Unable to empty trash

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Running 10.8.3 Mountain Lion on my Imac (1TB HD 12GB ram). I have 4 zero byte files in the trash that were originally deleted from a Seagate 2TB external hard drive (which is always connected but is not my dedicated Time Machine drive). I have tried every method I've found on the internet to empty them from the trash but nothing removes them. I also used my Windows laptop with the drive to try to remove them from .Trash but nothing happens when I click delete. The dialog box closes and they are still there. The only thing I have found is that the Mac system thinks they are in use and I have run many terminal commands to try to remedy that without success.

Apparently this is an ongoing problem. Does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas?

Thanks
 
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Restart and try again. If anything IS using them that should free them up so you can delete them.
 
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Restart and try again. If anything IS using them that should free them up so you can delete them.

I've tried that many times with no success...and I've tried a number of terminal commands to force delete also without success... :-(
 

vansmith

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I've tried that many times with no success...and I've tried a number of terminal commands to force delete also without success... :-(
Which ones? There might be variations on the ones you've tried that will work.
 
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Which ones? There might be variations on the ones you've tried that will work.

I've tried using the Option key, the Command key, Secure Delete, Onyx, and Cocktail as well as this and other variations of this command:

sudo rm -ri ~/.Trash

The terminal output for lsof for the files in question is:

lsof /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Ubuntu\ 1204\ from\ old\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Notes\ and\ System\ Info

The files absolutely will not delete and using Command-I they are shown as zero byte files and unlocked.

I have also used Disk Utility to repair permissions and the drive where the files were originally stored...no effect...

I'm completely baffled...
 

vansmith

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Those files are on an external. Do you have that plugged in when you try to remove them from the trash?
 
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Those files are on an external. Do you have that plugged in when you try to remove them from the trash?

Yes it is plugged in to my Imac now and always has been other than when I shut down and tried to delete the files with Windows 7...to no avail...
 
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Try sudo rm -rf That's a lowercase F. Causes it to try and force remove without errors no matter the permissions.
 
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Try sudo rm -rf That's a lowercase F. Causes it to try and force remove without errors no matter the permissions.

No, it has no effect either...these files will not budge...
 
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Macs can not write to NTFS drives without 3rd party drivers/software like Macfuse or Paragon.
If you're running something like this make sure it's running and up to date.
 

vansmith

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OS X doesn't have native write support for NTFS so I imagine that you installed something. However, I doubt that this is causing the problem.

So, the issue here seems to be that the rm commands you ran were on your personal Trash but the files that you listed aren't there which might explain why they didn't go away. If I'm not mistaken, you said that the files were at (please correct me if I'm wrong):

/Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Ubuntu\ 1204\ from\ old\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Notes\ and\ System\ Info

Have you tried using rm to remove those?
 
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Macs can not write to NTFS drives without 3rd party drivers/software like Macfuse or Paragon.
If you're running something like this make sure it's running and up to date.

I'm using Tuxera NTFS and it's up to date...
 
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OS X doesn't have native write support for NTFS so I imagine that you installed something. However, I doubt that this is causing the problem.

So, the issue here seems to be that the rm commands you ran were on your personal Trash but the files that you listed aren't there which might explain why they didn't go away. If I'm not mistaken, you said that the files were at (please correct me if I'm wrong):

/Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Ubuntu\ 1204\ from\ old\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Notes\ and\ System\ Info

Have you tried using rm to remove those?

Yes, I have tried that with no effect...thanks...terminal out indicates that these are directories...either way, I can't seem to delete them...
 

vansmith

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You have to tell rm to be recursive if you want to remove a directory (this is what the r option is for).

If cradom's rm command didn't work (sudo rm -rf <file name>), I can't think of anything that will.
 
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Yes, I have tried that with no effect...thanks...terminal out indicates that these are directories...either way, I can't seem to delete them...

Here's my terminal output:

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC\ files\ Ubuntu\ 1204\ from\ old\ Mint\ 13\ Desktop /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Notes\ and\ System\ Info
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop/Notes and System Info: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop/Notes and System Info: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Mint 13 Desktop: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Ubuntu 1204 from old Mint 13 Desktop/Notes and System Info: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/MISC files Ubuntu 1204 from old Mint 13 Desktop: Directory not empty
rm: /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Notes and System Info: Directory not empty

These directories do not display other than in MuCommander or Path Finder and are are shown as Zero Bytes...I used terminal via Path Finder to get this output and verify the zero byte status..the directories and contents of the zero byte directories are in bold:

myusername-iMac:~ myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
myusername-Imac:~ myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe
myusername-Imac:Adobe myusername$ ls
Adobe Photoshop Plugins - Site Grinder 2.1.1
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Mint13
myusername-iMac:Mint13 myusername$ ls
Desktop Image Magick commands.txt Notes
myusername-iMac:Mint13 myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Misc1204
myusername-iMac:Misc1204 myusername$ ls
Image Magick commands.txt Notes and System Info
myusername-iMac:Misc1204 myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Notes
myusername-iMac:Notes myusername$ ls
Image Magick commands.txt
 
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With this being NTFS have you tried using a windows box, taking ownership of the directory, setting permissions to full control, then deleting it, also tried renaming the directory then delting, failing that try saving a temp junk file (i.e. some text file) as the same file name and location then delete
 
