Weird Trash error

[vvapple]

Hey there,

so I usually get things fixed myself, but I am cracking down on this one.

I don't know when exactly this error message appeared, but whenever I want to empty the trash, I always get the error message that "one note" which I can't even remember having installed, can't be deleted since it is still in use.

the thing is: the file is 0 byte large, it is a strange container with weird language stuff in it. I don't use one note and can't remember I ever had it installed.

I tried several Terminal commandos to delete this file or empty the trash. nothing worked!

Can you guys help me with this one? that would be a blast!

Thanks

 

[treekram]

There's a Microsoft "OneNote" app that exists - do you have Microsoft apps on your computer?

In the following link, there's suggestions on commands that can be used to find out what process is using a file. You should close all your apps except for Terminal and try these commands.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8317177/see-what-process-is-using-a-file-in-mac-os-x

If it is the Microsoft "OneNote" that is causing the issue, well, that's just Microsoft being Microsoft. But if it's some other 3rd-party app that you have no recollection of installing, that would be more of a concern and you should probably try to track down what the app is before deleting the file. If you believe it is a Microsoft app that's causing the issue and just want to just be rid of the file, it's probably just some background task that controls the file and you might be able to go into safe mode and delete the file that way.

 

[vvapple]

Thanks for your suggestion. I know that there is an App from microsoft called OneNote.
Yes, I do have Word, Excel and Powerpoint installed, though I never use them. However, there is absolutely no process that is using that one specific file which I just can't delete nor empty the trash with it being in it. The strange thing is, that it is 0 byte big. I mean.. that's literally nothing

 

[treekram]

Thanks for your suggestion. I know that there is an App from microsoft called OneNote.
However, there is absolutely no process that is using that one specific file which I just can't delete nor empty the trash with it being in it. The strange thing is, that it is 0 byte big. I mean.. that's literally nothing

Did you actually try the commands in the link I gave or are you surmising that because there is no obvious Microsoft app running and because the file is 0 bytes that there is no process using the file? There may be a background process which has a hold of it - given that "OneNote" sounds similar to "OneDrive", which I'm pretty certain relies on background processes, that could be it - I don't know. As for a zero-byte file size, if you open a file handle but haven't written anything to it, it will be be zero bytes in size. Such a zero-byte file wouldn't be nothing, especially to the process which expects to write to the file. If you've restarted your computer and the file is still there and still cannot be deleted, that would be strange but who knows - it's probably some bug.

There may also be something with macos where for whatever reason doesn't want to delete the file - I presume you tried a sudo delete?

 

[NoBoMac]

A variation on the commands in the link provided to find a related process still running and making life difficult:

ps -ef | egrep -i 'one|microsoft'

ADD: since no detail on what command line stuff OP did, might try this:

cd ~/.Trash
rm -rf *

 

[vvapple]

Ok, nothing of that worked.

thanks for your help people

I solved the problem by deleting the fusion drive, splitting the it and re-creating it. And re-installed the OS.
I am just afraid that I did something wrong, but it seems like my Mac is running OK.. seems a bit slower

 

[treekram]

There have been people reporting problems with 10.14 and fusion drives recently (you're the 4th that I know of in the past 2 or 3 weeks) - I think some have mentioned the 10.14.4 update specifically so your problem may have been be due to that.

 

[vvapple]

There have been people reporting problems with 10.14 and fusion drives recently (you're the 4th that I know of in the past 2 or 3 weeks) - I think some have mentioned the 10.14.4 update specifically so your problem may have been be due to that.

Ok, good to know!
I was afraid that I maybe did something wrong by creating the FusionDrive, though I used apples tool for creating it.

I will wait for 14.5 to see if it brings any improvement. But to me it seems like the SSD is not the primary Drive anymore and things aren't loaded on it.

Its a 3TB Fusion drive, 2013 iMac. Until this trash error happened, the performance was extremely good due to such an "old" Mac. Now, loading times are f*** up.

 

[fisherking]

you probably could have opened activity monitor, found the app there, then force-quit it... then emptied the trash. anyway, good luck, 10.14.5 should be soon..