I have this empty directory, but I keep getting the following error message:
Cannot remove test: Directory not empty
I know this question has been asked plenty of times but none of them helped.
I tried ls -la to make sure there were no hidden files, and there does not seem to be:
I tried sudo rmdir test as well as sudo rm -rf test, and I just do not know what is wrong.
I read it might be a problem with the file system, but I have no idea how I would go about fixing that.
I had the same problem on a external hard disk, I tried so many ways using command line, but I failed every time. That's what worked for me:
Yes, it's silly but it worked for me (I don't really know how and why, but the damned folder no longer exist)
I have win 10 + ubuntu dual system installed. And both systems share the windows parititions.
Recently, i also ran into unable to delete empty folders in those partitions under ubuntu. I can't find out solution to solve it under linux.
However, after i switch to windows, and run
chkdsk
via cmd for the target disk. Some errors checked out.
and then i run
chkdsk /F
to fix disk error.
After it finish, i am able to delete those folders now.
I had the same issue not able to remove directory as it is not empty.
This sequence of operations worked for me.
From command line first
sudo rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty folder-name-to-be-deleted
The above command helps ubuntu ignore directory is not empty.
You could delete it by typing sudo rm -rf {dir_name}. The directory might have been set to read-only permission. I hope the given command can delete the folder.
If the directory is part of a filesystem mounted with CIFS (aka samba), and it contains a file that is a broken symbolic link, then ls fails to mention that file. (I observe this bug on a CIFS client running 14.04.2 LTS, and a server running 12.04.5 LTS.)
So the directory is not empty, but (over CIFS) you have no way to see that. The file can only be seen, and thus can only be deleted, by a command running on the fileserver hosting that filesystem.
If you are using btrfs, it is possibly an empty directory with a non-zero i_size. You can check whether this is the case with:
stat -c %s test
The i_size of an empty folder in btrfs should be zero. In my case, I got 6160 with ~/.config/chromium/Default.
The suggested solution is to unmount the filesystem, run btrfs check to confirm the issue and check for other problematic directories, and finally run btrfs check --repair to fix. This operation is risky, though, so it's a good idea to backup files first.
Source: Btrfs Problem FAQ
it is done.
sudo mv folder_error/ .local/share/Trash
you can clear with trash-cli: trash-empty or
sudo rm -fr ~/.local/share/Trash/*
try this command:
sudo lsof | grep deleted
Check in the list if your directory is still in use. :D
If so, stop the service and you will be able delete the directory.
I had the same issue on Ubuntu 16.04 and I fixed it by:
Opening and closing the file manager did no good—only rebooting worked.
Check if directory is not active for any running application before deleting. I was unable to delete a directory with same message, I found out the reason was that the directory was open in an node.js application. After closing/exiting the application I was able to delete the folder.
In my case, I had a separate command that ran concurrently and added files while the delete was ongoing; likely rm finished deleting everything it had planned to delete, then tried to delete the folder at the end, saw it had contents, and then threw an error saying 'yo, something is not right'.
(It had to do with running code in serial vs. accidentally in parallel for me.)
You may consider this if you're dealing with this problem.
I ran into this issue and found that the solution was quite simple for me.
I had a Node server running that periodically accessed the files in the folder I was trying to remove. This caused several small meta files to constantly exist inside the folder. The purpose of these files is beyond me.
Even rm -rf folder/* would not remove these files permanently, despite showing the message removed folder/file.xyz.
I suspected the server, shut it down and removed the files and the folder without fail.
Maybe the directory or a file in it has an immutable bit set?
root@lina:~# mkdir test
root@lina:~# chattr +i test
root@lina:~# rmdir test
rmdir: konnte 'test' nicht entfernen: Die Operation ist nicht erlaubt
root@lina:~# lsattr -d test
----i---------e---- test
root@lina:~# chattr -i test
root@lina:~# rmdir test
then you should remove the immutable bit with ''chattr -i'' first.
From the rm manual
-d, --dir
remove empty directories
So, to extend your example, try removing the directory with rm -drf test/
If you have dual boot (Windows + Ubuntu) and if the Windows did not shut down properly or shut down all of a sudden (electricity outage) while some apps are used/files are read/written then you might face this error.
... File is read-only
Cannot remove /path/to/dir: Directory is not empty
There are multiple solution to this problem. You can choose any one at time.
Go to Disks desktop app in Ubuntu
Select/click your storage disk
Select the partition you are facing errors with in Volumes section
Click on settings icon (bottom left corner in Volumes section)
Click "Repair Filesystem"
Mount the partition
The problem is solved.
I solved a similar problem:
The actual error I got is:
find: cannot delete ‘/home/lucid/x/SecurityCameras/B-Yard’: Directory not empty
The command I used was:
find /home/lucid/x/SecurityCameras/B-Yard -mtime +15 -delete
The directory inside /home/lucid/x/SecurityCameras/B-Yard is 2021, which is put there by the camera.
Deleting OR renaming the directory to something else and then back to 2021 FIXED the problem. Renaming and back again for B-Yard didn't do anything.
So just renaming the offending directory to something else, and then back to the original name fixes the problem. No need to delete anything.
