[SOLVED] can't move files to Trash or empty trash

[miKeyBabid]

Hi,

I recently emptied my Trash folder using Dolphin. Trash emptied successfully, but I can no longer move folders to the Trash. Any attempt to move a file to the rubbish bin gets this error message :

Trash has reached its maximum capacity. Please empty Trash manually

I used "locate" to find the Trash in the system which gave me : ~/.local/share/Trash

Trash has 3 subdirectories : files info metadata, but there doesn't seem to be anything in there... I'm not quite sure how to empty Trash from the command line if there's nothing to delete...

I thought it might be related to a permissions error (although the error message doesn't seem to imply that) but, from what I can tell, I have read and write permissions to Trash.

The only other thing I can think of is that I use a couple of usb sticks between my puppy linux notebook and windows computers at work.

Has anyone any idea of how to rectify this ?

Cheers,

Mike

[miKeyBabid]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

Ok, looking at it a bit closer (and after seeing this thread : http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3110069.0

I checked my permissions again. It looks like root is the owner of the Trash. How do I switch things back ? do I just

kdesudo dolphin

and then go to Trash and change access rights ?

thanks

[oshunluvr]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

Thats one way.

The terminal way is

sudo chown mikeyuser:mikeygroup /home/mikeyuser/.local/share/Trash

substitute your username for mikeyuser and primary group for mikeygroup

[Snowhog]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

A users Trash is supposed to be owned by the user, not root. This situation is likely the result of you running Dolphin as root - launched from the console with: sudo dolphin and then operating within your /home directory and making changes there. A VERY BAD thing to do.

I'm surprised that there isn't more wrong with your system at this point. But, that said, to get your Trash back under your control, open a console and type:

sudo chown -R user:user ~/.local

where user:user is your user name. This will change the ownership on that folder and all sub-folders and files within to you.

If I were in your position, and believing that you might have used Dolphin, launched with sudo instead of kdesudo, and did writing within your /home directory, I would be ensuring that all of my /home directory belonged to me, as it is supposed to, by running:

sudo chown -R user:user ~

which will change the ownership of all folders/files within your users /home directory to you.

WARNING!! MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU ARE OPERATING AS YOUR USER AND NOT ROOT IF YOU DO THE ABOVE, ELSE YOU WILL CHANGE ALL FOLDERS/FILES IN / TO YOU, AND YOU WILL HAVE HOSED YOUR SYSTEM.

[miKeyBabid]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

@ Snowhog : well, that's the thing -- I've always been very careful not to work as root (that's to say I use "sudo" or "kdesudo" - if i'm not mistaken to run as root you need to run "sudo su" which I've never done). I've read enough posts where people have been told not to do that. Plus, I've looked through my home folder /home is also owned by root... my user account is owned by me however. Is this normal ?

I've no idea how this has happened.

I've run

sudo chown -R user:user ~

replacing user with my user name, of course

I'm not saying this isn't my fault but I'll be damned if I can recall running as root...

[miKeyBabid]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

WARNING!! MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOU ARE OPERATING AS YOUR USER AND NOT ROOT IF YOU DO THE ABOVE, ELSE YOU WILL CHANGE ALL FOLDERS/FILES IN / TO YOU, AND YOU WILL HAVE HOSED YOUR SYSTEM.

I'm running as mike@mike:~ so I'm taking it that I'm not running as root...

[Snowhog]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

I'm not saying this isn't my fault but I'll be damned if I can recall running as root...

Well, just chalk it up to 'gremlins' then. Did making the chown change fix things for you?

[oshunluvr]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

Mike, this can happen by running any GUI program with "sudo" instead of "kdesudo"

sudo = cli superuser
kdesudo = GUI superuser

[miKeyBabid]

Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

well, Trash is back to being owned by me. However I still get the error message :

Trash has reached its maximum capacity. Please empty Trash manually

Mike, this can happen by running any GUI program with "sudo" instead of "kdesudo"

yeah you could have hit the nail on the head there... I can't remeber doing so but that's probably the most likely cause.

I figured I might do a reboot before trying anything else. Just wanted to make sure that the fact that my /home is owned by root is normal before doing so.

thanks

[miKeyBabid]

[SOLVED]Re: can't move files to Trash or empty trash

rebooting made everything good again. Guess I'll have to be more careful to use kdesudo with GUI applications.

Thanks.

Mike

[miKeyBabid]

Re: [not SOLVED] can't move files to Trash or empty trash

hmmm..... I'm not sure what's going on now because after emptying out my Trash I get the same old message about Trash being full.

I looked at my permissions and everything is definitely as it should be. I re-ran the chown command and rebooted to see if that would re-rectify things and rebooted, but this time it had no effect.

I have definitely not used sudo or kdesudo since fixing the problem (I'm not that much of a masochist) so I'm starting to wonder if this is actually linked to my having run as root in the first place. All I've done this evening is a bit of internet browsing.

I can still delete files from the command line using "rm filename ...
I'd still like to get this sorted out though.

Cheers

[Snowhog]

Re: [ not SOLVED] can't move files to Trash or empty trash

See Re: Trash can has reached it's limit empty manualy

[miKeyBabid]

Re: [SOLVED] can't move files to Trash or empty trash

I've already taken a look at that thread (see my second post where I actually reference it).

It seems that that thread is talking about running as root and forgetting to exit. I can't see how that would be related here because I did redefine the correct permissions, reboot, and then have the ability to move items to trash again. Then, after emptying the trash as the user it is, once again, impossible to move items to the Trash.

I just realised that I can configure the Trash in Dolphin : configure > configure Dolphin > Trash
where the maximum size for Trash is set at 32,05 gigaoctets. I didn't want to play around with those numbers just yet so I selected "delete largest file when Trash reaches size limit". This has allowed me to move objects into the Trash again.

Is 32,05 gigaoctets ridiculously small ?

Thanks

Mike

[Snowhog]

Re: [SOLVED] can't move files to Trash or empty trash

gigaoctet = gigabyte.