Develop Bugs

What files can be safely deleted in the HTC Desire Root folder?

I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.

bradavon said:
I've been looking at the root folder using Astro and there are several files/folders. Can any be deleted, without causing any problem? I'm running out of space and am hoping some are just temporary files etc...
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Thanks
p.s - I am using an unrooted HTC Desire.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you cant delete them using astro, we only have write access to /system in recovery, use adb in recovery to delete them
edit, without root you cant delete anything lol

bradavon said:
For example I've spotted the APK files are in \system\app. I never use the Peep or Teeter apps. Can I safely delete their APK files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In addition, deleting anything from /system won't actually gain you any more space for applications anyway due to the way that the filesystems are partitioned.
Regards,
Dave

Thanks guys. I take it you mean we've got write but not modify access to the \system folder? So we can write to existing files but not delete them.
I wasn't just asking about \system though but any files/folders in the Root folder. Are there any at all, that can be safely deleted? Or are you saying you cannot delete a thing without rooting?
Not that it sounds like it will make any difference, due to partitioning.
Thanks

Ok to put it as simple as possible:
- no you cant pretty much delete a thing apart from sd without root
- we cant do anything in the system partition while the system is booted due to the nand protection
- we can modify /system while in recovery (using adb)
- when you are running out of space it is on the /data partition, which have a fixed size so deleting from /system or anything else won't help
And at last my advice to you is to go root and install a2sd easy as pie and i've never had space problems since.

Thanks for the informative reply mortenmhp

I have just rooted my 2.1 Desire, trying to remove two of the mms.apk and one other mms file in the /system folder so I can install a different mms.apk, however when I try to do it, it says I dont have the proper permissions. Its rooted, I see the Super User icon in applications.
Any suggestions?

Please read a little before asking questions. It is commonly known, that we dont have full root access on the desire yet.
Due to the nand protection you cant edit the system partition while the system is bootet. You have to use a custom recovery image either via fakeflash or installed by unrevoked. Then you can edit the system partition by using adb commands.
Edit: which i also stated quite clearly 2 posts above yours several months ago

Is A2SD better than the Android 2.2 implementation? Which as far as I can tell just moves the APK (not apps/data) to the SD Card.
Thanks.

Well it is kinda off topic here but in my opinion yes it is better. I'm running a2sd+ atm. and you can make it move /data/data as well.
In froyo there have been some complications though when remountingSD after using it as mass storage. But you can read more about that elsewhere(i would provide a link but I'm writing from my phone)
So the conclusion must be that it is down to personal preferences

Thanks because the official implementation is something of a cop out. On WM you could run the entire App/Data etc... on an SD card.

Read Only File System when removing apps

I am trying to remove some apps I dont use or want like the mail app and others and I know i have nand protection unlocked becasue I can run nand backup and restore. But when i run adb shell and rm Mail.apk i get message of rm failed for Mail.apk, read only file system. I am a noob with adb but is it possible i dont have nand unlocked?

Being able to NAND backup and restore doesn't have anything to do with having NAND unlocked.
You obviously don't have full root.

download or find (please pay for it on the market)
root explorer, run it, this will put you on the / directory which is the root of the phone, not the sd card, and up in the top right corner it says mount r/o or mount r/w
by default it is read only r/o
hit the button and beside it you will see small text saying 'mounted r/w'
if it lets you mount r/w then you should be good to go.
just navigate to your /system/app filder, long press on the apk file you want to delete and choose delete, it will error out if you dont have r/w access, but make sure the upper right corner still says 'mounted r/w' - sometimes when you mount the phone in the opening page, it doesnt mount everything as r/w so you might have to mount the /system/app folder.
so, if you have it mounted r/w and it says so, and it wont let you delete or rename anything, then you know that you do not have a full root, just the partial root and you will have to go thru and reroot it for full access.
there are simpler ways i imagine but root explorer is the king of file explorers as far as i am concerned.
the only thing it needs is a built in FTP and SMB (windows network) explorer.

