"Remote I/O error (121)" trying to delete a remote directory containg files.

[gv]

Description of the problem:
Most of the times I cannot delete directories that have files or others directories on a remote machine (I connect using cd ​sh://user@host/home/user). I get something like this:

Cannot remove directory "/sh://user@h~home/user/1
                 Remote I/O error (121)
      [ Skip ]  [ Skip all ]  [ Retry ]  [ Abort ]

For most of directories in /home/user it does not work. Occasionally, for some directories, it works. And I cannot find a pattern here.

The only workaround for this issue is to first manually remove files from the directory and then remove the directory itself. This is easy if the directory tree is small. But for sure not feasible for a large directory tree.

Steps to reproduce:

1. ssh user@host
2. mkdir 1
3. copy some random files into directory 1
4. connect from mc to the remote host using ​sh://user@host/home/user
5. try to remove directory 1 by pressing F8 on the directory.

$ mc -V
GNU Midnight Commander 4.8.28
Built with GLib 2.56.4
Built with S-Lang 2.3.2 with terminfo database
With builtin Editor and Aspell support
With optional subshell support
With support for background operations
With mouse support on xterm and Linux console
With internationalization support
With multiple codepages support
With ext2fs attributes support
Virtual File Systems:
 cpiofs, tarfs, sfs, extfs, ftpfs, fish
Data types:
 char: 8; int: 32; long: 64; void *: 64; size_t: 64; off_t: 64;

$ mc -V
Home directory: /home/user
Profile root directory: /home/user

[System data]
    Config directory: /etc/mc/
    Data directory:   /usr/share/mc/
    File extension handlers: /usr/libexec/mc/ext.d/
    VFS plugins and scripts: /usr/libexec/mc/
        extfs.d:        /usr/libexec/mc/extfs.d/
        fish:           /usr/libexec/mc/fish/

[User data]
    Config directory: /home/user/.config/mc/
    Data directory:   /home/user/.local/share/mc/
        skins:          /home/user/.local/share/mc/skins/
        extfs.d:        /home/user/.local/share/mc/extfs.d/
        fish:           /home/user/.local/share/mc/fish/
        mcedit macros:  /home/user/.local/share/mc/mc.macros
        mcedit external macros: /home/user/.local/share/mc/mcedit/macros.d/macro.*
    Cache directory:  /home/user/.cache/mc/

Thank you!

[andrew_b]

Branch: 4364_fish_remove_nonempty_dir
changeset:d4d6cec52da8fffbab5635af6d0149a10a59dcb6

[zaytsev]

I would add a comment to the source code referencing this ticket to explain why these checks are needed (that is for VFS support). Otherwise, someone will surely optimise it again a decade later ;-)

[andrew_b]

I'll add a comment to the commit before merge:
fish's readdir() doesn't return "." and ".." entries.

[zaytsev]

Well, I meant the source code, not the commit message. Surely you won't be blaming every line before considering whether to change it or not...

[ossi]

when something seems obviously wrong, i actually tend to blame it to figure out whether i'm missing something. tough i suppose i may be somewhat exceptional in that regard.

code comments also have the unfortunate habit of going out of sync with reality, so their "cautionary" value tends to be limited in practice.

nonetheless, i agree that they should be added as a matter of best practice.

[andrew_b]

Merged to master: [7bbaa13644c001ffdb900fe6b8460907c23e326b].

git log --pretty=oneline 3a3811c52..7bbaa1364