[TT Esq]

Ok, I've gone through and done some cleaning up after installing OS X. I went to empty the trash -- and I get an error message that I do not have authority to delete some of the items in the trash.

The odd thing is that I don't think that I put many of the "error" items in there. There are tons of graphic files, like pic.gif, pic1.gif, mac.gif, and so forth. There are maybe 50 of these miscellaneous files that I didn't put in the trash.

Clicking "continue" each time will empty other items -- but what about these items?

Has anyone else had similar problems? Or can anyone possibly explain what is going on -- and what can I do to get this annoying error message out of my hair?

Thanks.

I face the same problem many times under public beta. It seems as though something weird happens on the Unix side of the house, especially if the file had been locked. You can probably solve it from the command line.

Try an ls -alo on you trash directory (~/.Trash/). It will probably show the "uchg" flag set. Do a chflags unuchg <filename> to fix it. Be sure to read the man pages on chflags, and you really shouldn't try this if your not willing to become familiar with Unix.

[TT Esq]

Thanks for the reply. However, I am TOTALLY unfamiliar with Unix. I'm just a home user without a whole lot of computer experience. I'm afraid if I did anything to the command line, I'd probably kill my entire system.

I've traced the source of these items, and it now makes even less sense than before. These are from my Umax scanner preferences folder! It mainly contains the graphic elements of the user interface, plus a few other things. I used the OS X finder to trash a bunch of my old OS 9 stuff, so that may provide a clue. . . .


The Umax software has always been trouble, but this takes the cake. Now it won't even die peacefully!

If there are any other thoughts as to how I can get rid of this stuff, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

[bleen]

I have the same problem, and now it's getting annoying. I reported it to Apple, I hope you guys do too... Hopefully Apple can fix it.

[vlastyn]

Hi,
Just wanted to jump in here...
I copied a number of files via Appletalk from a 2000 Server to here. The files I copied once belonged to a Unix filesystem and somehow got the 'uchg' flag. I'd forgotten all about it, and ran into the same problem (couldn't remove it from the disk, couldn't empty the trash, didn't matter who I was logged in as).

Like casey said, use the command line and go to ~/.Trash
Use ls -lao to list the files and their flags
If anything has uchg set, do:

chflags nouchg <filename>

After that you should be able to remove it. This worked for me.

-vl

[Chazzam2]

I had this problem too, & am also unfamiliar w/UNIX. This is what I was told, & it worked for me (what a relief!):

"You may be signed on as an admin user, but the folder may still have different privileges associated with it. Do Get Info on it and see if the admnistrative user is the owner. If not, see if you can make the folder and it's contents owned by the administrative user.

If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to enable root access in order to get the thing to delete. Check MacFixit's (www.macfixit.com) Mac OS X section for details on this.

Once you get root access, the easiest way to delete it is from the command line. In Terminal, type su. Enter the password you assigned to root. Your prompt should now end with root#.

Now type rm -r (note: if you get error messages, try inserting a space between the 'r' & where the file begins) and drag the folder you want to delete into the Terminal window. It should autotype the entire path to the folder into the Terminal window. Now press return and hit y for each file to verify you want to delete it.

If you want to skip verifying the deletes, type rm -rf instead of rm -r, which will force deletion without verification.

Hope this helps,
Eric."

You should be able to find how to achieve root access via the terminal w/o messing much up--it's written everywhere.

[holiday]

Originally posted by TT Esq:
Thanks for the reply. However, I am TOTALLY unfamiliar with Unix. I'm just a home user without a whole lot of computer experience. I'm afraid if I did anything to the command line, I'd probably kill my entire system.

If there are any other thoughts as to how I can get rid of this stuff, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

ok. create a new folder and place it on the desktop. transfer everything from your trashcan into the untitled folder. leave the folder on the desktop. now boot into OS 9. in OS 9, go into your harddrive and select the folder entitled users(the user folder should have a little grapic on it of what is supposed to look like a small group of people). in that folder there will be at least two folders, one should have whatever name you login as in OSX. select that folder. then select the desktop folder. the untitled folder containing the unwanted trash should be in the desktop folder. take the untitled folder to the OS 9 trash bin. reboot into X. your problems should be solved.

[rodrigo_la]

You know what's ironic about all this? Remember when Mac people would look down on DOS users because they had a GUI and could 'intuitively' navigate their drive without arcane commands?

Holiday is correct. You can't delete any OS 9 items from within OS X. I guess 'cuz X is a Multi-User system it's set up so no one can screw up your OS 9 system... Apparently even you. ;-) A pain, but his solution will work.

Holiday is correct. You can't delete any OS 9 items from within OS X. I guess 'cuz X is a Multi-User system it's set up so no one can screw up your OS 9 system... Apparently even you. ;-) A pain, but his solution will work.

[TT Esq]

Thanks Holiday! Your solution worked for me, and I got those annoying files out of the way.

I don't think that it's correct that OS X can't delete any OS 9 files. I did a lot of cleanup of my OS 9 stuff from within OS X. The problem here was that the files had been LOCKED in OS 9, and OS X was going by that setting -- but offered no solution to it.

This all arose out of some bad programming of my Umax software. There was no reason that this stuff should have been locked -- temp files, graphic elements of the interface, and so forth.

Thanks again to all those who replied. Problem solved for now.

[Gee4orce]

Did anyone try just holding down the Option/Alt key when selecting empty trash ? Just though I'd suggest it, as it's the Mac OS 9 method.

As for the comment about 'clunky' command lines - well, I see your point, but Unix command lines are not clunky. I think the argument against DOS was not that it was a command line per se, but that it was a crap command line.