FAndroidHTC said:
I am trying to remove some apps I dont use or want like the mail app and others and I know i have nand protection unlocked becasue I can run nand backup and restore. But when i run adb shell and rm Mail.apk i get message of rm failed for Mail.apk, read only file system. I am a noob with adb but is it possible i dont have nand unlocked?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would you be running the stock rooted ROM?
Sent from my PC36100

rafroehlich2 said:
Would you be running the stock rooted ROM?
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stock rooted rom doesnt matter, thats what i run from time to time and i can delete/move/rename anythign i want anywhere on the phone (ok i havent tried every folder but have not hit a file/folder i couldnt alter yet, because i have full root access.

v_lestat said:
stock rooted rom doesnt matter, thats what i run from time to time and i can delete/move/rename anythign i want anywhere on the phone (ok i havent tried every folder but have not hit a file/folder i couldnt alter yet, because i have full root access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I asked because I had a similar problem when I had stock rooted. Once I changed it went away.
Sent from my PC36100

rafroehlich2 said:
I asked because I had a similar problem when I had stock rooted. Once I changed it went away.
Sent from my PC36100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm wierd.
maybe a bad rooted rom?
someone correct me here but do you have SuperUser installed?
doesnt he have to have superuser installed to do it via root explorer, or login to a terminal via adb with 'su' to rename/move/delete
if you didnt type su, and then get the $ prompt you cant do what you are trying to do. ... ???
i dont think you need to type su to do the following command but it probably wouldn't hurt ??
i am very adb green but do know enough to run some commands, its just that i prefer to do it with root explorer rather than command prompt.

download or find (please pay for it on the market)
root explorer, run it, this will put you on the / directory which is the root of the phone, not the sd card, and up in the top right corner it says mount r/o or mount r/w
by default it is read only r/o
hit the button and beside it you will see small text saying 'mounted r/w'
if it lets you mount r/w then you should be good to go.
just navigate to your /system/app filder, long press on the apk file you want to delete and choose delete, it will error out if you dont have r/w access, but make sure the upper right corner still says 'mounted r/w' - sometimes when you mount the phone in the opening page, it doesnt mount everything as r/w so you might have to mount the /system/app folder.
so, if you have it mounted r/w and it says so, and it wont let you delete or rename anything, then you know that you do not have a full root, just the partial root and you will have to go thru and reroot it for full access.
there are simpler ways i imagine but root explorer is the king of file explorers as far as i am concerned.
the only thing it needs is a built in FTP and SMB (windows network) explorer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use Estrongs File Explorer and use the root option. No payment required. Unless you are running CM ROM, be sure to turn off the root option before closing the program, otherwise next time you open ES it will give a force close.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

wow I love this forum what a huge response in such a short time I'm gonna test to see if I don't have nand properly unlocked and I tried using android mate to delete the apks and that didn't work either but I'm running fresh 1.0.2 currently

Just tried using es file explorer with root explorer and mount file system as writable and deleted the apk and everything worked great the app is gone! Thank you for the help this means i have nand unlocked right? I must have been doing something wrong in the adb shell

You can also issue the command 'adb remount'.
The system partition is mounted read only at start up and this command mounts it read/write. It has nothing to do at all with your NAND.

Ok good to know thank you for the advice like I said I'm an adb noob lol

do adb remount then try again

I removed wireless_tether using root explorer. When i try to install another version of wireless_tether, it says i am trying to overwrite another app, then wont let me install because it says its a system app. then I go in to look and see if I had truly removed it , it has a different name "andro tether" under settings/apps/manage apps. It doesn't show this in the root explorer for me to delete it. How can I fully delete it if its not showing there anymore.
I still cant install the new version. Help

[Q] A2SD+ Forcing to system memory

hi im using LeeDrOiD_V2.1a_A2SD , is there any way to force apps to be run from the system memory instead of the sdcard, as far as i can tell it automatically goes to the sdcard?
would prefer to use the system memory for security software such as wavesecure?
thanks
John

Yes to run it from the system partition so it can not be removed the regular way, you just have to move the apk file from /sd-ext/app/ to /system/app/
This can be done using adb commands when in recovery or by applying the s-off hack and use an app like root explorer.

thanks
the apk file was in the folder /system/sd/app
and root explorer let me enable r/w access in it, without enabling s-off
i'm hoping i did it right
:-0
thanks again
John

