Please describe the problem:
Recently, I opened the gnome trash applet and saw that the contents of the trash were displayed as if the whole root filesystem was in the trash (which it wasn't). That is, the folder list-view displayed by the trash applet included the folders "bin", "boot", "cdrom" (a link), "dev" and so on. Opening these folders revealed that they behaved as links to the real live filesystem. Logging out and logging back in didn't fix it.

It seemed to be caused by a corrupt file .gnome/gnome-vfs/.trash-entry-cache. The last line of the file was "/dev/shm /". I logged out and then edited this file, changing the last line to "/dev/shm -", and the problem went away. I don't know what caused the corruption in the first place.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Use gnome for a couple of years, until corruption occurs; or as a shortcut, deliberately corrupt .gnome/gnome-vfs/.trash-entry-cache by putting a line at the end something like "/dev/shm /"
2. Open the Trash applet



Actual results:
The Trash applet shows that the trash "contains" the root filesystem.

Expected results:
The Trash applet should show only the items really in the trash.

Does this happen every time?
Yes

Other information:
The same problem was reported by another user on the Ubuntu forums. That posting led me to .trash-entry-cache.