Trash looks empty, isn't

Hi Tom,

I can't recreate on feisty. What version are you using? Also does it happen all the time? Or are there some special steps taken to re-create it?

I only noticed it yesterday and it seems to be working properly again today so I'm closing. I can't recreate it (on Edgy, all updates applied) but if I see it happen again I'll reopen.

Ok, I'm reopening this because I've worked out what it is. The trash displays its status correctly until I delete something by pressing the delete key on my keyboard, at which point the trash will always appear empty until actually emtied at which point correct behaviour resumes.

Oops, not quite correct. It seems normal behaviour doesn't actually return until I log out then in again, following the emptying of the trash.

I can't confirm that it happens when pressing the delete key, but I have observed the same problem. Logging out, then doing "pkill -u <user>" and logging in again fixes it.

I noticed another symptom of this bug. Sometimes if you switch icon theme (e.g. to Tango), then switch back (e.g. to Human), the icon stays at is was in the theme you switched to (in this example, Tango).

Here it's only after disconnecting once:
- evolution-data-server is not killed (don't know if it's a bug)
- so bonobo-activation-server doesn't exit
and on reconnect the trash icon is always empty.

killing evolution-data-server before reconnecting close bonobo and the applet works.

I'm having a similar problem. My applet show empty, and empty trash is greyed out, but they are actually items in the trash folder. I've included an attachment with a screen shot. I have never used the delete key to empty my trash. I've tried logging out and logging back in, but that didn't work. Now, I did remove it at one point when I was fooling around with how I wanted the panels, but I cant remember if it was working before then. I'm working with herd 5, 32 bit architecture.

Using Feisty RC 20070415 here, with Beryl.

I dont know if this happened when I changed window managers from Beryl to metacity and vice versa, but Im looking now at an empty recycle bin in the right corner of my screen that contains 12 files that were previously in my Desktop before I deleted them. BTW, when I hover the mouse pointer over the trash bin, a popup message reads "No items in Trash". When I right click it, the option to empty the recycle bin greyed out too.

So, I can confirm this bug.

i have the same problem with a fresh install of feisty, for me the bug appears with and without beryl , i think some other people have the problem http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=415741

does the bug happen only when you log again? the evolution-data-server not closing is bug #90258

> does the bug happen only when you log again? the evolution-data-server
> not closing is bug #90258
For me, yes it does.

I also observe this bug on Feisty (dist upgraded from Edgy) and up-to-date as of the date of posting.

I can confirm this bug on a fresh install of feisty. /home is on a different partition and contains data and settings of my previous release, dapper.

I can also confirm this bug at Feisty fresh install. However I could not find out any pattern to reproduce the bug.

The trash applet simply sometimes decides the trash is empty and only god can convince it otherwise... I have to click it, open the trash and than ask to empty it.

This bug seem pretty old and confirmed. Would not it be worth thinking about removing this applet since no one seems to fix it? There are many bugs related to this applet at launchpad, it seems to be all broken (due to unknown reason).

Hope this get fixed before the next release.

removing applications because they have bugs is not a constructive way to do things and you would not many software left to install if any

Left a widely known buggy application that does not accomplish what it
was supposed to do won't help either... It is not a main application.
We all could live without it. Just create a Trash icon on the desktop
and forget about this buggy applet until it get fixed.

I think I did not made my point clear. I believe giving Ubuntu users a
buggy day by day experience will not make them happy. I am trying to
say that if a software is not mature to get into an Ubuntu release,
then it should wait until the next one. Letting thousands of people
loose time with a buggy application on a release is not a good thing
to let happen.

The point I am trying to target here is Ubuntu quality software. One
example is my Firefox that I've just updated and got all broken (I
made a bug report and a couple of other users had the same issue). One
day Ubuntu works, the other it is broken (FF is THE main application I
use with Ubuntu). I am using a clean release distribution, there
should not have broken applications with it. Should it?

