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Problem cleaning Recycle Bin in 3.11.1550 under XP


RunAmok

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Thanks. I'm sure that someone will get around to this item on their 'to-do' list one of these days, but from the looks of the reported bugs in the latest release, I suspect it's not very high on the list since we proved that using the Empty link from the Recycle Bin resolves the error created by CCleaner - as long as you're brave enough to agree to permanently delete "Windows". And you won't see that if there's anything other than a single folder in the recycle bin. Gotta wonder why someone changed CCleaner to not delete directory entires in the Recycler folder while correctly resetting Info2 to it's empty state. Should be an easy problem to resolve - unless I'm missing some obscure reason it was deliberately done that way...

 

Which reminds me, as I was scanning through the chain, that there's one other 'bug' described in the previous entries which I probably should enter as it's own report. CCleaner (including the lastest version and the previous three or four previous versions) does not delete any folders in %temp%. It scraps any files - including any files in those folders - but leaves any folders - including sub-folders. Blanket fix for a problem back there somewhere because some app expected to find a folder in %temp%?

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Thanks for the thought, but the only boxes checked here are the "Show Prompt..." and "Save all settings". I only mentioned it here since it would appear that CCleaner - at least in my environment - seems to have issues with folders. I thought about adding %temp% (or the actual full path) with the include option, but since it's already deleting everything there (except one file - hfperfdata_username - which is always in use, and the folders) I just clean it out manually every now and then. All those folders do however create the original problem in the recycle bin although it simply asks if I want to permanently delete 57 items when I use the manual empty link and still shows nothing there when I view the recycle bin via the Open link or via Windows Explorer.

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  • 2 weeks later...

FYI, although the release notes for 3.14.1616 say that there were improvements made to recycle bin cleaning, this problem still exists in the 3.14 release. Info2 is still reset to the default 'empty' state and the Dc1 directory has still not been deleted.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Me too. I fully understand that the devs have new features to design and test, that there are other bugs which are much higher priority since this one has a simple and easy 'getaround', and that it appears to be isolated to whatever is unique to my environment since others haven't been able to duplicate it, but... since it still works as it should in a previous release, whatever changed should be fairly easy to track down. And I think I've described exactly what it's doing (or not doing).

And by the way, it's still failing in 317.1688. So is what I've come to believe is the root problem involving deleting any folder - which I just described in another problem entry last week. Perhaps if that one appears to be more global, it will be addressed and the fix will take care of this symptom as well.

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Well... that's interesting. 317 portable works as expected - emptying the recycle bin containing a folder and deleting all the folders in %temp%, even though I'd just installed 317.1688 which still fails. The portable version may be ignoring something left over (and compatable with the old version) when I've been deleting the newest failing version, dropping back to the old version until a new version is announced, and then download and install the new version - which upgrades the old version. I'll do some digging and see if I can find any remnants left over after an uninstall.

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The portable version may be ignoring something left over (and compatable with the old version)

Yes, it ignores the registry, which is why I always prefer Portable variants of any application,

and why I have often advised use of Portable CCleaner when the Installed version fails to work as expected.

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  • 4 weeks later...

FYI, the original problem still exists in 317.1689. I did stumble on to one additional and interesting piece of data though. With several small files and one directory in the recycle bin, an analyze shows what I expect with some small number of bytes in the recycle bin, cleaning appears to work (although the recycle bin icon does not change), But... if I try to empty the recycle bin manually at that point (CCleaner still open) it asks if I want to delete "Windows" but this time it fails when I say yes - telling me that DC4 (the recycle bin file name for the directory) is in use by another program. Exiting CCleaner resolves that problem and the manual empty completes normally. Soooo.... CCleaner deletes any files, resets Info2 to it's default empty state, fails to delete the directory entry, but leaves it hooked until the program exits.

 

I know the devs have not been able to duplicate the problem, but reviewing what changed in the release where it started failing, the details of exactly what's happening, and the fact that the portable version works should help pinpoint why it's failing.

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You may gather useful information with this test :-

 

Unzip Portable 3.18.1707 in a different path to your installed version and confirm the problem does not exist

 

Using your installed 3.18.1707 confirm the problem exists ;

Save Settings to INI and test whether the problem still exists or is fixed.

 

You now have two CCleaner.INI files.

Compare them and consider any differences - hopefully they enable/disable identical targets.

 

If the Installed problem continues when using its INI,

it would be interesting to replace the Portable INI with the Save to INI, and vice versa,

and then see if the problem moves with the INI.

 

Regards

Alan

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Thanks Alan, That's a very logical next step and one I should have tried when I found that the portable version worked.

