Checking the November 2005 dump for these files...

It's possible they were deleted but that the database entry
changes were lost for some reason (failure etc), or of course
that something went horribly awry on upload years ago.

There's only so much you can do about investigating files that
are so old...

gmaxwell wrote:

I have most (all?) of the lost files in an old backup copy of commons. However,
it will be a pain to retrieve them and verify that they are all the correct
files. Has any of the uploaders (were they all from GerardM?) responded to this
issue? If they still have the files it would be easier if they reuploaded (or
told us that they should have been deleted.

If I don't hear anything more I will just fix the files from my archives.

jeluf wrote:

Has this been taken care of in the meantime?

Is this still an issue?

The files seem to be still missing. I've found a total of 30 files like this on Commons, from two uploaders (GerardM and AdaM):

[[commons:Image:Fa-آن_سوزن_است.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Fa-خوشحال.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:It-acido_citrico.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:It-antralinato_di_metile.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:It-detartraggio_del_vino.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:It-estratto_ridotto.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:It-estratto_secco.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Amerikaanse_dikkop-elrits.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-De_Marne.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Hof_van_Twente.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Kaapse_pelsrob.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Roggel_en_Neer.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Ten_Boer.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Ter_Aar.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-Thai.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-West_Maas_en_Waal.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-afhangen_van.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-aplastisch_anemie.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-arctische_walvis.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-behept_zijn_met.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-berichten_over.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-blauwe_vinvis.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-cervix_uteri.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-cor_pulmonale.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-duro_mater.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-post_partum.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-spijt_hebben_van.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-vitale_capaciteit.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-voorzien_van.ogg]]
[[commons:Image:Nl-zich_verheugen_op.ogg]]

Raw list, including original upload summaries, is at http://toolserver.org/~vyznev/query_commons_redlink_images.tab

(In reply to comment #2)

I have most (all?) of the lost files in an old backup copy of commons.

I don't find any of them there.

The list is now gzipped:
http://toolserver.org/~vyznev/query_commons_redlink_images.tab.gz

It seems that these files are stuck in some sort of limbo: all the pages have been deleted, but the records in the image table remain and are apparently impossible to delete on-wiki. I think what's needed at this point is for someone with shell access to manually delete the records from the image table (plus one oldimage record for Fa-خوشحال.ogg) as well as any possibly remaining thumbnail directories and such.

Ps. [[File:Tuli.JPG]] on Commons seems to be in a similar kind of limbo.

(In reply to comment #8)

Ps. [[File:Tuli.JPG]] on Commons seems to be in a similar kind of limbo.

Seems a reversal of bug 15430.

I managed to delete these files by first uploading a dummy file on top of them (so that the existence check in ImagePage::delete() passed). I believe this particular bug can now be closed.