Cannot delete folders or files on a Linux Cloud Web Hosting instance

Problem description

You cannot delete certain folders or files after uploading a website program to a Linux Cloud Web Hosting instance.

Causes

Permission issues or hidden files usually prevent you from deleting a folder or file. The common causes are:

• The folder you are deleting is not the htdocs folder or the myfolder folder

• Delete all files and folders in the htdocs folder

• The file or folder to be deleted has only read permission

• The folder cannot be deleted because it contains hidden files

Solutions

You can resolve these issues by changing permissions or deleting certain hidden files.

Deleting a folder other than htdocs and myfolder

Cloud Web Hosting lets you manage content only in the myfolder and htdocs folders. Other folders are system folders, and you do not have permission to manage them. You cannot delete any folder outside of the htdocs and myfolder folders.

Deleting all files or folders in the htdocs folder

The htdocs folder contains the logreport and report files. These are system files that you do not have permission to delete. This prevents you from deleting all files and folders in the htdocs folder at once.

To delete files in the htdocs folder other than logreport and report, go into the htdocs folder and delete the files directly.

The file or folder to be deleted has only read permission

To delete the file or folder, change its permissions as follows:

1. Connect to your Cloud Web Hosting instance with an FTP tool.

   For instructions on using FileZilla, see Manage files using FileZilla.

2. In the Remote site area of FileZilla, right-click the file or folder that you want to delete and select File permissions....

3. In the Change file attributes dialog box, add write and execute permissions as needed, and then click OK.

4. Try to delete the file or folder again.

Cannot delete a folder that contains hidden files

Delete the hidden files in the folder using an FTP tool before you delete the folder.

On a Linux Cloud Web Hosting instance, a folder or file that starts with a period (.) is a hidden file, such as the .htaccess file. If a folder contains this type of file, delete the hidden file first, and then delete the folder. For more information, see Cannot delete a folder on a Linux Cloud Web Hosting instance using an FTP tool.