Trash (Wastebasket) can't keep anything on Mac OS 8.1

[Snial]

Hi folks,

I've had this strange issue with Mac OS 8.1 on my PB1400c for a while in that putting items in the wastebasket brings up a dialog like this:

which means nothing is ever kept in it. There's plenty of space on the SD card (Gigs). I don't remember this ever happening on any previous classic Mac OS installation nor any of my other older Macs. Any idea what it is and how to fix it?

-cheers from Julz

 

[robin-fo]

Could your Trash folder be locked? I‘ve only seen similar dialogs when deleting from a shared volume

 

[aladds]

Is there another item in the wastebasket with the same name? From memory if you keep putting identically named things in there the first one goes in normally, then the next one has " copy" appended, but I'm not sure if it does that a third time.

 

[MacUp72]

when I got similar errors and tried to find out what could cause this, I found out it's much faster to reinstall/delete, recopy the OS.

 

[croissantking]

I was having the same issue with 8.1 on a PowerBook 540c, reinstalling the OS did not work but I believe it may be related to the BlueSCSI possibly (although I cannot think why). Anyway the problem seems to have gone away now - very odd.

What kind of SCSI emulator are you using?

You mention having gigs of free space, maybe this could be the issue (older hardware not handling large disk partitions well - just a thought).

 

[Snial]

Thanks for the answers folks. The SD card is 8GB, but I'm only used 5.7GB (HFS+ for Mac OS 8.1) + 0.75GB (for System 7.5.3). Maybe the trash folder is locked?

 

[Mk.558]

When I place an item in the Trash, a message appears stating that the item cannot be left in the Trash and needs to be deleted immediately.

This article has been archived and is no longer updated by Apple.
If your date gets reset to an invalid year such as 1904, this may occur under Mac OS 8.0 or Mac OS 8.1. This is more common on PowerBook
models, where if the unit is left without power for a lengthy period of time the backup battery can drain causing PRAM to get reset along with the
date and time.

To resolve this, open the Date & Time control panel and set the correct date.
Published Date: Feb 20, 2012

That took awhile to find.

 

[croissantking]

That took awhile to find.

Ohhh wow. That totally makes sense and totally explains the errors I was previously having. I’ve recently rebuilt my 540c battery pack and PRAM battery so that’s why the errors have gone away seemingly on their own.

 

[Snial]

That took awhile to find.

Incredible! And Correct! I set the date & time to today's date and time, but in 2019; and then suddenly the wastebasket (British Mac OS 8.1 name for Trash) turned into the "Stuff in the trash" icon. I checked it and now a Claris folder was in there. I Then took that out and emptied the trash. Then the Trash icon was "Empty". I then tested it by copying a duplicate of a file to the trash; it didn't asked me to empty it immediately and then opening the Trash showed the file inside. Then I emptied the trash and indeed it was empty, with an "Empty" icon.

Problem solved! Thank you very much!