[SOLVED] The Recycle Bin won’t empty
February 1st, 2020
” Cannot delete xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: The file name you specified is not valid or too long.
Specify a different file name.”
This whole message is rather silly, since (1) the Recycle Bin seems/is empty and (2) if it was not empty, how can a file that made it to the Recycle Bin suddenly be too long or invalid while it was not so before?
What I did so far:
– I put back an earlier back-up: without any effect.
– I have looked through the Helpdesk already, but nothing is applicable to this situation.
– I ‘googled’ this problem, and tried some of the solutions that apparently worked somewhere else. Sadly, they did not work for me.
Is there anybody that can help me out, because this is getting really annoying?
Thanks in advance to all that put any effort in helping me.
Download CCleaner and use that to empty your Recycle Bin.
http://www.piriform.com/
Try emptying the bin in safe mode and get back to us.
wHAT OS DO YOU USE?
Run TuneUp Utilities or something similar.
Assuming you on XP
Goto folder options – view – UNTICK Hide protected operating system files – press apply.
Look in your bin and delete whatever is there. If there is nothing there look in C Drive rycycler.
Thanks guys for your replies. I have tried it all out (each more than once, and also after doing several restores of earlier backups).
This is what I saw for each of your suggestions, so perhaps otheras can benefit of it in the future:
– First of all: “wHAT OS DO YOU USE?”
You are absolutely right: I should have said this myself at the beginning. I have XP SP3.
– “Download CCleaner and use that to empty your Recycle Bin.”
This had no effect whatsoever. I tried different settings in CCleaner, but alas…………..
– “Run TuneUp Utilities or something similar.”
I tried TuneUp Utilities 2009 several times, but again: no effect whatsoever. But strange enough, although both CCleaner and TubeUp Utilities proceed as if there is no problem, I do get an error message from Window Washer with a text just like Windows gives (the one I wrote down in my initial question in this thread).
– “Assuming you on XP, Goto folder options – view – UNTICK Hide protected operating system files – press apply. Look in your bin and delete whatever is there.”
There was nothing there – even when I set options to also show hidden files/folders and also to show the contents of system folders.
– “If there is nothing there look in C Drive rycycler.”
There I saw a file with a long name consisting of letters and numbers. I deleted that with TuneUp Shredder AND with BCWipe. Each time the changing time stamp showed a new time, so apparently a new file was created right away. AND NOW SOMETHING IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
When I right-click it and chose “Empty Recycle Bin”, I now got a different pop-up window named “Confirm File Delete” that says:
“Are you sure you want to delete “WINDOWS”?. Before, this were 9 files. So 8 of the files that were not visible have been removed, and 1 is still there (but where???????).
When I click “Yes”, the same pop-up window as I described in my initial question in this thread appears, saying:
” Cannot delete xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: The file name you specified is not valid or too long. Specify a different file name.”
– “Try emptying the bin in safe mode and get back to us.”
I do not know how to do that. Any help on this, ?
So in short, it seems that 8 out of 9 ” invisible files have been removed by deleting the contents of the Recycler in the C:, partition.
When I repeated this for the D: partition of my first HDD, I saw in the D: partition’s file with a long name consisting of letters and numbers there is a file in a structure of 4 folders deep, with one of the folder names being very long. Deleting the folders and/or file did not work, not normal, not with TuneUp Shredder and not with BCWipe. But when I renamed the that long folder name to three arbitrary letters, I could delete tis content of this ‘file with a long name consisting of letters and numbers’.
So now the problem is solved! Thanks again to each and all of you guys.