OS X :: Ghost File - Cannot Open, Get Info, Or Delete
Dec 2, 2009
take a look at the attached screenshot. I was trying to uninstall the Ultralingua application, so I searched for "Ultralingua" in the Finder, and included system files in the search to ensure that plists and the like would also be tracked down.
I deleted all files except one: As you may see on the screenshot, there is one file that has
- no name
- no size
- no location
- no permission settings
- no icon
I file has appeared on my desktop. I believe it's a temp file created while downloading something in Safari. When I try to delete it, I get "The item x can't be moved to the trash because it can't be deleted". I tried right click > Get Info, and nothing happens (the info dialog does not appear). I tried ls -al on my desktop, and the file doesn't appear in the list.
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 15-Inch early 2008
i am the administrator account for my macbook pro, osx leopard. when a roommate moved out, i wanted to delete his standard login account. however, instead of figuring out how to do it the proper way, i accessed the devices/macintosh HD/users/ folder in Finder and simply deleted it. now, when the login screen appears, there are three options: my admin account, a guest account, and an account with no picture entitled "Other...". I can't log into this account, and it doesn't appear in the System Preferences/Accounts screen, so i can't delete or adjust it from there.
has anyone run into this problem before?? it's not a huge nuisance but it's a bit annoying to see it every time i want to log in.
I'm trying to find a solution to an issue a family member it having with Yahoo Messenger and an iMac. The computer is an early release aluminum iMac, running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11. Yahoo Messenger is the most current version installed. A transparent image of the Messenger icon is on the dock and seems to be stuck between the dock's line near the trash can. It won't delete, even deleted the normal version of Messenger, shut down the computer and restarted it. The image was still on the dock. Are there Messenger files in other folders, that somehow didn't get deleted when the application was deleted, causing this?
I was using Logic Pro X and the program crashed before I could save my project. There is now a file called "untitled" that appears to be a Logic Project file, however I cannot delete, open, rename, and move it anywhere. When I try to click and drag the file icon, it doesn't allow me to move it anywhere. When right-click on the file, it pops up the window, but there are only a few options available. I went to "get info" and saw that the file permissions are "unknown". I've tried repairing disk permissions in the disk utility, however the file is still unaccessible.It's not a large file (only 578K), but it would still like to remove it.
Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
got automatically put into the Logic Pro discussions, however it's not really a Logic question or issue, more of a disk permission issue (I think..). Here is the original post: URL.... I'm stuck with this file on my system and how to remove it.
Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
I am willing to save on my hard disk the content of a SD card that contains mts files that I can access via AVCHD, BDMV, STREAM.
When I copy the whole SD card to save on my hard disk, I get an error message saying that the copy cannot proceed because one of the file contains information that cannot be read.
I was told on this group, that changing the structure of the AVCHD folder should not be changed. Can I delete the file that contains a bug ? or will I screw up the AVCHD folder ?
so the picture no longer shows up in my Finder search?
i tend to search using the Finder Command-F searchbox
i put in the word "party" and all these unrelated pictures come up.
i assume there's some appendant info attached to the pic --somewhere-- but i can't even seem to successfully delete the "picture keywords" using preview
not sure where the keywords i want to delete are stored, really-- cause in preview, i cant even find the keyword "party"...
i know a simple way would be to search for "party" only using the title search, but sometimes i want the broader search. there must be a way to alter a pic file to make it not show up on searches, no?
Got a new MacBook Pro and want to give my grandson old MacBook - how do I delete all info, etc on the od unit? Can I do a reset like I can on my iPod/iPad?
I just purchased a new Imac and am looking to sell my old 17 white intel Imac. I have all the updated software(snow leopard, Ilife 09). I was going to sell on craigslist to stranger but now looks like a family member will buy. What is the best way to delete my info but being able to keep 3rd party programs and music on the machine. Also if I just choose to do a complete install instead do I use the snow leopard disc or the disc that came with the machine which it had Tiger on it.
My son was playing on the internet and when I told him to get off the "Desktop Info" box was opened. The modified date and time were recent too. Also, a target rich folder might have been renamed. How do I know if my computer has been exposed ?
I transferred all my information from my old computer to time machine and now onto my new great iMac. I have user names that I want to delete. How do I do this?Also, is there a way to transfer photos from iphoto in another users name into my user name?
This morning I suddenly found out that, on my new macbook pro, command-delete will delete the file (with the warning window) immediately without putting it into trash first. This function works well yesterday.
I recently got a 2TB hard drive and I wanted to transfer all that I had on my portable drive onto the 2TB one. So I did, and I guess I didn't transfer the "System Volume Information" folder and now I can't open the folders.
I am relatively new to the Mac. I have a Macbook Pro 2.2GHz. Today, a file keeps popping up on my desktop. It is named .DS_Store. The icon looks like a text document. I won't open it cuz I'm afraid of what it is, lol (Windows still clogging my brain). Anyway, I can drag it to the trash and delete the trash, but after a bit, it reappears.
After I installed OS X I decided to go through my other partitions & do a little spring cleaning. In all, I trashed over 400MB of crap, but one file has refused to be deleted (it's a locked file left over from the old 3Com ISDN modem I had). When I try to empty the trash I get the following message:
"The operation cannot be completed because the item 'IQ320.BIN' is locked."
