Locked out of ~/home/.Trash-0 and no idea why

[Steven_G]

Ubuntu 12.04 / custom remix = Ubuntu core +XFCE4 +custom selection Gnome system tools (-Gnome shell) +custom metapackages w/ custom deps

I can't empty the root trash.

If I

gksudo thunar

/ right cick / delete I can't empty it.

If I

sudo chown -R <user> ~/home/.Trash-0/*

or

sudo chown -R <user> ~/home/.Trash-0/files/*

or

sudo chown -R <user> ~/home/.Trash-0/info/*

I can't empty it in the GUI or the terminal. (And the owner *does not change*; instead it throws a no such file / dir error message.)

If I

sudo -i
cd /home/.Trash-0/info
rm -rf *
cd /home/.Trash-0/files
rm -rf *

I can't empty the subfolders.

And I don' think it's anything I did when I was building. I've found tons of posts with the same complaint. I just can't figure out any way to fix it and I've got about 200MB of crap in there I'd like to dump.

[Steven_G]

And

sudo -i
rm -rf /root/.local/share/Trash/*

won't empty it either

[yancek]

If you are trying to empty the Trash sub-folders (files, info) for the /root user, you can use gksudo thunar and navigate to the file and info folders, left click a file there to highlight it and then hold down the Shift+Delete keys. You should get prompted asking if you really want to delete click OK and it should delete. This was the only thing that worked for me on an earlier version of Ubuntu.

The last command you posted should have gone in to the file and info directories:

cd /root/.local/share/Trash/
rm -rf files/*

Don't understand your earlier chown commands. It looks like the user Trash location is different than a standard Ubuntu?

[Steven_G]

Don't understand your earlier chown commands. It looks like the user Trash location is different than a standard Ubuntu?

Just random flailing as I learn. I got creative when all the stuff I found on the web didn't work and figured I'd try to change the owner to a user to see if that would give me the permissions necessary to del the files. I'll try your method when I get home.

[jayd512]

When I was running Ubuntu, my trash files were located in ~/.local/share/Trash. Is this no longer the case?

[Steven_G]

Mine are in root/home/.Trash-0/* with two sub folders = files and info.

[yancek]

rm -rf /root/.local/share/Trash/*

I would not expect that to work to empty the files and info directories if they are not empty.
I have Ubuntu 11.10 installed and the Trash directories are where they have been in the past as posted by jayd512:

ls -la /home/user/.local/share/Trash/
total 20
drwx------ 2 user user 4096 Nov 21 12:01 files/
drwx------ 2 user user 4096 Nov 21 12:01 info/

And the /root user Trash is in the same location:

ls -la /root/.local/share/Trash/
total 16
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 2012 files/
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jun 16 2012 info/

I suppose it could be xfce and thunar. It also seems weird that you say they are in root/home/.Trash-0 as the root user has its own directory in the / of the filesystem; /root and it is not under /home. Neither is there a /home sub-directory in /root. Haven't seen that in any of the Ubuntu installations or its derivatives.

[Steven_G]

I'm working from memory at work and I'm senile. When I get home and have the machine in front of me I'll update if I'm wrong or if its been moved.

[yancek]

I'm working from memory at work and I'm senile.

Welcome to the club.

[Steven_G]

OK, in the GUI (sudo thunar) filesystem "/home/.Trash-0/info" and "/home/.Trash-0/files" are now the locations of root trash.

So is the syntax "~/home/.Trash-0/info/*" , etc correct?

And in english does that translate to "root/home/.Trash-0"

BTW, the shift del trick worked. Thankx yancek