Check the ~/.Trash/ and the ~/.local/share/Trash/files/ (Ubuntu 8.04) directories and see if the files are there. Most likely you are having a problem with permissions, but I’ve had issues where the permissions are perfectly okay but somehow the OS will still not let you empty the trash! To force an empty type
sudo rm -rf FILES
Be careful with this command because it is VERY unforgiving! Trust me. You should really alias a check to make sure that it asks you whether not you want to remove the file (e.g. in your .bashrc).
Tags: trash