I am not in control of Ubuntu, I am just making a suggestion here that
I believe all community would be happy with. I may be wrong. Please do
not pick me wrong.

On 7/23/07, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:
> removing applications because they have bugs is not a constructive way
> to do things and you would not many software left to install if any
>
> --
> Trash looks empty, isn't
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/72468
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Fabio Pugliese Ornellas
E-Mail: <email address hidden>
gTalk: <email address hidden>
ICQ: 6516089
MSN: <email address hidden>
WWW: http://ornellas.apanela.com/

I use the Trash applet about weekly. It works most of the time. If there was no trash applet, I'd have no way to empty (or look at) my trash at all. Yes, there are things like enabling the desktop icon - but before they're shipping Ubuntu with a desktop trash instead of the trash applet, I'd rather suggest to fix the bug.

My point is that the software's buggy, yes - but it's far from unusable for me and so it should stay; Also, the workaround needs such a long time to implement (and would change the Ubuntu usability) that I'm sure someone will fix the bug before. No need to remove an app.

The bug is rather visible and has some duplicates, I'll changed the importance to medium, we don't intend to remove the applet, fixing the bug is a better solution

OK, I agree that fixing it is better than removing. Lets just hope
this get fixed before 7.10 comes out.

On 7/23/07, Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> wrote:
> The bug is rather visible and has some duplicates, I'll changed the
> importance to medium, we don't intend to remove the applet, fixing the
> bug is a better solution
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-applets (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Low => High
>
> ** Changed in: gnome-applets (Ubuntu)
> Importance: High => Medium
>
> --
> Trash looks empty, isn't
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/72468
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Fabio Pugliese Ornellas
E-Mail: <email address hidden>
gTalk: <email address hidden>
ICQ: 6516089
MSN: <email address hidden>
WWW: http://ornellas.apanela.com/

I have the exact same problem, on both Feisty and a fresh Gutsy install. It does work occasionally, though.

This problem seems to have something to do with a malfunction of dbus in feisty.

Relogging or restarting X will cause this. At the same time dbus applets like music-applet won't work any more either.

Restarting dbus does not solve this problem, rebooting does.

I also have this problem in Feisty, sometimes it works correctly and sometimes it doesn't.

Fresh Gutsy install, from Tribe 5. I have this bug. Have yet to find a fix.

I have this bug on a fresh install of Gutsy BETA too...

I had the inverse case: trash icon was displaying properly the situation (showing full and mouseover provides increasing number of newly deleted items) but the .Trash directory remained empty.

But upon creating a new user, logging out my current user, and logging in and out as new user, and then logging in again as old user the situation reversed itself. I am now seeing the behaviour described in this bug: items ending up in the .Trash folder but the trash icon shows empty.

Version affected: Ubuntu 7.04 (feisty fawn)

Partitioning scheme for my affected system:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 4.6G 2.2G 2.3G 50% /
varrun 1009M 280K 1009M 1% /var/run
varlock 1009M 0 1009M 0% /var/lock
procbususb 1009M 152K 1009M 1% /proc/bus/usb
udev 1009M 152K 1009M 1% /dev
devshm 1009M 8.0K 1009M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda4 75G 64G 6.5G 91% /home

So /home is on a separate partition.

i am having the same problem with Hardy Alpha 2. fresh install with no specialised partitioning at all. the deleted items applet looks empty, however /home/james/.Trash is non-empty.

james@ubuntu-laptop:~$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu-laptop 2.6.24-2-generic #1 SMP Thu Dec 20 17:36:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

The problem is still in Ubuntu Hardy Beta (amd64 version).

The applet show and empty trash, and hovering the mouse on top of it show the tooltip "No Items in trash".
But double clicking on the applet opens the trash, which is full of files.

I also still have this on Hardy with updates (32bit). Perhaps the new GNOME filesystem will provide an oppurtunity to fix this?

