ls: fts_read: Operation timed out

I'm trying to investigate a problem with (Noodlesoft's) Hazel throwing an error on (Microsoft's) OneDrive's trash, which I thought was empty.


However, when I look at it with Terminal, it appears very full:


nello@miniMe OneDrive % ls -la
total 2552
drwx------@    10 nello  staff      320 Apr  8 07:36 .
drwxr-xr-x+     6 nello  staff      192 Jan 19 18:56 ..
-rwx------@     1 nello  staff       63 Apr  8 07:36 .849C9593-D756-4E56-8D6E-42412F2A707B
-rw-r--r--@     1 nello  staff     6148 Apr  8 11:29 .DS_Store
drwx------@ 65535 nello  staff  2097120 Jan 17 15:54 .Trash
drwx------      3 nello  staff       96 Jan 30 18:07 Desktop
drwx------      2 nello  staff       64 Jan 30 18:31 Documents
drwx------      2 nello  staff       64 Jan 17 15:55 Email attachments
-rw-r--r--@     1 nello  staff        0 Apr  8 07:36 Icon?
drwx------      6 nello  staff      192 Jan 17 15:57 Pictures
nello@miniMe OneDrive %



Unfortunately, Terminal times out when I try to list the contents of OneDrive's trash:


nello@miniMe OneDrive % cd .Trash
nello@miniMe .Trash % ls -la 
total 0
ls: fts_read: Operation timed out
nello@miniMe .Trash % ls
ls: fts_read: Operation timed out
nello@miniMe .Trash %


How do I list the files that appear to be in OneDrive's trash?


Can I give ls more time? Are there risks to doing so?


Thank you for your help.

Mac mini, macOS 15.3

Posted on Apr 8, 2025 10:18 AM

Reply
5 replies

Apr 8, 2025 10:42 AM in response to Nello Lucchesi

Never attempt to directly access any ".Trash" folder. The "Trash" is a Finder object. It exists only the form of the Trash icon in the Dock.


Any folders you might find in the Terminal that appear to be related are, at best, "implementation details". Any attempt to access them directly is unsupported and risks catastrophic data loss. So don't do that.


Instead, start by providing more information about this:

I'm trying to investigate a problem with (Noodlesoft's) Hazel throwing an error on (Microsoft's) OneDrive's trash, which I thought was empty.


Apr 18, 2025 5:34 AM in response to Nello Lucchesi

Generally speaking, until you notice some problem in your normal usage of the computer, then there is no problem.


If you start digging into Console message or using Terminal, looking for problems, you are absolutely guaranteed to find them. There is literally an endless supply of scary sounding messages and mysterious behaviours. And I just don't mean "many", I mean it literally endless, hundreds of messages a second, every second until the end of time. Terminal has hundreds of command line tools, some have never been test by Apple in decades.


These cloud services are becoming a major source of problems. Apple's security requirements have forced them all to adopt Apple's own APIs. Those APIs aren't easy to use and may be unreliable because they are so new. You have at least two installed and running - Box and OneDrive, not to mention iCloud. Are they configured so that they don't interfere with each other? Can they be configured so that they don't interfere with each other? No one can answer those questions.


Probably the one thing you can do is see if you can access your data on these cloud services using some kind of web interface. The idea is to get find out what the "truth" about your data is. We often recommend people do this with iCloud too. Check the files that you can see as well as the space available. Make sure everything is as it should be.



Apr 10, 2025 9:02 AM in response to etresoft

Instead, start by providing more information about this:
I'm trying to investigate a problem with (Noodlesoft's) Hazel throwing an error on (Microsoft's) OneDrive's trash, which I thought was empty.



I had already contacted the developer's support forum and he responded with these comments (before I posted this thread on Apple's Community):


Unfortunately, it's the generic cloud services error that the operating system throws. It would look to only affect handling OneDrive trash files. Do you actually have any files in that trash?



After replying to the forum with the same Terminal information as above, he replied:


The fact that it times out is not a good sign but again, cloud services are super flaky. If you don't have any files there, then that error isn't harmless for the moment but if there are files that get put in there then it might be worth revisiting.



Do you suggest doing anything more to investigate this with the developer? (For what it's worth, I think that Box and OneDrive are using macOS's (relatively new) File Provider API (documented here: File Provider | Apple Developer Documentation )


Thank you.


Apr 10, 2025 11:12 AM in response to Nello Lucchesi

That's not what I meant. You're in a rabbit hole. How did you get there? Something must have inspired you to go looking in the trash using the command line. So what actually happened?


It's difficult to follow a conversation second hand. But the developer is giving you good feedback. What were your answers? Did you actually have any files in that trash?


I don't know anything about that app. I certainly wouldn't dispute the claim that cloud services are super flaky. OneDrive is using Apple's new File Provider API. Any new Apple API is also going to qualify as super flaky.


But more importantly, the trash is still a Finder artifact. It belongs only to the Finder. Regardless of what problem with the Finder/Trash you are having, poking around in Terminal will only make it worse. Apple's cloud services API may have its own Trash interface. So what does Hazel have to do with any of this? OneDrive and Trash is a matter for only OneDrive, Finder, and various background Apple processes. Hazel should not be involved in any way. That would be bad. Real bad.

Apr 17, 2025 6:40 PM in response to etresoft

etresoft wrote:
How did you get there? Something must have inspired you to go looking in the trash using the command line.


I posted this on the Hazel Support forum:


I'm getting these errors for cloud services Box and OneDrive running Hazel 6.0.4 on macOS 15.3.2 Sequoia on an M4 Pro Mac mini:


2025-04-08 07:42:08.187 hazelworker[1877] Processing folder Downloads

2025-04-08 07:42:09.251 hazelworker[1878] Received error while processing file /Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box/.Trash: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “.Trash” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo={NSURL=file:///Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box/.Trash, NSFilePath=/Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/Box-Box/.Trash, NSUnderlyingError=0x600003c86100 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=11 "Resource deadlock avoided"}}

2025-04-08 07:42:09.253 hazelworker[1878] Received error while processing file /Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal/.Trash: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=256 "The file “.Trash” couldn’t be opened." UserInfo={NSURL=file:///Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal/.Trash, NSFilePath=/Users/nello/Library/CloudStorage/OneDrive-Personal/.Trash, NSUnderlyingError=0x600003c96040 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=11 "Resource deadlock avoided"}}

2025-04-08 07:42:09.253 hazelworker[1878] Done processing folder Trash
2025-04-08 07:42:10.206 hazelworker[1877] Done processing folder Downloads




What were your answers? Did you actually have any files in that trash?


No, no files in either the web interface to OneDrive trash or the Finder interface to OneDrive.



Regardless of what problem with the Finder/Trash you are having, poking around in Terminal will only make it worse. Apple's cloud services API may have its own Trash interface.


Given your warnings, I've done nothing. I just accept the error messages in Hazel's log.

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ls: fts_read: Operation timed out

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