So, I look through the system help & find out that I either need to log in to OS X as the user who created the document ('root') or restart into OS 9 & unlock it from there.
Well, neither tactic has worked thus far. I restarted into OS 9 but found out that I can't access the file because it's in the trash (in OS X), which is an invisible directory (/Langly/.Trashes/102/). So then I restarted into OS X, logged in as root, but I still couldn't delete it. Desperate, I opened terminal, switched to root (su) found the files, but still can't delete the darned file. I tried rm, mv (thought if I moved it to somewhere that OS 9 could see it...), even chown, but each time I got "Operation not permitted." Any thoughts out there?
I am trying to delete an XLS file from a network drive and am getting a message that says the file cannot be deleted because it is in use.I can't see where it is in use and have tried to reboot the computer to no avail. I can delete other files but several XLS files are giving me this message.
In trying to set up shared music among the users of my computer I think I deleted the original file info, even though there was a music folder showing folders for the individual artists in my library. These however now appear to be empty. I have the music listed in iTunes but when I try to open a song I get a window with the following message, "The song "...." could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?" But no luck locating the files. The guy at the Apple Genius Bar said I could retrieve the music but refused to tell me how because it is supposedly illegal. I don't know why it is illegal because the tunes were purchased. But he did tell me to google the problem and I have come up empty handed.
All of my movies on my hard drive have crazy file names. I just rename the info from within itunes. I am wondering if there is a way to apply the info in itunes to change the original file names. So that I don't have to change them all manually on my hard drive if I want them in some sort of order. Something like 'apply itunes info to original filename'. I am pretty sure it isn't possible but thought it might be worth a try.
Whenever I open a pdf, adobe starts to open every pdf file on my computer. Does anyone know of any way to stop this? I couldn't really find anything on search. I am running OSX 10.6.3
Today I tried opening my keynotes presentation file to make amendments to it and when I double clicked on it, the program loading bar only loaded up a third of the way and then hanged. I then tried to save it to a flash drive and use it on a different computer, but when I tried to copy it over to the flash drive it gave me this error: "the finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "garment styles" could not be read or written error code - 36".
I have tried changing the file extension to a zip, then unzipping it and then renaming it but that did not work.(It wouldn't let me unzip it). I have also looked at the index file name to see if that was the problem, but that is as it should be.
I have also tried uploading it to a website and emailing it and it will not let me.
Is there anyway I can recover this file as I have been working on it for over a month and it is due next week, or will I need to start again?
ok trying not to get a panic attack here. I downloaded espionge to encrypt my valuable files and while it was encrypting (AES 128 bit i think) the program froze and I had to Force quit it. Now I try to open my file (that i was trying to encrypt) and it looks f*^&# up. I can't open it, and when I tried to unmount the partially encrypted file, espionage gave me errors that it couldnt recover the original file.
I had basically all my life's valuable accumulated data in that folder (it was 10 Gb+). I will praise anyone to the end of my days that can somehow tell me how to restore my file to its original state. Usefull info:
1) AM planning to pay gazillions for recovery software if need be, but free alternatives are always better.
2) I never secure delete if that helps
3) I still have the .sparseimage for the file created by espionage. (P.S. sparseimage's size looks really close to the orignal, also 10 Gb +).
4) Newest version of OSX, and have an IMac.
5) after incident I haven't done anything (no installations or downloads) apart from writing this.
6) the encrypted file was gonna be in HFS+ i think
I got a file named myfile.dat from my supervisor and he said myfile.dat is a helix database file. I tried to open that file after installing helix server 6.1.5, but I couldnt open it. I am really in a confusion that whether the given file is helix format file or something. Can anyone tell me that how to open *.dat file or how to identify the format from the file extension.
I try to open an Open Office spread sheet and it simply saves the file as another file with the .cpgz extension which does the same thing. This did not happen a couple weeks ago; I think my download for Apple updates may be the culprit. My OS X is now 10.7.3, I believe originally it was 10.7.2 but I could be wrong.
The original document is a zip archive but now "saves as" a .cpgz archive. I have tried the "Unarchiver", which I just downloaded, but it only creates another file with subfolders, none of which appear to have my original spread sheet. (To be honest, I never noticed this Open Office spread sheet file was a zip file until a few minutes ago when I tried to unsuccessfully open it).
I have been working on a project and have a completed picture on my flash drive but when I go to open it, it says cannot open because file is empty. It shows that the size of the file is 96 kb and I can see it with the "quick look" option when you left click. This is using CS3 by the way.
When I tried to delete in Finder, it moves it Trash, but emptying the Trash leaves it in there. I tried rm -fr * in Terminal and got a "file too long" error.
Lately, I have something popping up in my Dock for a very short amount of time. I can't see what icon it is because it's already gone. I know it's there, because space is being made for in the Dock.
Is there any way to find out in some log what this could be?
Also, mac os x does not want to stay asleep. I put it to sleep before turning in myself and every morning the screen is fully lit.
I am always concerned about unauthorised access by third parties.