diff --git a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/testing/AbstractTestClass.java b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/testing/AbstractTestClass.java
index 813ea6bfb..83b604cb0 100644
--- a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/testing/AbstractTestClass.java
+++ b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/testing/AbstractTestClass.java
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import static junit.framework.Assert.fail;
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
 import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
 import java.io.File;
+import java.io.FileFilter;
 import java.io.FileReader;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
@@ -148,9 +149,29 @@ public abstract class AbstractTestClass {
 	 */
 	protected static void deleteFile(File file) {
 		if (file.exists()) {
-			if (!file.delete()) {
-				fail("Unable to delete file '" + file.getPath() + "'");
-			}
+			file.delete();
+		}
+		if (!file.exists()) {
+			return;
+		}
+
+		/*
+		 * If we were unable to delete the file, is it because it's a non-empty
+		 * directory?
+		 */
+		if (!file.isDirectory()) {
+			final StringBuffer message = new StringBuffer(
+					"Unable to delete directory '" + file.getPath() + "'\n");
+			file.listFiles(new FileFilter() {
+				@Override
+				public boolean accept(File pathname) {
+					message.append("   contains file '" + pathname + "'\n");
+					return true;
+				}
+			});
+			fail(message.toString().trim());
+		} else {
+			fail("Unable to delete file '" + file.getPath() + "'");
 		}
 	}
 
@@ -225,12 +246,22 @@ public abstract class AbstractTestClass {
 		Writer writer = null;
 		try {
 			File file = new File(directory, filename);
+			if (file.exists()) {
+				throw new IOException("File '" + file.getPath()
+						+ "' already exists.");
+			}
 			file.createNewFile();
 			writer = new FileWriter(file);
 			writer.write(contents);
 			return file;
 		} finally {
-			writer.close();
+			if (writer != null) {
+				try {
+					writer.close();
+				} catch (IOException e) {
+					e.printStackTrace();
+				}
+			}
 		}
 	}
 
@@ -254,11 +285,17 @@ public abstract class AbstractTestClass {
 	protected static String readAll(Reader reader) throws IOException {
 		StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
 		BufferedReader buffered = new BufferedReader(reader);
-		String line;
-		while (null != (line = buffered.readLine())) {
-			result.append(line).append('\n');
+		char[] chunk = new char[4096];
+		int howMany;
+
+		try {
+			while (-1 != (howMany = buffered.read(chunk))) {
+				result.append(chunk, 0, howMany);
+			}
+		} finally {
+			reader.close();
 		}
-		reader.close();
+
 		return result.toString();
 	}