Unable to secure empty trash...

zherocharismazherocharisma
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Hey folks, a quick problem.



I went to empty the trash, but about a quarter of the way through it stopped. I received a message that said "this operation cannot be completed because the item "htm" is in use"



there is no file "htm" in the trash, or anywhere else on the computer. i made sure that finder was the only program running.



Any ideas? suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    See what BSD says:



    cd ~/.Trash



    ls -la





    Quote:

    Originally posted by zherocharisma

    Hey folks, a quick problem.



    I went to empty the trash, but about a quarter of the way through it stopped. I received a message that said "this operation cannot be completed because the item "htm" is in use"



    there is no file "htm" in the trash, or anywhere else on the computer. i made sure that finder was the only program running.



    Any ideas? suggestions?



  • Reply 2 of 9
    bkgbizbkgbiz Posts: 3member
    i'm having the same problem. i searched the trash directory using terminal (ls -la) and the said file was not listed. said file for my problem is "iPhoto" - no dots or extensions, just "iPhoto". any other ideas? thanks in advance. btw, this is my first post. howdy!
  • Reply 3 of 9
    gwoodpeckergwoodpecker Posts: 367member
    Did you try rebooting before emptying the trash?
  • Reply 4 of 9
    bkgbizbkgbiz Posts: 3member
    gwoodpecker - i havent emptied the trash in 10 months, but the machine has been shut down several times since then. so yes.



    news flash: i've just read an entry in the Missing Manual that leads me to believe that a file was deleted while it was still being used by an application. so evidently there is some permission or a file state tag that is preserved in the trashed file. im now trying to figure out how to change the status of all trash files to 'closed' or whatever. forgive my jargon, not a big mac/unix user here.



    any other ideas folks?
  • Reply 5 of 9
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Just to get it out there, have you tried Option-Empty Trash.



    Also you could try opening up activity monitor and closing all programs associated with the files so that nothing is open. I've experienced files that would not delete but a restart always fixed it.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zherocharisma


    Hey folks, a quick problem.



    I went to empty the trash, but about a quarter of the way through it stopped. I received a message that said "this operation cannot be completed because the item "htm" is in use"



    there is no file "htm" in the trash, or anywhere else on the computer. i made sure that finder was the only program running.



    Any ideas? suggestions?



    lsof | grep htm
  • Reply 7 of 9
    bkgbizbkgbiz Posts: 3member
    macCrazy - that command works, but i am interested in wiping my obsolete files permanent and irrecoverable style.



    lundy - no results are returned for your suggested command. btw, i exchanged my trouble file name 'iphoto' instead of htm (the original posters trouble file name).



    anything more guys? is there a unix file shredding command that i can sudo? thanks in advance.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    va_d1va_d1 Posts: 2member
    I'm not sure if you solved your problem yet? I went into each of the file folders in question with the undeletable "htm" files and brought up their "get info" tab, from there I started to "unlock" each file suddenly I was able to secure empty all the content in my trash.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bkgbiz View Post


    macCrazy - that command works, but i am interested in wiping my obsolete files permanent and irrecoverable style.



    The best way is to use Disk Utility to erase your free space. This way it will get rid of files you forgot to overwrite too. It will also cover your old Virtual memory files.



    In unix, the if you use -P with the rm command, that's supposed to overwrite files.



    If you are selling the machine, you are better to zero the drive and install the system again.
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