Another 'can't delete directory' problem

i've hunted around for a solution why i can't delete some directories and somehow the explanation of hidden files always comes up which need to be made visible.

in my case i can see all files, but they aren't being deleted. i'm on a mac, tried cyberduck and filezilla. the file in question is Icon and 0 bytes in size. when i want to explicitly delete that by right-clicking it (instead of the containing folder), filezilla reports this (private data blocked out):

Status: Resolving address of mydomain.de
Status: Connecting to xx.xxx.xx.xx:21...
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response: 220 FTP Server ready.
Command: USER nyname
Response: 331 Password required for myname
Command: PASS ********
Response: 230 User myname logged in
Status: Connected
Command: CWD /dirA/dirB/dirC
Response: 250 CWD command successful
Command: DELE Icon
Response: 550 Icon: No such file or directory

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so filezilla displays the 0bytes file, asks to delete it, gets an ok from the server and then says it doesn't exist. which means i can't delete the three nested directories above. what to do? any advice?

thanks,
stefan

It is possible FileZilla is simple caching the remote directory listing and the concerned file really does not exist. Right-Click on the remote directory window and select 'Refresh', this should clear the cache. Then try again.

hi,

thanks for the hint, but that did not work. i refreshed and the listing is the same. in fact, there are a couple of nested directories, all of which include a 0bytes Icon file and non of the directories can be deleted. i don't even know where these icons are coming from, but i assume from the mac file system. they're probably hidden on the mac, but i can see them in filezilla.

any more ideas?

thanks,
stefan

What version of FileZilla are you using? Try updating it and see what happens, if the issue still persists provide a screen-shot of the FileZilla GUI illustrating the issue.

i just installed an upgrade to 3.3.2.1. it's not the very latest, but the latest i could find for tiger. didn't work either... i can't imagine a basic function such as deleting a file not working in a v3 release. anyway, i made a screenshot, but i can't post the image or a link to it, because i'm a new user! duh!

so to quote the interface: when filezilla gets to the icon file. it says
250 Icon: No such file or directory

when it tries to delete the directory containing the Icon file (and it's the only file in the directory), it says:

550 <dirname>: Operation not permitted.

does that help?

thanks,
stefan

Error code 550 means that you don't have permission on the directory. In your first post the debug shows the same 550 error, this is probably the reason FileZilla does not find the file, can you delete the same file in another client program?

the only other ftp client i have is cyberduck and it can't delete the icon files or directories either.

stefan

550 is a permissions issue, thats why you cannot delete in either filezilla or cyberduck. You need to contact your server administrator to give you appropriate permissions on the concerned folder, this is not a client side issue.

that's odd. why would i not have permission? it's my webspace...

but anyway, i went into the control panel of my web space explorer or whatever they call it. it's something i don't usually like to do because it's cumbersome. even there i wasn't able to delete the Icon file, but i was able to delete the otherwise empty directories *including* the icon files. very strange, but all is well now. thanks all for your suggestions!

stefan