Well you might be able to do it this way without s-off but it is not actually on the system partition. It depends on what Rom you are using.
But are you able to uninstall it using the settings menu?

it still gives me the option to uninstall yes, but at this point i just wanted to get it running off the phones memory, rather than off the sd card
thanks
John

ok it turns out root explorer didn't copy them over, so i copied them over with adb commands , and wavesecure doesn't show up as uninstallable
ta
John

jcat00uk said:
ok it turns out root explorer didn't copy them over, so i copied them over with adb commands , and wavesecure doesn't show up as uninstallable
ta
John
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, most of the programs out there (like root explorer) won't throw out an error if they can'y mount it as R/W... because HTC was clever enough to hide that it can't be mounted RW without S-off

[Q] Access /data from HTC Sense?

Am wondering if there is a application or something that gives me access to /data while the phone is booted into the OS.
I know i can mount /data from recovery and remove/add files and stuff from there, but am wondering if this is possible to do while the phone is booted into the OS?

Nitrius said:
Am wondering if there is a application or something that gives me access to /data while the phone is booted into the OS.
I know i can mount /data from recovery and remove/add files and stuff from there, but am wondering if this is possible to do while the phone is booted into the OS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to flash the modified Hboot by AlphaRev to provide you with S-OFF (Securiy Off) for NAND unlock and to provide you with full root access, while the phone is powered on (booted into the OS). Search the Desire Android Development section of the forum.

Okay, let's say i do this, how do i access /data when am booted into the OS then?

Depending on what you want to do, you can use a File Explorer app to make modifications while the OS is running, and use apps like MetaMorph that require full system privileges to make r/w changes to the system partition, for example.
EDIT: Here is the thread I was referring to: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=794314

Well i've tried out s-off, and it looks like i can see the content on the /system folder with Astro, but the Data folder is empty, but i know there should be an bootanimation.zip file there, as i've seen it while the /data was mounted in recovery.
Maybe i need another file explorer than Astro? Or?

Nitrius said:
Well i've tried out s-off, and it looks like i can see the content on the /system folder with Astro, but the Data folder is empty, but i know there should be an bootanimation.zip file there, as i've seen it while the /data was mounted in recovery.
Maybe i need another file explorer than Astro? Or?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What to do is, download EStrong File Explorer from the Marketplace. Once installed, open EStrong File Explorer and select the Menu button, then choose 'Settings'. Scroll down to 'Root Options' and select it. In Root Options, enable Root Explorer and choose the relevant option. Also choose the 'Mount File System' option as the /system partition was in read-only mode before and the files were hidden. Now, when you go to /data/local (i think), here you will find the location of the bootanimation.zip

Didn't work, looks like i have to have a CM rom or HiAPK rom. Any other idea?
And thanks for the help so far =)
Edit: There is an app in the market that's called "Root Explorer" that says it should give me access to the "elusive /data" folder, maybe that will work?

You don't need to be s-off to access /data. Or at least I didn't have to be.
Try putting bootanimation.zip in /data/local anyway and see if it works.
This overrides the existing bootanimation that is stored elsewhere.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Trying out a different rom, and bought Root Explorer and now am able to see the content in the /data folder at least.

Can't delete folder - permissions [SOLVED]

Hi
I recently restored my Nexus with the toolkit but when it put the files back, I think a permissions problem has occurred. I can rename folders, but I can't delete them. I have a rather large folder that I can't get rid of. When I try in various programs, it says delete failed, or no permissions, etc.
I am rooted, and have installed Terminal emulator, but am not terribly familiar with how to use it.
Any tips would be helpful.
Thanks

warlock257 said:
Hi
I recently restored my Nexus with the toolkit but when it put the files back, I think a permissions problem has occurred. I can rename folders, but I can't delete them. I have a rather large folder that I can't get rid of. When I try in various programs, it says delete failed, or no permissions, etc.
I am rooted, and have installed Terminal emulator, but am not terribly familiar with how to use it.
Any tips would be helpful.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Simple solution might just be that your file explorer app doesn't have root access. Force stop it in apps->settings, check your superuser app and clear any saved entries for it, and launch the app again. It should request root privileges.
Where are the files/folders in question located? If they're in a secure place like /system/ then it's more likely to be the above scenario. If they're just in your sdcard folder, are they user made, or at all special?
Edit: Also in the future, this sort of thing is what the Q&A forum is for.