Still this problem under Ubuntu 8.04 RC

are your deleted files being stored in .local/share/Trash or .Trash? i've noticed with awn-extra applets the trashcan feature monitors .Trash while since i use nautilus for my "move to trash", and nautilus follows XDG (freedesktop standards) which says thats where they go. i'd like to figure out how to change this setting thoughl.

ubuntu 7.04 - For me the Trash appears if I run either the KDE or Xfce desktops.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Thanks in advance.

It occurs here in Hardy, too. The trash has items and the trash icon becomes empty.

Well, actually I have used kde for the last year.. So I couldn't tell you about this bug right now. However, there is an answer to your mail from another person that confirms the persistence of the bug on Hardy.
Greetings,

Bruno.

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Pedro Villavicencio <email address hidden>
Para: <email address hidden>
Enviado: martes 1 de julio de 2008, 13:40:29
Asunto: [Bug 72468] Re: Trash looks empty, isn't

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been
any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue
for you? Thanks in advance.

** Changed in: gnome-applets (Ubuntu)
       Status: Confirmed => Incomplete

--
Trash looks empty, isn't
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/72468
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of a duplicate bug.

      ____________________________________________________________________________________
¡Buscá desde tu celular!

Yahoo! oneSEARCH ahora está en Claro

http://ar.mobile.yahoo.com/onesearch

I can confirm this is happening on Intrepid Ipex too.

I should also add that when I hover my mouse over it, it says there is no trash inside, but there is.

I can confirm this bug:
with
Ubuntu Hardy
Kernel Linux 2.6.24-19-generic
GNOME 2.22.3

Latest updates installed

Problem:
Trash can on desktop appears empty (by Icon), activating window shows files but the "empty button" is greyed out
Trash can as applet shows FULL! (by icon), but activating window shows "empty button" greyed out, files visable

right click on file(s) shows option to delete files permanent, this works

see screenshot (system language is Dutch)

could somebody having the issue send it to bugzilla.gnome.org?

thank you for sending the bug to GNOME

Here is the same as Sander van der Veeke describes.

I can confirm this bug is not resolved in candidate images for Intrepid RC

I don't see the problem anymore on Intrepid final.

I can confirm that I have the same bug... There is files in the trash but Icon says there are none and empty button is grayed out. (See Screenshot)

* lsb_release -a output:
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release: 8.04
Codename: hardy

* uname -a output:
Linux LAPTOP 2.6.24-22-generic #1 SMP Mon Nov 24 18:32:42 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

Additional info:
I've not seen this bug on 64 bits system yet. Also, If my trash is full at boot up, the trash behave normally. If my trash is empty at boot up, the bug happen...

Hope this cant help...

After installing Ubuntu 8.10 on a new Compaq notebook about 2 weeks ago, I noticed the trash icon displayed an empty icon after having deleted a number of personal files.
The icon displays a notice "No items in Trash" when pointed to but right clicking it shows the option to Empty trash active. Both left clicking the icon and right clicking the icon selecting the Open option open Nautilus displaying the files which reside in the trash directory. Additionally, the Nautilus GUI displays a Trash-full icon, and using the bottom panel icon the Empty trash results in the trash being emptied after which Nautilus displays a Trash-empty icon.
Googling for help turns up similar problems going back to 2005, none of which provide any useful answers. Could this problem be given a little more attention, and if I could provide any additional information that might help I am available 24/7 as I retired from AT&T over 10 years ago and life is short. Linux is definitely NOT unix, but much more useful than WinXP/Vista.

I seem to have stumbled across the cause AND solution to my icon problem. After applying the current recommended updates I had to reboot the system, and at the login screen I decided to look and see if the Options at login had changed from 7.04 ubuntu. Under Sessions I was offered to use the previous session or change to another. Although I assumed that I had been using Gnome, I selected Gnome anyway, and was then asked if I wished to make the change permanent as I had previously been using Xclient. I was unaware I had been using Xclient and had not been given a choice previously to select it, but once the Desktop came up I immediately noticed the Trash icon was showing full, and is now displaying how many items are contained in the trash when I point to it.
In my case this problem is now cleared, and perhaps some others may benefit from what I found?

