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Empty Trash error -8003

Can anyone help?

I am trying to empty trash, having just installed Snow Leopard. However, I keep getting an error -8003 (which is not documented anywhere in the error code pages).

I think it may have arisen because I deleted some backup files as I have moved to Airport Extreme for Time Machine - other forums have discussed this but none have any resolution

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 1, 2009 4:48 AM

107 replies

May 13, 2014 6:39 AM in response to Steve Weaver1

I was able to solve this by creating a folder on the desk top and dragging all of the items in the trash into the folder. Then I put smaller groups in the trash and empied it as I went. I narrowed it down to one file that would not empty which happened to be a program. After uninstalling that program the trash completely emptied by its self. Hope this helps someone out there.

Lurkums

Level 4

1,520 points

Aug 2, 2014 4:24 AM in response to LRicci

VLC has just updated itself (I run Snow Leopard). I adopted this approach on the VLC file that was in the trash (dragging it to a known location under my control), crunched my way through the folders that would delete (doing them one at a time) and would let me empty the trash, and then used Secure Empty Trash on the rest. Good information, for which much thanks. It was the least techy way of handling this for me.

I imagine I could have run Secure Empty Trash on the whole lot, but I didn't have hours to wait.

This manifested itself as an error 8058 yesterday, it changed to 8003 after a system restart.

Empty Trash error -8003