JoeSyr said:
Simple solution might just be that your file explorer app doesn't have root access. Force stop it in apps->settings, check your superuser app and clear any saved entries for it, and launch the app again. It should request root privileges.
Where are the files/folders in question located? If they're in a secure place like /system/ then it's more likely to be the above scenario. If they're just in your sdcard folder, are they user made, or at all special?
Edit: Also in the future, this sort of thing is what the Q&A forum is for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was using Root explorer, and have granted it root access
It is in /SDcard, so it shouldn't be anything that's protected

warlock257 said:
I was using Root explorer, and have granted it root access
It is in /SDcard, so it shouldn't be anything that's protected
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check the permissions for what you're trying to delete? They're displayed right in the normal view in root explorer, and you can edit them from the long press menu.
Anything unusual about the files/folders themselves? Were they created on the phone? By you? By apps? Copied and pasted over USB from a computer? You could try deleting from your computer over USB.
As for command line options, you can try 'rm -r [path]' for a folder and just 'rm [path]' for a file. rm is the delete(remove) command, -r is the recursive flag to apply the action to all items in the directory if a directory is the target. Pretty sure that you can do that straight from terminal emulator on your phone, and from a command prompt over usb you'd need to use 'adb shell' first.

JoeSyr said:
Did you check the permissions for what you're trying to delete? They're displayed right in the normal view in root explorer, and you can edit them from the long press menu.
Anything unusual about the files/folders themselves? Were they created on the phone? By you? By apps? Copied and pasted over USB from a computer? You could try deleting from your computer over USB.
As for command line options, you can try 'rm -r [path]' for a folder and just 'rm [path]' for a file. rm is the delete(remove) command, -r is the recursive flag to apply the action to all items in the directory if a directory is the target. Pretty sure that you can do that straight from terminal emulator on your phone, and from a command prompt over usb you'd need to use 'adb shell' first.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In root explorer the info under the folder says
rwxrwxr -x
I'm pretty sure that the problem started when I restored from the nexus toolkit on pc. I had a similar problem with my camera in that it couldn't save pictures to a folder, but all I did was rename the folder, and the camera app created a new one.
rm -r [path] in terminal emulator says "permission denied"
EDIT
upon further googleing, the 'chmod' command might be what I want, but I'm not sure which syntax is right.

warlock257 said:
In root explorer the info under the folder says
rwxrwxr -x
I'm pretty sure that the problem started when I restored from the nexus toolkit on pc. I had a similar problem with my camera in that it couldn't save pictures to a folder, but all I did was rename the folder, and the camera app created a new one.
rm -r [path] in terminal emulator says "permission denied"
EDIT
upon further googleing, the 'chmod' command might be what I want, but I'm not sure which syntax is right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For chmod you want 'chmod [number] [path]', where number is a string that's a bit complicated to explain. You can learn about it by googling chmod probably better than I could type it out here on the fly. But if you use 777, it should assign full permissions, which would display as rwxrwxrwx in root explorer.
You can achieve the exact same effect in root explorer though, long press and choose permissions and you'll get a 3x3 grid. All boxes checked= full permissions, same as chmod 777. The three lower boxes for special permissions should be unchecked (fyi, they would turn chmod's numeric component into a 4 digit number, and as far as I know, android doesn't really use them at all).
Also, did you type su in terminal first? It doesn't innately have root (just like any app) so you need to do that and confirm the popup first. You'll need to do this before using chmod, and if you didn't do it before using rm, try it again.
Worth a try but just for reference, rwxrwxr-x is the normal permissions set for folders on the sdcard, so that's not immediately looking like a problem.