I'm happy to see that yours is now fixed ... I'll try this myself tonight but has you can see on my earlier post, If my trash is full at boot up the trash Icon works fine as well as all the trash menus. But, if the trash is empty at boot up, the trash will show up empty for the whole sessions even if I put files in it...

I'm getting so sick of this that I'm about to create a script that puts a file in my bin every time I turn off the computer but there is got to be a fix for that somewhere ...

stg

There appears to be several variations of the Trash problem, and it's very difficult to get any technical information which might be helpful . I would still like to know what code performs the test that decides which icon should be displayed, and it appears Gnome and Nautilus do so independent of each other.
After my initial installation I gathered and saved the output from a few commands one of which was "env", and now after resolving my problem I notice 2 environment variables have changed, although their initial values would not have led me to believe anything was wrong. You might check them first which you can do by typing "env" in a terminal.
The 2 values which have changed are DESKTOP_SESSION and GDMSESSION. Initially they displayed "default", which I assumed was "gnome" in Ubuntu and would be "KDE" in Kubuntu. Both are now displaying "gnome".
Good luck, and if I can provide any info that might help, just ask as I'll stay subscribed to this thread for a while to see if any additional light is shed on how the Trash icon works.

You might be on to something there ... when I chose gnome as a session my trash works perfectly! I'll post back in a couple days if I get more problems or if its fixed forever...

Just curious if you found your default session set to Xclient also? And if so, I'm wondering why this happened, as I didn't encounter any questions about selecting a default session during installation. Glad to hear it was helpful to you also.

I dont remember what my default client was set to ... But those two session variables you mentioned where set to default. Now however they're both set to gnome and the trash works fine. Has for the install, I didn't go through to normal installation since my install is a dist-upgrade from gutsy.

Something else I found which may have some relation to the problem, looking at my system which did not have the problem, I found /usr/share/gnome/default session exists, while the system with the problem lacked this file. There is a man page "man default.session" but I'm not sure if this file should be necessary or not. In any event I think this needs to be looked into further, but I'm not sure who's attention it should be given to? Although this is/was not a major problem, I think an abundance of problems such as this is what turns many people away from Linux. I've spent several hours a day for a couple of weeks in order to resolve this and have several more problems which are primarily related to the OS installation. Below is the content of /usr/share/gnome/default.session from my system lacking the trash icon problem and sets the session to Gnome without my interaction.

# This is the default session that is launched if the user doesn't
# already have a session.
# The RestartCommand specifies the command to run from the $PATH.
# The Priority determines the order in which the commands are started
# (with Priority = 0 first) and defaults to 50.
# The id provides a name that is unique within this file and passed to the
# app as the client id which it must use to register with gnome-session.
# The clients must be numbered from 0 to the value of num_clients - 1.

[Default]
num_clients=6
0,id=default0
0,Priority=10
0,RestartCommand=gnome-wm --sm-client-id default0
1,id=default1
1,Priority=40
1,RestartCommand=gnome-panel --sm-client-id default1
2,id=default2
2,Priority=40
2,RestartCommand=nautilus --no-default-window --sm-client-id default2
3,id=default3
3,Priority=60
3,RestartCommand=gnome-cups-icon --sm-client-id default3
4,id=default4
4,Priority=40
4,RestartCommand=gnome-volume-manager --sm-client-id default4
5,id=default5
5,Priority=50
5,RestartCommand=vino-session --sm-client-id default5

could you try if that's still an issue in jaunty?

closing the code has been rewritten in jaunty and that should fix the issue, you can reopen the bug if you still get it after upgrading though

Another bug with this problem (affects Ubuntu Hardy, too):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-applets/+bug/379895?comments=all