working in Terminal with a slightly different approach, because the code to gave me wasn't doing anything for some reason. I ended using the 'cd' command to directly get into the '.Trashes' drive then did the 'rm -rf' command on 501/*. Took about 2 hours to delete it all but it seems to be okay now.

I know this is an old thread, but I'm tearing my hair out. Same problem, idiotically dragged backups folder to Trash, because I have other data on the drive that is screwing with the Time Machine backups.

Would you mind walking me through whatever you did? I'm not having luck with the "cd" command. Here's what's happening so far:

Last login: Wed May 14 19:29:21 on console
homes-mbp:~ home$ cd/volumes
-bash: cd/volumes: No such file or directory
homes-mbp:~ home$ cd/Volumes
-bash: cd/Volumes: No such file or directory
homes-mbp:~ home$ cd/Volumes Is
-bash: cd/Volumes: No such file or directory
homes-mbp:~ home$ CD/TOSHI
-bash: CD/TOSHI: No such file or directory
homes-mbp:~ home$

Help...!

 

[Bruno09]

You need to add a space after "cd" :

cd /Volumes

However, for what you need to do, and if you are not familiar with the Terminal, I would strongly recommend using Onyx or Maintenance.

Remember that the "rm" command can also instantly delete your all drive.

 

[Ares0311]

I agree with Bruno09. Exhaust other efforts before resorting to blunt force....

If those efforts fail read up a bit on terminal commands before rooting around. There are no warnings when you delete something. Here are some basics for moving around...

'cd' is for change directory, the syntax is cd directoryname. If your folder names have a space you need to use a "/" Example: cd directory/ name

$home is where you currently are. If you open Finder and click on the home in your favorites you will see the directories you can access... in terminal you do this with the 'ls' (list) command.

"cd desktop" in terminal will bring you to your desktop.
type "cd" to get back to your $home.

That should be enough info to get you to where you need to go. Hop online and read about rm and -rf commands. I honestly don't know enough to explain them all I know is they remove / rewrite without prejudice.