I'm having trouble deleting some corrupted directories on my system. When I try to access one of these folders, Dolphin gives me an error saying, "The file or folder /home/example does not exist." When I try deleting it with Dolphin or the command `rm -r /home/example/`, it returns "No such file or directory." I discovered that Dolphin isn't displaying the correct directory names, and I can use `ls` in the terminal to see them correctly. This helps me delete directories created by Inkscape crashes. However, I'm still stuck with corrupted tag "directories" in the tags:/ location that I can't delete either. Any suggestions?
4 Answers
Before doing anything drastic, make sure the folder really exists and isn’t just a mistake in Dolphin. Restart your system and check again using `ls` in the terminal. If it’s still showing up as missing, try printing the name in hex so you can see if it has any weird control characters. This could be key to getting it properly deleted.
You might want to try using `fsck` to fix any file system issues first; if those directories are genuinely corrupted, that could help. If you're not the owner of the user directory, you may need to run `sudo rm -r /home/example` to force the removal. Just make sure to check the permissions first!
Using `sudo` returns the same error. I think it’s a directory created by an Inkscape bug and my file system is BTRFS. What options should I try with `fsck`?
You can actually use the inode number to delete the problematic files. Here's a helpful link on how to use the inode for deletion. Also, regarding your tags, I'm not a Dolphin expert, but you might find those stored in a specific file in ~/.local. If it’s really troublesome, maybe just deleting all entries and starting fresh isn't such a bad idea!
Is it possible that you're dealing with a broken symlink? Instead of the `rm -r`, you could try just `rm /home/example` without the trailing slash. Sometimes the symlink might exist while the actual folder has been moved or deleted, so that could be the issue.
Dolphin was displaying incorrect names, but using `ls` helped me identify and delete them. I’m still having issues with the tags:/ directory, though. Do you have any advice on removing those?