BT Cloud - Unable to delete files or folders in Deleted Items folder

[tarn]

Hi

I have 476GB of deleted files in my Deleted Items folder at the Cloud website but I am unable to delete them. If I try to click on the pink 'Empty Deleted Items' icon, I get a message to say 'We encountered some errors while purging deleted items' and nothing is deleted.

If I try to delete a single file individually and click 'Delete Forever'  I get a message telling me there has been an error and the folder cannot be deleted, and the file remains in place. Note the message says 'folder' even though I am only trying to delete an individual file.

I have read several old messages here saying the problem was going to be fixed in an update which was released a while back but the problem remains.

Does anyone have a solution, please?

Thanks.

[NeilO]

Hi @tarn, welcome to the community and thanks for posting. I'm really sorry you're experiencing issues with deleting files from your BT cloud service, it sounds like a fault will need to be reported the cloud team to get this sorted. You can reach them on 0800 500 3114 9am to 9pm Mon - Fri 9am to 6.30pm Sat and Sun. 

[Karlos0951]

Despite uninstalling all versions of btcloud, chatting, calling (the return call never happened as promised) and now signing up to the community, I still have about 300GB of deleted items and versions that I cannot delete.... Any ideas, before I think about renewal?

[wwwadd]

I've the same issue. I can delete them in small batches but I get the error message when attempting to delete the complete folder.
I've 16000 files and 143 gb to go so its as well that I'm in social isolation
I cannot see any solution here or anywhere else

[cornishloiner]

Hi there. I have the same problem and have reported it to the BT Cloud team. It would appear to be a fault on the Cloud servers and their response was that it will get looked at but not many people use BT Cloud, apparently...

It looks like it has been going on since 2017. When is it going to be fixed?

[Neorat]

Having the same problem a fix would be nice

[PaulHeyworth]

I'm also having exactly the same issue, which just seems crazy given this has been going on since 2017 by the look of it.  How hard can it be to fix a simple delete function, for an organisation like BT!!

I've reported the problem and I have a reference number for it, which I will keep pushing.  I'll post an update here, if I hear anything.  Given the deleted items count as part of your allocated cloud space, there will come a point where I won't be able to use a service, which is part of the package I pay for, and of course they'll be other customers in the same position.

Regards

[PaulHeyworth]

I've been looking more into this, and it's very strange.  If I click on "Empty all files" or whatever the button is called, it errors, but I am able to delete them in small batches.  That said, I had over 9000 files to delete, which means clicking each one in small batches, and waiting for the page to return.  The return of the page can take a while, as there seem to be DB indexing occurring too, although I'm not sure whether this is due to the amount of files I'm deleting or a scheduled task run by BT.

Anyhow, I found a solution to deleting the files via the Chrome browser, using a very nifty tool call UI.vision, which is a free extension. You can simply record yourself deleting a page at a time, then run it on a loop. I've managed to clear around 5000 files in 7 hours this way, but it works through it.  The recording is easy, but you'll need to add a command at the end of your recording, to wait for the page to return (it tells the tool to wait for the "restore" button to disappear) which is a way of telling the tool that you're ready to start selecting the next batch.  You'll see what I mean if you try it.

The command to add at the end (the rest is a simple recording) is: 

command:   waitforelementvisible 

Target:        xpath=//*[@id="DataToolbar_RestoreFiles"]/span[3]

Value: 10000000 (This makes it wait indefinitely and to only trigger the next batch based on the target above).

I hope this helps someone else, because this was annoying me no end.

Paul.

[PaulHeyworth]

Okay, just following up on the above, I thought I post the script I used to clear out the BT trash.  This managed around 9000 files in 8 hours in the end.

Instructions:-

1. Load Chrome and Install the extension UI.Vision.
2. Open the extension from Chrome.
3. Click the +Macro
4. Paste the code below into it. (into the tab called Source view (JSON)).
5. Save this as "Batch Delete all BT Trash"
6. Login to your BT Cloud account (so that it stores your login cookie).
7. Back in the UI.Vision extension, with the macro you created open, click down arrow (top right corner) and "play loop".
8. In the "max" Box, enter the number of times you want to run the batch.  (the code will delete 52 files per batch).
9. Click on Play - and go and have a beer, while a bot clears out the trash.
10. BT will trigger a sign-out at certain intervals half an hour or an hour.  Simply log back in and continue to run the batch as above.

Code....

{
"Name": "Batch Delete all BT trash",
"CreationDate": "2020-5-7",
"Commands": [
{
"Command": "open",
"Target": "https://btcloud.bt.com",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"FilterSelect_Select\"]/div[2]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "id=FilterSelect_Trash",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DateDeleted\"]/div[2]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DateDeleted\"]/div[2]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_0_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_1_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_2_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_3_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_4_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_5_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_6_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_7_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_8_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_9_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_10_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_11_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_12_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_13_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_14_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_15_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_16_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_17_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_18_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_19_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_20_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_21_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_22_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_23_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_24_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_25_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_26_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_27_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_28_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_29_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_30_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_31_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_32_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_33_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_34_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_35_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_36_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_37_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_38_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_39_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_40_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_41_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_42_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_43_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_44_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_45_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_46_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_47_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_48_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_49_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_50_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataList_51_File\"]/div[1]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "click",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataToolbar_DeleteForever\"]/span[3]",
"Value": ""
},
{
"Command": "waitForElementNotVisible",
"Target": "xpath=//*[@id=\"DataToolbar_RestoreFiles\"]/span[3]",
"Value": "10000000"
},
{
"Command": "",
"Target": "",
"Value": ""
}
]
}

[tarn]

Hi Paul,
Thanks very much for posting this. I'll give it a try, although it may not be for a while. I guess once the backlog has been cleared, it'll be a case of regularly clearing the deleted items so they don't build up again.
Tarn