at the top of root explorer, theres a button that says mount r/w. press it, now it should say mount r/o. go ahead and delete that file now

simms22 said:
at the top of root explorer, theres a button that says mount r/w. press it, now it should say mount r/o. go ahead and delete that file now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Found the button, but didn't work
JoeSyr said:
For chmod you want 'chmod [number] [path]', where number is a string that's a bit complicated to explain. You can learn about it by googling chmod probably better than I could type it out here on the fly. But if you use 777, it should assign full permissions, which would display as rwxrwxrwx in root explorer.
You can achieve the exact same effect in root explorer though, long press and choose permissions and you'll get a 3x3 grid. All boxes checked= full permissions, same as chmod 777. The three lower boxes for special permissions should be unchecked (fyi, they would turn chmod's numeric component into a 4 digit number, and as far as I know, android doesn't really use them at all).
Also, did you type su in terminal first? It doesn't innately have root (just like any app) so you need to do that and confirm the popup first. You'll need to do this before using chmod, and if you didn't do it before using rm, try it again.
Worth a try but just for reference, rwxrwxr-x is the normal permissions set for folders on the sdcard, so that's not immediately looking like a problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it might be the files within the folder, rather than the folder itself. going into it, some of the files have a shield on them
When I go into its permissions, some of them were unchecked. I checked the 9 at the top, and it says:
"permissions change was not successful. Please note that some files systems (e.g. SD card) do now allow permission changes."

warlock257 said:
Found the button, but didn't work
it might be the files within the folder, rather than the folder itself. going into it, some of the files have a shield on them
When I go into its permissions, some of them were unchecked. I checked the 9 at the top, and it says:
"permissions change was not successful. Please note that some files systems (e.g. SD card) do now allow permission changes."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well under normal circumstances, individual files on your sdcard should have permissions rw-rw-r--, and folders have rwxrwxr-x. (For reference, this is read as read, write, execute for Root, System, and Other, with dashes indicating that a permission is denied. So rwxrwxr-x means all permissions are granted to all three groups except for write to Other). This ties into larger aspects of the OS that basically exist to stop individual apps from reading or writing whatever they want without being included in groups.
The fact that you can't do something that shouldn't require elevated permissions, and you're getting that kind of error when you try to execute commands with higher permissions, suggests to me that your sdcard partition is using the wrong filesystem. Sort of sounds like a program tried to treat it like a real sdcard and formatted it to something else, in which case I have a hunch you're going to need to back up your data and do a full reset.
You might get a simpler solution if you ask in the thread for the toolkit you used. It's not something I have any experience with so good luck.
Out of curiosity, are you on Jellybean now? Jellybean changed the address for the sdcard partition, so if the toolkit wasn't updated to reflect this, it seems like the likely place things may have gone wrong.
---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:53 PM ----------
Actually if you want to check if it's using the right filesystem, run the command 'mount' from terminal. It'll give you a bunch of information, probably towards the bottom will be a line that mentions sdcard. Mine reads as
/dev/fuse /storage/sdcard0 fuse [more info about how it's currently mounted]
Yours -should- say that if you're on JB. If you're not, it should say something instead of /storage/sdcard0 (maybe /mnt/sdcard? I forget how it was on ICS). If it says something in place of fuse that may be the problem.
..I actually think mount used to say that the sdcard block was formatted as yaffs2, while everything else was formatted as ext4. Or maybe I just looked up that it was yaffs2 online, not from terminal on my phone? I wonder if this whole thing is the reason why some people seem bootloop-prone when flashing JB roms, if the changes have cut out access to important information about the filesystem, it may be triggering a really long error scan if their sdcard partition is large.

yes, backed up in ICS, and went to Jellybean.
doing a 'mount', I believe the line reads
/dev/fuse /storage/sdcard0 fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,realtime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
The files that have the shield icon have permissions:
rw-rw-r--

Yeah so everything that I can think of for you to check seems to be displaying as though normal. Although I don't know what aspect of these files root explorer is reading to mark them as protected and put the little shield on them.
You've tried these methods (rm, chmod) on individual files within the folder too, right? I guess this comes more from experience deleting protected files in windows, but I've found that sometimes a folder will deny deletion as long as it contains protected files, but it's relatively easy to give yourself permission to delete the individual files one by one, after which the folder goes down too. Possibly time consuming without a batch function, but easy.
My understanding of the fuse filesystem, by the way, is that it's just a virtual layer that allows the sdcard block to be treated differently than everything else on the phone, which is important for what happens when you plug it into a computer and the device is read. And I believe that the sdcard is supposed to be formatted as yaffs2 (everything else is ext4). Not sure how to check that directly, but it's possible that it has been changed to something else. But unless you can't delete -anything- on the sdcard, this seems unlikely.

