How to: Fix automount of USB/MMC/SD etc.

Hi all,

After i have modded my desktop according to rjm's excellent How to, i recognized, like some others, that the automount functionality was broken.

After trying out some commands and manually starting the Thunar daemon i found the problem.
The reason is, that the Thunar daemon is started at a time, where the HAL daemon is not running.
And this locks the functionality of automount.
Acer was aware of this problem and considered it in the script /usr/bin/xfcepost. Only thing is, that if the Thunar daemon is already running, it is not restarted.

• So to fix this, open a terminal and type
  
  Code:

  sudo mousepad /usr/bin/xfcepost &

  [/*:26o7cnw2]
• Insert 'killall Thunar' right before 'sleep 10' so it looks like this:
  
  Code:

  if [ "X${halpid}" != "X" ]; then
    killall Thunar
    sleep 10

  [/*:26o7cnw2]
• Save & restart and automount should work as usual![/*:26o7cnw2]

If you want to show icons for your removable drive on the desktop (very comfortable), you have to
add some more to the xfcepost script.

• At the end of the file after done add:
  
  Code:

  done
  # restart Xfce Desktop
  /usr/bin/xfdesktop-xfce --quit & >/dev/null 2>&1
  sleep 1
  /usr/bin/xfdesktop-xfce & >/dev/null 2>&1

  [/*:26o7cnw2]
• Additional you need to edit/create /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/xfdesktoprc
  
  Code:

  mousepad /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/xfdesktoprc & 

  add following setting:
  
  Code:

  [file-icons]
  show-removable=true

  [/*:26o7cnw2]
• Again Save & restart and your removable drives will show up on desktop.[/*:26o7cnw2]

For the guru's out there:
I think the thunar daemon is started by xfdesktop via a call to dbus service org.xfce.FileManager or org.xfce.Thunar.
But I haven't found out where/when the xfce session manager is started from the rc5 scripts.
The best solution for this problem would be to start the hald long before xfdesktop.
Perhaps anybody can help on this?

gr33tz,
Tybor

 

Ty a lot of

 

Hi Tybor.

Thanks for this simple, brilliantly effective tip.

My new One had been happily automounting USB drives since I bought it last week then, this morning, nada! However, your tip fixed the problem, so I've gone from gloom to bright and sunny in just a few minutes.

Thanks again Tybor and all the other gurus on this useful forum.

Cheers
Tony

 

Thanks for the help.

I"m still scratching my head though trying to figure out why some people end up with the problem and some people, like myself, don't. And as you mention up top, how mcs-manager manages get itself loaded at startup.

Still work to do...

 

OK this worked for me! Thanks very much!!!

I have been happy with the xfce desktop and was willing to put up with having to manually switch thunar to advanced mode every restart if I wanted to access my SD card, but this puts the icing on the cake.

Now onward to doing a full system backup using ping...

 

Just wanted to say that if you're female and single, I want you to have my babies
I've been killing Thunar manually for some time now (and had no internet connection to check here), and your solution works perfectly. Thousand thanks!

 

Hi,

Updated the HowTo to fix desktop icons of removable drives.

gr33tz,
Tybor (male and married)

 

Thanks huge for this solution, one small query;

why isn't the filename xfdesktoprc a typo?

acting on the assumption it was i renamed it to xfdesktop.rc (after noting another .rc file in the folder) and it appeared to work. Rereading your code quoted above i noticed you typed it twice so it was unlikely to be a typo so i changed it back.

But the desktop icon appeared in both cases.

I am going to find a good book on linux

 

Hi ChrisPink,

Its not a typo, its correct.

gr33tz,
Tybor

 

One more time I need your help Tybor, saddened for the english one can translated with google ^^
Then I, I have a big problem, I already have to try several tuto to install vlc although they are look like all ^^. My bug it places at the level of the terminal to see even at the level of the uptade. Made there are some bug:
- the first one is of made that I hasn't install nobthing package manually, I open the instal I puts my root code, the window opens and remains grey and nothing appear (I have already waited 4 hours to know if it was no error .
- then my 2nd probleme come from the terminal or that I type one command yum he produce nothing. My cursor passes has the line of the bottom but root@localhost doesn't appear and can what I type then nothing is taken into account.
Furthermore than I launch the command rpm followed by the address he(it) puts me: " Retrieving http: // rpm.livna and nothing occurs either then, thus impossible to make whatever it is.
.A yes also the live uptade messes around I have two corrective (photo master and xfdesktop) has to put but its walking not when I launch ,its puts:
" Download of the corrective and at the end of moment he says to me impossible to connect to the server of stake has in the daytime stay up verified your network environment as follows:
1) Verified if the network cable is correctly inserted.
2) Verified the statu of your network. "
Thus Voila I need your help, me.

