Unable to change folder views for external storage in KDE4

[Nael Masood]

Been using KDE 4.0 in both Kubuntu 7.10 (gutsy) and 8.04 (hardy, development). On my system, I use an external hard drive connected by USB as a storage drive for my documents and such. In KDE3, I liked how I was able to change the icons of folders as well as adjust how each folder could be viewed. Any changes I made, either with Konqueror or Dolphin, were kept.

However, using Dolphin or Konqueror in KDE4, I've found that any changes I make to the viewing preferences on the external drive don't stick - custom folder icons don't change, and changing folder view settings such as switching to detail view doesn't stick - if I leave the directory and return, the default view for the folder has been restored. Dolphin seems to create a .directory file in each folder where the settings should be stored, but opening up the .directory files with KWrite reveals they're blank.

I can change the view setting in my home folder just fine, and this is not an issue of needing write permission for the files on my external - I can move, copy and remove files from it just fine. It's just that the Dolphin kpart seems to be spitting out blank .directory files when it should saving custom folder view settings.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Plug in a USB flash drive
2) Create a new folder on the flash drive.
3) Right click and select Properties on the folder
4) Click on the icon image and select a new icon for the folder
5) Press OK and save the new icon. The folder icon should not change
6) Go into the folder, choose to view hidden files and open up the .directory file in a text editor. It should be blank.

Also reported at the KDE bug tracker: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157417

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

Thanks for submitting this report.

I have tested this with

Qt: 4.3.3
KDE: 4.0.1 (KDE 4.0.1)
Dolphin: 1.0.1

and could not reproduce the problem. The .directory file was properly written.

Could it be that your mounts are read-only, or revert to read-only due to some error?

Thanks

[Nael Masood (neochaos)]

No, my external drive is properly mounted as read/write - I can copy and delete files from the drive, but it's when I try to change the folder views or the folder icon that this problem crops up. You sure you tested this on external storage devices?

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

Issue confirmed

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Still an issue with KDE 4.1?

[Renan (renan-fargetton)]

I have the same issue in kde 4.1 with a FAT32 partition used for dual boot.
A way to bypass the problem is to modify the .directory files by hand:
[Desktop Entry]
Icon="here the name of the icon"

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fix committed for KDE 4.2 beta2.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fix released in Jaunty and kubuntu-experimental.