Permission / Trash Issues

I'm assuming MiniMel is your user account name. I'm assuming you may have done an upgrade which is one of the main things that can cause this to occur. Since I don't know what's inside your acccount folder with respect to the permissions, you can change the permissions and ownership throughout the account folder by doing the following:

Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder. At the prompt enter or paste the following:

sudo chown -R MiniMel:admin /Users/MiniMel

Press RETURN. You will be asked to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.

I'm assuming "MiniMel" is the correct name and spelling of your account folder.

web-betty wrote:
whenever I try to delete a file I get the message "Are you sure you want to delete "filenamehere"? This item will be deleted immediately. You can't undo this action."

That's typical of the situation where the file being deleted is on a network drive rather than being on a local drive. However, that seems to be your home folder. Is it local?

I went ahead and ran Repair Disk Permissions, which repaired 7 items. This did not solve the problem.

A "repair permissions" operation works on system files and Apple software. It does nothing to your own files.

I've also noticed that when I check the file info of my Home folder, Sharing & Permissions don't appear to be correct.

Did there used to be more than one account on your Mac? The "unknown" user suggests that the folder was owned by another account that's been deleted.

Launch System Preferences and open the Accounts panel. Select your account. If the lock at the bottom is closed, click on it and enter your account's password. Right- or control-click on your account entry and select "Advanced Options". Note the value for "User ID". Close System Preferences.

Now launch the Terminal utility. Type these commands:

cd /Users
ls -l
ls -l -n

(Those are lower-case letters "L".)

You should see "minimel" (or "Minimel") listed in after each "ls" command. In the first one after the string of characters starting "drwx" you should see "minimel" twice. After the second "ls" command the entry for "minimel" should have a number that matches the value you noted in the Accounts panel. A mismatch in either case explains your problem, although it doesn't explain why that occurred. In that case report back and I'll post the Terminal commands that you need to fix things.

web-betty wrote:
Here is what was reported by the Terminal:

That verifies that (presumably) everything in the "minimel" account belongs to user ID 501. What user ID did you see for "minimel" in the Accounts panel of System Preferences?

I'm assuming that the statement "melissa.incompleteMigration" may be an issue?

I did use the Migration Assistant to migrate everything from my MacBook Pro to this Mini Mac when I bought it, and I recall there was an initial problem partway through which prompted me to do the migration again. Everything worked perfectly for months, until just recently.

I suppose an incomplete migration and retry could have caused a problem.

I don't know if it means anything, but around the same time I starting have these trash problems, my main external HDD stopped mounting. It won't show up under Devices.

I'm not sure they're related. Can you see that HDD in Disk Utility and perhaps mount it there?

web-betty wrote:
In the Accounts panel the ID was 502.

Then that's your problem. The files are owned by user ID 501, while your account has user ID 502.

What's odd is that everything worked for months. Then something happened to cause this problem.

I'm not sure how that might have happened, particular since there's nothing else in the /Users folder that could have belonged to that other account.

To fix the immediate problem, launch the Terminal utility, then type these commands:

cd /Users
sudo chown -R 502 MiniMel

You'll be prompted for your account's password.

When I open Disk Utility I don't see this HDD. I see my Mini HD, my other HDD (a Seagate), and my DVD drive .I don't see my Western Digital.

How is that drive connecting to your Mac? Can you try a different cable or port?

I really appreciate you taking the time to consider my problem. 🙂

That's why we're here.