Impossible to delete a file

Okay, this one's out there. I mean seriously out there. But it's worth a try. Go to System Preferences -> Sharing and select File Sharing. Click the Options button and turn on FTP sharing. Now, get an FTP client if you don't have one already... Transmit, Fetch, Cyberduck, Interarchy, etc. (Technically, the Finder can connect to FTP servers, but we want to use something else.)

Using your FTP client, connect to ftp://localhost/, and give your account username and password. Make sure the client is showing hidden files, and navigate into the trash and then into folder 'a'. Then try to delete the file from there.

If nothing else works, try repairing the hard drive using Disk Utility. I dunno if that would make any difference, but it might.

Man, that's a stubborn booger. Well, as much as I hate to give up on it, I'm completely tapped out of ideas. I'll keep thinking on it, but looks like that file has moved in to stay. You may have to erase and reinstall to get rid of the darned thing. Fortunately, most backup software won't back up the trash, so you won't have to worry about it contaminating a backup!

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

Might be easier to just delete the trash directory all together. First get out of your trash directory:

cd ~/

Then copy and paste:

rm -R ~/.Trash

followed by

killall Finder

exit to end terminal and quit, see if this was the fix.

If it complains that you don't have permission to delete that, then that's probably the problem. You can then add "sudo " to the beginning of that command

sudo rm -R ~/.Trash

at which point you'll get a password prompt and it should delete it no matter what.

Once you've removed the .Trash folder, it should re-create automatically if you either log out and back in, or use the force quit dialogue to re-launch Finder as stated above. You could also use

mkdir ~/.Trash/

to manually recreate it if it doesn't get created automatically.

In either case, I'd also open Disk Utility and run "Repair Permissions"--it may not help, but if the trash is screwed up something else might be, and it certainly won't hurt anything.

stenya wrote:
tried. in single user mode too.
If I would be able delete Trash I should be able delete folder 'a' too.

Tried as outlined above? You are not going to worry about what is in the trash, you are going to eliminate the entire trash folder. Then make a new trash folder.

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Where did you get this file?

You are not going to worry about what is in the trash, you are going to eliminate the entire trash folder.

The problem is that "rm -r" recursively iterates through everything inside the folder first, and is failing to remove the problem file, and then fails to remove the containing folder(s). It's a real stumper.

this program has probably the most robust file delete

http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/download.php

Don't use any of its other features unless you are backed up.