Say me if its to bad english to your understand
I need your help, I thank you beforehand for your help
Micka

 

Hi mika,

First, please start a new thread in http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=32 because your post is off topic.
Next, your post is really hard to understand. I suppose you have problems with installing packages?

gr33tz,
Tybor

 

Thnx for this. It worked like a charm

 

I Tybor the topic is here http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5286. Yes i have problems to install packages but with the yum command too and with live uptade^^ . When i try to make an uptade, is chargins and finallly a window say me: It's not possible to connect to the server look if your network environment as follows:
1) Look if the network cable is correctly inserted.
2) Look the statu of your network. "
Ty Tybor

 

As I posted earlier, this has worked well for me and was the final step in making the xfce desktop really nice to use.

However, I just noticed an interesting behavior. I would not call it a problem, really, just "interesting."

I am using the 8GB SSD version of the One and have a 4GB HCSD card in the left slot. If I create or save a file or directory to the SSD everything proceeds normally. If I create or save a file or directory to the HCSD card, a corresponding file or directory is automatically created on the SSD. This is not a link, it is a full copy. If I then delete this file or directory from the HCSD card, it is also removed from the SSD.

If I create the file on the SSD then cut it and paste it to the HCSD card, it disappears from the SSD as expected.

You could consider this as a sort of "auto-backup" feature, I suppose. Just another "weirdness" of the Acer implementation of Linpus? :?:

 

Hi Ace,

Could you post where this "backup" file is stored (path).

gr33tz,
Tybor

 

Hi Tybor --

Your question prompted me to do a bit more investigation.

First, to answer your question, any file or directory created on the SD card (left slot) appears to be replicated in "home" as displayed on Thunar (i.e., My Disk:/// or /home/user). However, further investigation indicates that maybe all is not as it seems. Let me try to explain.

If you create a file or directory on the SD card, that file or directory shows up not only on the SD card, but also in the "home" directory as displayed by Thunar. HOWEVER, if you do "ls /home/user" in the terminal, you will see that the new file or directory does not appear to be there.

Checking further, I unmounted and removed the SD card, and all files and directories that I knew to be on it disappeared from "home."

I hope my description makes sense to you. Although Thunar gives every indication that the files and directories in "home" are real and are duplicates of what is on the SD card, in fact they are some kind of links the the real files on the SD card.

I thought this was an interesting phenomenon, but beyond that I'm not sure what to make of it. As I said earlier I would not characterize it as a problem, just something of interest.

 

Hi Ace,

This sounds like the normal functionality of the "storage expansion" (left hand slot).
I never tried that, but try searching for it or look up in manual for explanation.

gr33tz,
Tybor

 

I'm sure you are correct about that. Thanks for the discussion!

 

Hi All,

I tried this fix and it worked fine but suddenly today my USB sticks fail to mount and running thunar from the command line, I get the following error messages:

Code:

thunar-volman: No property info.capabilities on device with id /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_13fe_1e00_07820249008F_3.
thunar-volman: No property info.capabilities on device with id /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_13fe_1e00_07820249008F_3_if0.
thunar-volman: No property info.capabilities on device with id /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_13fe_1e00_07820249008F_3_if0_scsi_host_scsi_device_lun0.

Any advice gratefully received. Thanks.

EDIT 26/10/08

Okay. If I run thunar from command line as root, the USB stick automounts and is accessible thorough a later thunar started as user from the command line. So this suggests a permissions problem to me. I've certainly not changed any filesystem/mount permissions since it all worked but hey.

When I run the thunar as root I get the following messages:

Code:

[root@localhost user]# method return sender=:1.10 -> dest=:1.3340 reply_serial=2
   boolean true
Loading simple Config module ...
Creating backend ...
Loading socket FrontEnd module ...
Starting SCIM as daemon ...
Thunar: Failed to connect to the D-BUS session bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
[root@localhost user]# 

which doesn't mean much to me but maybe gives one of you a clue.

Clearly I can use this root work around to get on, but I'd appreciate a fix so I can go back to the "it just works" condition I had only yesterday. Any ideas on things to try very much welcomed.

EDIT 28/10/08

Still no idea what caused this but the issue is overtaken by the event of me being caught out by package-cleanup and losing half my system, requiring a re-install from scratch (and then reapplying all my changes). A lesson learnt - I'm still enjoying my first linux experience.

Tony

 

Can someone help me, I must have done something wrong following the instructions above and now I've lost all of my desktop Icons, It appears for a few seconds after rebooting and then everything disappears