Q: Cannot remove legacy files, NULL character culprit?
I was browsing some legacy files from my archive of DVD‘s containing old projects from the OS 7 era and now I am unable to remove 2 of them from my trash. There are two pesky files containing a ‘NULL’ character at the start of their filenames. I cannot move or rename them, so the folder tree that contains them remains too.
I can‘t rename the files. When I move them or empty the trash, this error message appears:
I‘ve tried everything I can think of, renaming them, every UNIX command in terminal I could google up. Moving them into a temporary account and then deleting the account does not work. After deletion the user folder remains, containing only the rogue files and folders.
Please help! What can I do to get rid of these pesky files?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
Posted on Sep 23, 2016 1:11 AM
Hello
It is a known issue of OS X 10.11, which has never been fixed.
cf.
Cannot delete/rename/move a file from Windows with a special character
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7409456
Workarounds include:
a) Boot the problem machine to OS X 10.10 or earlier and delete the file from there; or
b) Connect the problem machine booted in Target Disk Mode to other machine booted to OS X 10.10 or earlier and delete the file from there; or
c) Initialise the volume where the problem file resides.
This seems to be a serious regression inside XNU. I wonder whether it is fixed under OS X 10.12 or not.
Good luck,
H
Posted on Sep 26, 2016 1:10 AM