I ran 3.18 as received, after creating a folder, copying a file into it, and deleting it. Got the symptoms I've described all along. Manually emptied the Recycle Bin to start from scratch. I created and deleted another folder, (and brought up a browser to at least create a few things which needed to be cleaned), and then unzipped the portable version in a folder on the desktop. I opened CCleaner, made sure that all the tick boxes were identical, including options/settings and the registry options, reset the save/delete cookies to what they had been, and then ran the portable version. It worked exactly as it should have, correctly emptying the Recycle Bin and deleting all the folders which had been left in %temp%.

The ini files are identcal - except for one line which only existed in the original version and which for some reason still says "NewVersion=3.17.1689" even though the screen itself confirms the revision is 3.18.1707. That may have been the last time I changed a tick box. There were some minor differences in the window size numbers, but everything else matched perfectly although they were in different order. I did try swapping the ini files, and both ran as they had before with the full version failing and the portable version working.

 

From what I've read in the information provided as this chain progressed, that suggests to me that the problem lies somewhere in the registry (or how CCleaner began to interpret the registry beginning with release 3.11) since installing 3.10 works, the latest two portable versions work, and every installled release after 3.10 fails.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Once again, the latest downloaded and installed version (3.19.1721) still fails to correctly empty the recycle bin if it contains a folder - as detailed above. In an interesting twist that's new with 3.19, if I run CCleaner from the "Run CCleaner" recycle bin link or from a cmd window with the /auto option - or even from the app itself using analyze and clean, and there's only files (and no folder) in the recycle bin, it correctly deletes the files, but the recycle bin icon on the desktop still shows that it contains files. It doesn't. The only thing in either recycle in is the info2 file which appears to be correctly reset to the 'empty' content. And the "Empty" link from right-clicking on the recycle bin is greyed out. The only way to change the icon from 'populated' to 'empty' is to delete a file and use the 'empty' from the recycle bin options - which of course works as expected.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Rather than wear my fingers down another sixteenth of an inch repeating everything I just typed, check out my last entry here... http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=35491&pid=216430&st=20entry216430

It explains why trying to empty the recycle bin on my system fails when it contains a folder. Doesn't explain the latest symptom where the recycle bin icon doesn't change from populated to empty when CC emptys it correctly if it only contains deleted files though. But progress is progress... right?.

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  • 5 months later...

It's been almost six months, multiple releases, and quick tests to determine that the reported problems were still not fixed. But as occasionally happens, a stroke of luck and a new thought about how to proceed is often is worth the effort.

 

First the good news.... I've fixed ALL the annoying and persistant problems I've had with CCleaner, starting almost a year ago - the failure to correctly empty the recycle bin and failure to delete folders elsewhere problems which begin in release 3.11, and even the Recycle Bin icon not changing from full to empty problem which begin in release 3.19 (I think - I've lost track along the way).

 

All along I've strongly suspected it was something in the registry ever since I learned that the portable versions worked and the installed versions (both free and Pro) didn't. Multiple times along the way when I'd tried the old 'uninstall/reinstall' trick, (plus a registry scan to delete any left over CC keys) I'd found one 'leftover' registry entry which made me raise an eyebrow as I went through the registry and deleted any CCleaner entries after an uninstall. There was a key in HKCU\Software\Windows NT\CurrentVersion called "AppCompatFlags" which contained a sub-key called "Layers" populated with the full path to CCleaner's exe as a REGSZ set to "WIN95" - which stuck me as strange, but... every time I reinstalled, it was back, so I sorta ignored it as some strange thing that CCleaner's install did under XP for reasons known only to Piriform.

 

This time though, when I discovered that CC worked as it should when logged in as the system's Administrator ID (which I seldom use) and still failed when logged in under my own admin ID, comparing the registry HKCU entries between my ID and the Administrator ID, it reminded me about that key and the suspicious WIN95 value since it wasn't there in the Administrator's HKCU. To make a long story at least a little shorter, CCleaner installed versions, both Free and Pro, up to somewhere between 3.18-3.22 set that key - but only in the HKCU list for the id you're logged in with when installing. And that may even include releases before 3.10 although it only began causing the problems in 3.11. If you delete that "AppCompatFlags" key, CC works as advertised, correctly emptying the recycle bin and deleting folders where expected.

 

From at least 3.23 on (and maybe several releases earlier), that key is no longer set by a fresh install. And though I'd done half a dozen uninstall/reinstall (some with reg scans to remove 'left over' keys, some without) along the way, even when uninstalling 3.25, that key is not removed if it exists.

 

Oh, and one more little tidbit... That key existed in both HKEY_Current_User and in HKEY_Users, but when I deleted the key in HKCU, it was no longer there in HKEY_Users. Another little piece of registry functionality and interdependence I was not aware of.

 

It's been a long journey.....almost a year. I could continue, and do a bunch more testing to see what releases set that key, etc, but... I've put all the time into this one (and then some) that I'm going to.

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