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myusername-iMac:~ myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
myusername-Imac:~ myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501/Adobe
myusername-Imac:Adobe myusername$ ls
Adobe Photoshop Plugins - Site Grinder 2.1.1
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Mint13
myusername-iMac:Mint13 myusername$ ls
Desktop Image Magick commands.txt Notes
myusername-iMac:Mint13 myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Misc1204
myusername-iMac:Misc1204 myusername$ ls
Image Magick commands.txt Notes and System Info
myusername-iMac:Misc1204 myusername$ cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
myusername-iMac:501 myusername$ cd Notes
myusername-iMac:Notes myusername$ ls
Image Magick commands.txt

Do this:
cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
sudo -rf *.*
(this is assuming you want to delete ALL files in Trash)
If not:
sudo rm -rf Adobe (or whatever filename)
See if it works.
If those are directories, drill down til you get to a file and try it.

EDIT: just for giggles, try a ls -la on those dirs. Should look like this:
drwxr-xr-x+ 98 staff 3.3K May 7 18:38 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 admin 204B Feb 23 21:34 ../
-rw------- 1 staff 3B Jan 13 2012 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 15K May 6 19:06 .DS_Store
-rw------- 1 staff 1.5K Apr 11 18:54 .ICEauthority
drwx------ 2 staff 68B May 8 03:18 .Trash/
-rw------- 1 staff 57B May 7 18:38 .Xauthority
drwxr-xr-x 2 staff 68B Jul 18 2012 .Xcode/
drwxr-xr-x 4 staff 136B Jan 14 2012 .adobe/
drwxr-xr-x 10 staff 340B Jan 28 18:28 .android/
-rw------- 1 staff 7.5K May 8 03:28 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 968B May 7 17:52 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 589B Apr 8 15:07 .bash_profile.macports-saved_2013-04-11_at_14:33:25
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 1.3K Mar 1 2012 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 8 staff 272B Jan 21 18:41 .bitpim-files/
drwxr-xr-x 4 staff 136B May 7 17:23 .cache/
drwxr-xr-x 5 staff 170B May 7 17:25 .config/
drwx------ 3 staff 102B Jan 13 2012 .cups/
drwx------ 15 staff 510B Jan 22 03:28 .dropbox/
drwxr-xr-x@ 297 staff 9.9K Feb 16 06:57 .explorer.cache/
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 staff 102B Feb 16 06:55 .explorer.local/
drwxr-xr-x 7 staff 238B Mar 31 2012 .fontconfig-2.4/
drwx------ 4 staff 136B Apr 11 18:57 .gconf/
drwx------ 3 staff 102B Apr 11 19:18 .gconfd/
 
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Do this:
cd /Volumes/Seagate2tb/.Trashes/501
ls
Adobe Mint13 Misc1204 Notes
sudo -rf *.*
(this is assuming you want to delete ALL files in Trash)
If not:
sudo rm -rf Adobe (or whatever filename)
See if it works.
If those are directories, drill down til you get to a file and try it.

EDIT: just for giggles, try a ls -la on those dirs. Should look like this:
drwxr-xr-x+ 98 staff 3.3K May 7 18:38 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 admin 204B Feb 23 21:34 ../
-rw------- 1 staff 3B Jan 13 2012 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 15K May 6 19:06 .DS_Store
-rw------- 1 staff 1.5K Apr 11 18:54 .ICEauthority
drwx------ 2 staff 68B May 8 03:18 .Trash/
-rw------- 1 staff 57B May 7 18:38 .Xauthority
drwxr-xr-x 2 staff 68B Jul 18 2012 .Xcode/
drwxr-xr-x 4 staff 136B Jan 14 2012 .adobe/
drwxr-xr-x 10 staff 340B Jan 28 18:28 .android/
-rw------- 1 staff 7.5K May 8 03:28 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 968B May 7 17:52 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 589B Apr 8 15:07 .bash_profile.macports-saved_2013-04-11_at_14:33:25
-rw-r--r--@ 1 staff 1.3K Mar 1 2012 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 8 staff 272B Jan 21 18:41 .bitpim-files/
drwxr-xr-x 4 staff 136B May 7 17:23 .cache/
drwxr-xr-x 5 staff 170B May 7 17:25 .config/
drwx------ 3 staff 102B Jan 13 2012 .cups/
drwx------ 15 staff 510B Jan 22 03:28 .dropbox/
drwxr-xr-x@ 297 staff 9.9K Feb 16 06:57 .explorer.cache/
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 staff 102B Feb 16 06:55 .explorer.local/
drwxr-xr-x 7 staff 238B Mar 31 2012 .fontconfig-2.4/
drwx------ 4 staff 136B Apr 11 18:57 .gconf/
drwx------ 3 staff 102B Apr 11 19:18 .gconfd/

I've tried all of the various suggestions and nothing will delete these directories/files. I decided to move all of my data to my spare drive and reformat the Seagate to ExFAT and restore my data. So far, so good on that operation. Total transfer of the 650GB of data should be done in about 2 more hours or so.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I sincerely appreciate you all taking the time to help me.
 

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