We had the same problem... The "Empty Recycle Bin" button doesn't work if you have 4000+ pages in the trash, and somehow the automatic deletion job doesn't delete any pages either. I tried switching the server date six months ahead, and run the service, but it didn't help at all. (did this to ensure that all pages were more than 30days old) The only way I managed to delete the pages was to change the to 60000 instead of 60. (in web.config) By doing this, I was able to delete one huge three node at a time, and getting rid of the 12000pages taking up space in the trash :)

I tried adding the Key EPnQueryTimeout and setting it to 60000. Before I did this emptying the recycle bin crashed imediately, after it runs for a  minute or so but still fails with;

[EPiServerCancelException: Deleting page was cancelled by event handler.]
   EPiServer.Core.PageStoreBase.RaiseCancellablePageEvent(Object key, String defaultReason, PageEventArgs eventArgs) +152
   EPiServer.DataFactory.DeleteChildren(PageReference pageLink, Boolean forceDelete, AccessLevel access) +277
   EPiServer.UI.Edit.WastebasketPage.EmptyWastebasket_Click(Object sender, CommandEventArgs e) +113
   EPiServer.UI.WebControls.ToolButton.OnCommand(CommandEventArgs e) +103
   System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) +29
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2981

Can anyone help?

I do have articles referenced to other properties in still published articles, I will have a look at those.

 

Tried setting the Automatic Emptying of the Recycle Bin and I get the error;

The job failed: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ["Page title" cannot be empty.]

So I think that a "Page Title" has been made a mandatory field for a page that has been deleted.

Hmmm. Seems like you have a page created by custom code. You're not able to create a page without a title in edit mode.

You could write a simple script (c# "script") to loop through all pages in the waste basket and delete the pages without "Page title" 

--
Lars Ø Bodahl
www.epinova.no 

Do you have any custom event handling? E.g. Custom event for DeletingPage?