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.
Its really bothering me. When flashing a Rom in the aroma I choose this red theme I never used. Well in the vrtheme folder on my SD card (internal storage) there is a bunch of. PNG files that show up in my gallery. If I try to delete from gallery they just come back. And if try to delete from file explorer with root permissions. It says file can not be deleted. This doesn't make sense or am I missing something?
Help would be appreciated.
Thank you
Give this a shot (assuming you are rooted)
find the folder they are in (for arguments' sake let's say they are in /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/
download terminal emulator app
open it and type the following commands without quotes...
"su"
"rm /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/*.png"
see if they are gone now.
Admiral Sir Manley Power said:
Give this a shot (assuming you are rooted)
find the folder they are in (for arguments' sake let's say they are in /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/
download terminal emulator app
open it and type the following commands without quotes...
"su"
"rm /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/*.png"
see if they are gone now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank for trying to help. But if I go to directory all the way down to the PNG file I would have to repeat like 150 times
But anyways when I tried it. I was granted rights for su. Then received the # in terminal.
Then I did rm followed by file path.
It said permissions denied :/
Just wanted to report my findings. If you do a search for aroma file manager on xda. With that you can delete anyfile on SD card if given operation denied with any normal file explorer with root access.
FYI - sdcard0 is not really your SD Card at all. sdcard0 is the internal storage memory. extSdCard is your actual SD Card. And UsbDriveA, UsbDriveB, etc.. are your external drives like USB thumb drive, USB external drive, etc.
If you deleted file/s and then later came back that is because the file/s are being put back with the related app/s that the file/s are related too. Deal with the related app/s in order to stop the deleted file/s from reappearing.
If you can't delete the file/s at all then change the permissions of the file/s you want to delete and/or change the permissions with the folder that holds the file/s to be deleted. Then you can delete the file/s. You can change permissions with a file manager like Root Explorer, though you need to be rooted to change some permissions. Be careful. Deleting the wrong file/s can make your device bricked.
---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 PM ----------
trevor7428 said:
Thank for trying to help. But if I go to directory all the way down to the PNG file I would have to repeat like 150 times
But anyways when I tried it. I was granted rights for su. Then received the # in terminal.
Then I did rm followed by file path.
It said permissions denied :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You wouldn't have to delete each .png file separately. Just type exactly what Admiral Sir Manley Power typed. The line command he wrote uses the wild card ( * ) so the command would delete all .png files within that folder at the same time.
Change the permissions of the folder that holds the files. Then try it. Make sure the app related to the files are not still caching the files. Caching the files would make the files to be currently in use. That would make the files not available to be deleted. You can also use another theme app, force kill the app related to the .png files, then delete the files. Then go back to that theme app.
JaguarXT said:
FYI - sdcard0 is not really your SD Card at all. sdcard0 is the internal storage memory. extSdCard is your actual SD Card. And UsbDriveA, UsbDriveB, etc.. are your external drives like USB thumb drive, USB external drive, etc.
If you deleted file/s and then later came back that is because the file/s are being put back with the related app/s that the file/s are related too. Deal with the related app/s in order to stop the deleted file/s from reappearing.
If you can't delete the file/s at all then change the permissions of the file/s you want to delete and/or change the permissions with the folder that holds the file/s to be deleted. Then you can delete the file/s. You can change permissions with a file manager like Root Explorer, though you need to be rooted to change some permissions. Be careful. Deleting the wrong file/s can make your device bricked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I no SD card should be external. But on our note 2 the directory for internal is labeled SD card. Then vrtheme was in a folder named. " 0" I tried to change permissions and even the owner of file and folder, but it wouldn't let me with root permissions. That's why I was so stumped I had to post on xda.
And its not that the file would get deleted then put back it was I couldn't delete at all. There was no app to my knowledge for vrtheme.
trevor7428 said:
Thank for trying to help. But if I go to directory all the way down to the PNG file I would have to repeat like 150 times
But anyways when I tried it. I was granted rights for su. Then received the # in terminal.
Then I did rm followed by file path.
It said permissions denied :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try this instead...
rm -f /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/*.png"
if that doesn't work... try this....
chmod 777 /storage0/vrtheme
chmod 777 /storage0/vrtheme/*.png
rm -rf /storage/storage0/vrtheme
Admiral Sir Manley Power said:
try this instead...
rm -f /storage/sdcard0/vrtheme/*.png"
if that doesn't work... try this....
chmod 777 /storage0/vrtheme
chmod 777 /storage0/vrtheme/*.png
rm -rf /storage/storage0/vrtheme
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thanked everyone who replied, but I actually got it figured out. I flashed this zip file in recovery called aroma file manager. While let me delete whole folder from recovery. I appreciate all who helped.