can not delete folder on my web space - Page 2

Janusian · 02-03-2005, 21:21

I was going to say the same thing - within Filezilla you can select the option to show hidden files, and it them becomes deletable (is that a word?) - had this problem several times

ikthius · 02-03-2005, 21:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janusian

I was going to say the same thing - within Filezilla you can select the option to show hidden files, and it them becomes deletable (is that a word?) - had this problem several times

in the view menu it has the show hidden files

ik

greencreeper · 03-03-2005, 00:42

In Unix, you have to specify a switch to delete a directory (no such thing as folders - that's Microsoft) that contains files (including subdirectories). Hidden files will start with a period - e.g. .hidden - and will be visible with ls -la

rm -r directory-name
rm -R directory-name

There's a difference between R and r but I can't remember - it's not important. The command rmdir will only delete empty directories.

huggyg71 · 03-03-2005, 01:41

bump!

huggyg71 · 25-03-2005, 01:42

hope you dont mind me bumping this up again folks. still not resolved.

many thanks.

simbr · 05-04-2005, 00:55

Files starting with a period will by default not be visible in FTP on a unix server, and folders that contain one or more files cannot be deleted which suggests that your media folder contains a file that starts with a period, however if you do not know the name then you will be unable to delete it as you can't see it. If you still have the files stored locally check them to see if you do have any files that start with a period then use the dele command the remove it by name as in the example below (I'm using ".htaccess" as that's a file I had to hand, it could be something like ".mydocument.doc" etc):

Quote:

ftp upload.ntlworld.com
Connected to upload.ntlworld.com.
220-
220-################################################## ################
220-
220- Welcome to upload.ntlworld.com
220-
220-################################################## ################
220-
220 upload.ntlworld.com FTP server ready
User (upload.ntlworld.com:(none)): ****
331 Password required for ****.
Password:
230 User **** logged in.
ftp> mkdir temp
257 "/temp" - Directory successfully created
ftp> cd temp
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> put .htaccess
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for .htaccess.
226 Transfer complete.
137 bytes sent in 0.01 seconds (13.70 Kbytes/sec)
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
550 No files found.
ftp> cd ..
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> rmdir temp
550 temp: File exists
ftp> cd temp
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
550 No files found.
ftp> dele .htaccess
250 DELE command successful.
ftp> cd ..
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> rmdir temp
250 XRMD command successful.

huggyg71 · 05-04-2005, 22:40

Thanks simbr i think you have indeed hit the nail on the head. The only things that were ever in this media folder were IE6 favorites. i have had a look through all my internet explorer favorites and found one for a website called musicbrigade.com. the shortcut in internet explorer properties is named '. musicbrigade .'

im pretty sure i would have had this stored at the time when i uploaded my favorites so i tried once more and opened my media folder and typed LS, no files or folders found so i typed 'dele . musicbrigade .' now it tells me '550: not owner'

I am sure this has got to be the hidden file because if i dont put a space after the period and before musicbrigade when using dele it just says no such file or directory so '. musicbrigade .' must be in the media folder, correct?

Thanks for all the help so far folks.

simbr · 05-04-2005, 23:03

Unix doesn't understand spaces, so it think's your trying to delete a file named "." which a kinda shortcut in unix (there are two in every directory, "." which mean the current directory and ".." which means the parent directory) so naturally you can't delete it which is why you get that message. Also, the filename is probably in fact ". musicbrigade ..url"
__________________

Try the command

Code:

dele ". musicbrigade ..url"

I tested it (and it took a while to create a file with that name on WinNT..) and it worked for me.

huggyg71 · 05-04-2005, 23:18

ok i just tried 'dele . musicbrigade ..url' and got the same reply '550: not owner' :-)
__________________

ps. i also tried 'dele . musicbrigade ..http://www.musicbrigade.com' and also got the reply '550: not owner'

simbr · 06-04-2005, 00:01

Sorry, I should ahve been clearer: you need to actually type the inverted commas in order for it to accept the space as part of the filename, since spaces normally seperate command options

Code:

dele ". musicbrigade ..url"

huggyg71 · 06-04-2005, 00:14

simbr your a star! that worked a treat thank you very much.

simbr · 06-04-2005, 00:23

Glad it worked, thanks for the update

bobflem1ng · 11-01-2008, 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by simbr

Files starting with a period will by default not be visible in FTP on a unix server,

Hello simbr, it qould appear I have the same issue, only without knowing the names of the hidden files I am unable to delete either them or the directory in which they live.

How can this default behaviour be changed ? If I can't resolve this I don't think the webspace is much use to me. Bonus question: surely other, paid-for webspace providers ISPs don't have this limitation ?