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I can't empty the trash anymore :(

Benjamindaines

Benjamindaines

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 24, 2005
2,841
5
A religiously oppressed state
I can no longer empty the trash through finder. I put something in and tell the trash to be emptied, the warning message comes up and the crumpling sound is made but the contents of the trash remain. I can empty via Terminal using sudo rm -rf ~/.trash/* but not through finder. Any ideas?

--Thanks
 
yellow said:
Does this happen if you're logged in as another user?
Click to expand...
No. Hmmmm well that rules out Apple's universal solution for any kind of problem.... (archive install)

EDIT: Oh wow, how could I be so stupid It doesn't happen when logged into other users. Wow, talk about a stupid typo.
 
I don't think that's ruled out, that just an extreme step that should be last in the list of troubleshooting, and unfortunately comes up far too early.

Well, take a look at what is in /.Trashes/

I suspect it something in there that is causing the problem across all users.
 
Yes... this might be one of those few and special occasions where repairing permissions actually does some good.
 
In that case, look in your user-specific trash folder --

~/.trash (where ~ is your home directory).

See if there's anything in there -- it wouldn't necessarily get deleted when you go to delete /.Trashes from the terminal. If so, you might be able to sudo rm -rf the files that're inside ~/.trash (very carefully, of course! ;) ).
 
mkrishnan said:
In that case, look in your user-specific trash folder --

~/.trash (where ~ is your home directory).

See if there's anything in there -- it wouldn't necessarily get deleted when you go to delete /.Trashes from the terminal. If so, you might be able to sudo rm -rf the files that're inside ~/.trash (very carefully, of course! ;) ).
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I've been doing to delete the trash since I can't do it from Finder.
 
? hard drive directory problem

I had something similar happen to me, and it was a sign of impending HD corruption, which rendered my entire HD inoperable. You may want to backup your stuff before doing too much more. For me, it finally died and wouldn't mount again after trying to run disk utility.
 
A few questions..

Are you using a haxie?
What version of OS X
Are you logged in as the default user that is set up when you install Tiger?
Why are you using finder to empty the trash? Why not just click on the trash icon in the dock.
 
Peace said:
A few questions..

1. Are you using a haxie?
2. What version of OS X
3. Are you logged in as the default user that is set up when you install Tiger?
4. Why are you using finder to empty the trash? Why not just click on the trash icon in the dock.
Click to expand...
1. No
2. 10.4.6
3. Yes
4. Right clicking the trash bin and going Finder > Empty Trash do the exact same thing.
 
Emptying trash is a function of the Finder, so try moving the user's Finder prefs (when logged in as another user) and then log back in as yourself and see if it still happens.
 
rwk001 said:
I had something similar happen to me, and it was a sign of impending HD corruption, which rendered my entire HD inoperable. You may want to backup your stuff before doing too much more. For me, it finally died and wouldn't mount again after trying to run disk utility.
Click to expand...

Going back to this...it seems like a long shot to me, but try booting off the install DVD and doing Repair Disk from Disk Utility, or running fsck in single user mode....
 
Thank you all so much for your help, I just fixed it. Here's what I did...
I opened Terminal and typed rm -rf ~/.trash then restarted Finder and everything worked. What that did was remove the Trash directory and then restarting Finder made a new one. :)
 
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