[Solved] Cannot Empty Trash 18.07

After further research I found this post and I followed the directions of the user “Mdoering”:

And this solved my problem. Directions below:

Mdoering

2

May '19

Yes there is a way if you have access to the NC-Instance-Commandline

  • ssh to your nextcloud server
  • $ sudo su
  • $ cd /path-to-your-nexcloud-data-location/ (this could be in /var/www/data/ for example)
    (this needs root privileges…thats why I mentioned $ sudo su before)

There you should see the users that have logged in your Instance
Now you should remember with wich user you have deleted your 800GB of files.
Then:

  • $ cd /the-users-directory/ , that you have used for deleting those files.
  • in there should be a “files_trashbin”
    -There you go:
    $ cd files_trashbin/files/
    and
    $ ls
    That should show you the files’ name and a cryptic file ending like “Filename.txt.31asd12”
    There you can delete the files you want to delete or
    $ rm *
    will delete anything in the folder.

Important:
Nextcloud doesnt know yet that you made manual changes in that directory. Now it is important to do the following

$ cd /var/www/nextcloud
(or the path you used for your NC-Instance-Webserver)
$ sudo -u www-data php occ files:scan {USERNAME}
({USERNAME} hast to be replaced by the name of the user you used to delete the files in NC)

This process will take a while…after that everything should be clean and nextcloud knows that the files are deleted and they are not listed in Web-Trashbin (this can be used to undelete files for example).

EDIT:
WARNING, if you do it like that, all files in trashbin will be deleted forever!!! If you are not sure about deleting, please consider to make a backup of those files!!!

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