Why is this failing?

[TheFu]

chown: changing ownership of '/home/bill': Operation not permitted
rmdir: failed to remove '/home/bill/Novels': Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of '/home/bill/.local/share/recently-used.xbel': Operation not permitted

!!!!!
Check the file attribs. lsattr /home/bill is the command. Could be set to be "immutable". Can remove that attrib using chattr command.

Stay away from the GUI.

If that isn't it, then boot off into a "try ubuntu" environment, mount the storage and try removing it that way. If that fails, run fsck on the !!!!!UNMOUNTED!!!! partition and try again. Never, ever, attempt to run fsck on a currently used/mounted partition/file system. Nothing good can happen.

Which file system is on the? Could it be btrfs or zfs or something else that isn't normally seen here?

[WB0HYQ]

Okay. Results of the lsattr command:

bill@bill-UBU:~$ lsattr /home/bill
--------------e----- /home/bill/snap
--------------e----- /home/bill/Diggers.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/x.txt
-----------I--e----- /home/bill/Pictures
--------------e----- /home/bill/_VB Quick Saves
--------------e----- /home/bill/Multimedia Database.csv
--------------e----- /home/bill/Tomamu Station.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Public
--------------e----- /home/bill/Personal Address Book.csv
--------------e----- /home/bill/Programming
-----------I--e----- /home/bill/Downloads
--------------e----- /home/bill/My Music
--------------e----- /home/bill/Thumbs.db
--------------e----- /home/bill/Higashikushiro Station.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Templates
--------------e----- /home/bill/Novels
--------------e----- /home/bill/Dropbox
--------------e----- /home/bill/Music
--------------e----- /home/bill/test.sqlite
--------------e----- /home/bill/Software Installs
--------------e----- /home/bill/Desktop
--------------e----- /home/bill/hardware.txt
--------------e----- /home/bill/Sound
--------------e----- /home/bill/system_info.html
--------------e----- /home/bill/Tsurumi Line.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Calibre Library
--------------e----- /home/bill/websites
--------------e----- /home/bill/Databases
--------------e----- /home/bill/fontconfig
--------------e----- /home/bill/Encfs
--------------e----- /home/bill/WebPhotoExample
--------------e----- /home/bill/screenies
--------------e----- /home/bill/xsession
--------------e----- /home/bill/current-cairo.tar.gz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Games
--------------e----- /home/bill/temp
--------------e----- /home/bill/My Places.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/libflashplayer.so
--------------e----- /home/bill/To and From Windows
--------------e----- /home/bill/Tsurumi Station.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Kushiro Coalmine Co..kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/examples.desktop
--------------e----- /home/bill/Documents
--------------e----- /home/bill/Phoenix Train 1.kmz
--------------e----- /home/bill/Videos
--------------e----- /home/bill/tLogger
--------------e----- /home/bill/garima-puri_230x230-1.jpg
bill@bill-UBU:~$

I tried a 'try ubuntu' disk. I couldn't get the drive to mount. Kept giving me errors like 'bad mount point' and stuff like that. I am not very good tinkering with the OS yet.

The file system for /dev/sdb1 is ext4

bill

[dragonfly41]

This is a very long shot .. although the error message is not "permissions"
As a test, I created a directory named Novels
within $HOME/
and in $HOME I got this ..
$ rmdir Novels
rmdir: failed to remove 'Novels': No such file or directory

The reason? I had included a space after $HOME/Novels << space at end.

..

Can you rename the folder?

[WB0HYQ]

Nope. the 'mv' command says the operation is not permitted. And, in the GUI shot above, the "Rename" is greyed out. An oddity is I can COPY the directory anywhere I want, and do whatever I want to it.

Bill

[TheFu]

Nope. the 'mv' command says the operation is not permitted. And, in the GUI shot above, the "Rename" is greyed out. An oddity is I can COPY the directory anywhere I want, and do whatever I want to it.

Bill

copy is read.
mv is write.

Something is preventing write. There are just a few things that can do that. I've gone through all of them, but not the corrupted file system. Did an fsck ever get run, then mount the file system under the Try Ubuntu environment and delete it?

1. permissions on the file
2. permissions on the parent directory
3. ACLs
4. attrs
5. file system corruption

Those are the possibilities. Ain't nuthin' else.

[WB0HYQ]

I've about had it for today, my friend. Tomorrow, I will boot into the DVD and try a fsck run on the drive. Once before using a Try Ubuntu DVD, I tried to delete the directory and was told the same thing as before.

I think what I have here is a totally messed up file system that has come through many upgrades and shares. Heck, I even tried booting into Windows7 and attaching the Ubuntu drive to delete the directory. No go. Windows only gave me a meaningless error message having to do with "can't read the drive," which was obviously wrong because I could scan through the whole thing, reading and writing files wherever I wanted -- except /home/bill, and the various files/directories in that single directory.

Be back tomorrow.

Bill

[WB0HYQ]

One final gasp before I go....

booted into My Ubuntu DVD. Here are the results of the commands issued:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo su
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# fsck /dev/sdb1
fsck from util-linux 2.34
e2fsck 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020)
/dev/sdb1: clean, 506230/15269888 files, 11387345/61048952 blocks
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

and using Terminal in Ubuntu Live session) I shifted to the proper /home/bill directory:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/ubuntu/7120ab16-c27b-414f-93ee-5a636acc41c9/home/bill$ rmdir Novels
rmdir: failed to remove 'Novels': Operation not permitted
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/ubuntu/7120ab16-c27b-414f-93ee-5a636acc41c9/home/bill$ sudo su
root@ubuntu:/media/ubuntu/7120ab16-c27b-414f-93ee-5a636acc41c9/home/bill# rmdir Novels
rmdir: failed to remove 'Novels': Operation not permitted
root@ubuntu:/media/ubuntu/7120ab16-c27b-414f-93ee-5a636acc41c9/home/bill#

Note the above was run as a "user" then again as "root". Still cannot delete that dang directory (or any of the others either).

Now, I'm off to bed.

Bill

[TheFu]

You let Windows access EXT4 partitions!!!!! Ouch!

[WB0HYQ]

Why is this a problem? Isn't that what "Network Sharing" is all about? Using "Files" I set up the share in Ubuntu and on my various Windows machines, I found it. Most of my shares were on the other drives, which are formatted NTFS. These are either internal or USB connected and were there when my Ubuntu machine was a simple Windows 7 box. When running it in Windows, I CANNOT "see" the Ubuntu drive at all, so I did not let Windows access it. Only through my other machines do I access this computers shared Ubuntu directories AND only when it is running Ubuntu, not Windows.

Makes no difference now as I have reinstalled 20.04LTS from a DVD, reformatting the entire drive first.

According to my old notebooks, I am pretty sure I know where I shot myself in the foot (Ready! Fire! Aim!). I wrote down the instructions for sharing but didn't take into account I was sharing a directory (such as Novels) which was under /home/bill. NOW, I understand this is not a good idea. I plan on moving all the ones I want to share to the NTFS drives and not share a single one from the ext4 drive. I have a lot of shared directories as I am an author. As you can imagine, this created tons of directories and files. I need to be able to access them from other computers, most of which are laptops I take with me on trips.

Anyway, this is how it stand right now. My thanks for everyone's help. Trying to remember what I did years ago is a trial. I am wiser now.

Bill

[WB0HYQ]

Mission accomplished. The re-installation went well and I can now do whatever I want in /home/bill.

My thanks to everyone involved for not only jogging my memory, but helping me with commands to find these errors. Every one of them is now written in my "things to know about Linux that you can't find easily" notebook. THis only proves you can learn something new every day - even at my age (79).

Bill