Testing out a few different CMS’s recently and ended up removing Drupal – Did the usual load up FTP client and proceed to delete the full base directory for the next CMS to be tested. Then, I noticed an error with the folder called “sites” and It wouldn’t manually delete inside the FTP client with 2 locked files “default.settings.php” and “settings.php“.
Did a Google search and came across a guide explaining to run a PHP script mentioning permissions, and realised I forgot to check the actual folder permissions inside the FTP client – “sites” had no group access set, so I decided to set full access on the sites folder (CHMOD 777) and made sure it was set to do it recursively, with all subfolders and files – Then did delete again and poof everything was gone wtihout a hitch.
If you ever have this issue deleting files or folders within your own webspace, always check the file and folder permissions have FULL read and write access enabled for all groups.