JoeSyr said:
Yeah so everything that I can think of for you to check seems to be displaying as though normal. Although I don't know what aspect of these files root explorer is reading to mark them as protected and put the little shield on them.
You've tried these methods (rm, chmod) on individual files within the folder too, right? I guess this comes more from experience deleting protected files in windows, but I've found that sometimes a folder will deny deletion as long as it contains protected files, but it's relatively easy to give yourself permission to delete the individual files one by one, after which the folder goes down too. Possibly time consuming without a batch function, but easy.
My understanding of the fuse filesystem, by the way, is that it's just a virtual layer that allows the sdcard block to be treated differently than everything else on the phone, which is important for what happens when you plug it into a computer and the device is read. And I believe that the sdcard is supposed to be formatted as yaffs2 (everything else is ext4). Not sure how to check that directly, but it's possible that it has been changed to something else. But unless you can't delete -anything- on the sdcard, this seems unlikely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, I tried deleting files individually on the phone, and in windows. Wont let me do anything.
I guess the only sure fire method of clearing these files at the moment is to do a factory reset.
I can back up my stuff with titanium, so not that big a deal.
Your assistance has been much appreciated
:good:

warlock257 said:
yeah, I tried deleting files individually on the phone, and in windows. Wont let me do anything.
I guess the only sure fire method of clearing these files at the moment is to do a factory reset.
I can back up my stuff with titanium, so not that big a deal.
Your assistance has been much appreciated
:good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try deleting them directly from /data/media instead. If you're able to delete them there, reboot afterwards to ensure /storage/sdcard0, /sdcard, and /mnt/sdcard are updated properly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Cilraaz said:
Try deleting them directly from /data/media instead. If you're able to delete them there, reboot afterwards to ensure /storage/sdcard0, /sdcard, and /mnt/sdcard are updated properly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That worked :laugh:
It's gone from all those folders.
Thanks very much!!!!!

warlock257 said:
That worked :laugh:
It's gone from all those folders.
Thanks very much!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 This worked for me as well. Thanks for posting...:good:

Had the same problem. Deleting through the /media path worked.

Cilraaz said:
Try deleting them directly from /data/media instead. If you're able to delete them there, reboot afterwards to ensure /storage/sdcard0, /sdcard, and /mnt/sdcard are updated properly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+4 You Sir are a genius! Thanks given!

Cilraaz said:
Try deleting them directly from /data/media instead. If you're able to delete them there, reboot afterwards to ensure /storage/sdcard0, /sdcard, and /mnt/sdcard are updated properly.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to necro this thread almost 4 years later, but I had the exact same issue with deleting a folder on internal storage (Android Lollipop). Regardless if you're still here on XDA or not: thanks for this solution.

So.. Not really a I9250, but I guess my problem on i9100 is the same.
For some weird reason this just happened to WhatsApp directory.. But whatever.
After digging deeper and deeper in recovery, it seems like the folder wasn't own by media_rw group, but root
I just had to run
Code:
chown -R 1023:1023 <folder-path>
For some weird reason neither chown nor ls -l were correctly working when booted on normal system

Cilraaz said:
Try deleting them directly from /data/media instead. If you're able to delete them there, reboot afterwards to ensure /storage/sdcard0, /sdcard, and /mnt/sdcard are updated properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Cilraaz, I have no idea if you're still on XDA but after at least a week of intense searching I found your advice which solved my problem! Thank you.
My problem was on i9500 (still) running stock Lollipop. I've been preparing to install a custom recovery, and did a TWRP (2.8.7.0) nandroid backup. Problem was I then couldn't find the TWRP backup folder. It would only show in TWRP's file manager. Root Browser didn't show it with SU privileges, nor ES File Browser and connecting it to the PC didn't help either. It's only after looking in /data/media/0 that I could find the TWRP folder.