Paperclip attachments not getting deleted upon destroy - ruby-on-rails

Question

Attachments saved using Paperclip (v4.2.0) are not being deleted from disk when the model is destroyed, is anybody else experiencing this issue? Everything is working as expected but the files just aren't getting deleted from disk. Any help or ideas would be super appreciated!
Models:
class Attachment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :article
has_attached_file :file, { :preserve_files => "false" }
do_not_validate_attachment_file_type :file
end
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :topic
belongs_to :subtopic
belongs_to :author
has_many :attachments, :dependent => :destroy
accepts_nested_attributes_for :attachments, allow_destroy: true, reject_if: lambda { |a| a[:file].blank? }
validates :topic_id, presence: true
validates :title, presence: true, length: { maximum: 16 }
validates :subtitle, length: { maximum: 20 }
validates :content, presence: true
end
Destroy action in Articles controller:
def destroy
#article = Article.find(params[:id])
begin
# first delete the attachments from disk
#article.attachments.each do |a|
a.file.destroy
end
#article.destroy
rescue
flash[:danger] = "Unable to delete article"
else
flash[:success] = "Article deleted"
end
redirect_to admin_articles_url
end

Answer 1

You need to set the attachment 'file' attribute to nil before destroying it, in order to delete the uploaded file from the disk.
So your code should be like this
Destroy action in Articles controller:
def destroy
#article = Article.find(params[:id])
begin
# first delete the attachments from disk
#article.attachments.each do |a|
a.file = nil
a.save
end
#article.destroy
rescue
flash[:danger] = "Unable to delete article"
else
flash[:success] = "Article deleted"
end
redirect_to admin_articles_url
end

Answer 2

Try to add preserve_files option to "false" string
has_attached_file :file, :preserve_files => "false"

Answer 3

Come up with:
def destroy
self.transaction do
self.images.destroy_all
super
end
end
self.images is collection of records with attachments.
Most important there is self.transaction do ... because when for any reason super (original destroy) failed it wont remove files from hdd. It waits untils COMMIT

Answer 4

try something like this:
def destroy
#article = Article.find(params[:id])
#article.attachments.destroy
#article.destroy
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to admin_articles_url }
end
end
#article = Article.find(params[:id]) will find the article which you want to delete.
#article.attachments will collect all attachments related that particular article
Note: you must destroy #article after all attachments destroyed. If you write #article.destroy before #article.attachments.destroy then it will give an error as #article not found.
As you have mentioned in Article model has_many :attachments, :dependent => :destroy
then I think no need to write #article.attachments.destroy as destroying #article it will delete all attachments related to it.

Answer 5

You can also use a before_destroy callback
example
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
before_destroy :delete_image
has_attached_file :image,
path: "/attachments/:class/:attachment/:style/:filename"
validates_attachment_content_type :image, content_type: \Aimage\/.*\z/
private
def delete_image
self.image = nil
self.save
end
end
then any time an instance of the model class is destroyed, then the attachments will be deleted first.