desktop/nautilus right-click eject problem for external usb disk and memory card reader

[Quan]

When right-click on a icon on the desktop or under Nautilus to umount a
partition on an external USB hard disk, the command would umount ALL partitions
on the external drive and displayed the error "Unable to eject media"

It seems to mistaking the hard disk partition for a CD/DVD media.

This problem does not exist in Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary.

PS: The umount command seems to work OK if using the terminal.

http://bugs.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=319208: http://bugs.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=319208

[Quan (gtee96)]

I forgot to mention that this problem exists in Ubuntu 5.10 final release.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Thanks for your bug report, I forwarded the issue upstream:
http://bugs.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=319208

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

daniel, are you sure it's not a duplicated of linux bug #11517 ?

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Seb, I think the case in 5049 is exactly reverse. This bug has the problem that
/dev/sda{1,2,3} are unmounted, if the users wants to unmount just one of them.
Bug 11517's problem is that the disk cannot be unmounted at all. At least, that's
how I understood it.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Is this still a problem?

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

I'm getting something like this on Feisty. The volume is unmounted, though...

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Bruno: your problem is a different one: please file a separate bug report for that.

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

Nevermind, I solved and forgot to post here.

I had to delete /media/.hal-mtab which got spurious stuff for some possible bug on hal mouting.

Sorry for not adding this update sooner.

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

This no longer happens in Gnome 2.18 (Feisty Fawn), and maybe earlier.

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

USB pens work well, USB external drives don't. :(

[Philip Wyett (philwyett)]

I get this issue with 7.04 RC.

I can insert and eject usb pen drives no problem in Nautilus.

I can insert a usb hdd, but if I try eject; I get the same error dialog as Bruno. Doing a 'sudo umount /media/device_name' works fine to unmount.

In my logs I see the following:

Apr 17 10:58:53 linea-thames hald: unmounted /dev/sdc1 from '/media/PSW_USB_HDD' on behalf of uid 1000
Apr 17 10:58:53 linea-thames NetworkManager: <debug info>^I[1176803933.465781] nm_hal_device_removed (): Device removed (hal udi is '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_D07E_F1D8').
Apr 17 10:58:54 linea-thames NetworkManager: <debug info>^I[1176803934.328633] nm_hal_device_added (): New device added (hal udi is '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_D07E_F1D8').
Apr 17 10:58:54 linea-thames hald: mounted /dev/sdc1 on behalf of uid 1000

[Philip Wyett (philwyett)]

This bug is the same as:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/103790

The work-around from iGadget said on 2007-04-16 - Works for me on 32bit 7.04 RC.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

Same as Philip.
I have a Feisty 7.04 fresh installation.

I think it's related to bug #81239

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

photo card in USB external memory card reader.

[Alan B. Clements (alan-clements)]

 Bruno Santos said on 2007-03-29: "This no longer happens in Gnome 2.18 (Feisty Fawn)..."

On the contrary, it does. While using a VFAT file system works just fine. I have a external USB Drive which is formatted as EXT3 and it still exibits this problem

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

I don't think it is a file system type problem.
Memory cards are usually vfat formatted (It seems to me, feel free to reply if not) and I have this problem using them in an USB external memory card reader. (have look at video attached above).
No problem with USB pens. (That are usually vfat formatted as well).

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

I was wrong Alan. :)

Have you tried to install the hal on backports? With it nautilus shows 'unmount' instead of eject and it works well. Nevertheless the updates on backports broke stuff on my MacBook (brightness control at least) but on my desktop this issue seems to be solved.

Being on backports doesn't help us right now, since it won't land on official updates, and some people may prefer not to use backports packages.

[Alan B. Clements (alan-clements)]

Thanks Bruno,
Not only did this 'solve' the problem it works more the way I want it to in the first place!

will this be in feisty+1 or is the 'eject' model an Ubuntu Customization?

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

It's a nice "workaround" but it doesn't solve the problem in the right way.
It's need to fix this bug and have an update through the official system-update.

[Bruno Santos (bsantos)]

Yes, the backports come from gutsy, check /usr/share/doc/hal/changelog.Debian.gz :)

[x (xk2c-deactivatedaccount)]

I am geting the same.
i am also getting "cannot eject" on right click "eject" (translated from german)

[x (xk2c-deactivatedaccount)]

these two messages always come together.

[x (xk2c-deactivatedaccount)]

hmm stupid me, i forgot: it´s a feisty over here

[Detlef Lechner (detlef-lechner)]

I am getting the same error message as Quan and Thilo Six (in German equivalent) when unmounting my external USB hard disk drive from a backup procedure.
My USB hard disk drive has two partitions.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

I think this bug is the same as Bug #111541

The REAL problem is EJECT command (either launched from terminal or from nautilus "right click")
The UMOUNT command works (from terminal and from nautilus)
I still don't understand why some people have UMOUNT instead oF EJECT in nautilus "right click". Probably, before Feisty Nautilus has been using the UMOUNT command, while in 7.04 it changed with EJECT command.
I think that basically there is an error in bug TITLE "desktop/nautilus right-click umount problem"
It should be "EJECT PROBLEM" as it's reported on the bug description just below it.

Probably this other Bug #108643 is affected by the same problem.

To clarify, have a look at Bug #111541, especially at Valeryan_24 comment https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eject/+bug/111541/comments/10
and Ketil link just after that.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=412692

[huiii (a00ps)]

Well, as i now it, it was always eject option on right-click, in edgy and in feisty.
eject in feisty didn't work after an upgrade and after another upgrade one week ago, option eject is replaced by unmount.
under terminal the option sudo eject /dev/blabla works fine.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

My system is regularly updated and I still have the problem with Feisty and Nautilus Eject. (Nautilus "right click" have still eject command, no umount) but now eject /media/... works from terminal.
This is true for an external hard disk and an external memory card reader (via usb).
Everything is fine with usb pens.

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

By the way, no problem at all with Edgy.

[x (xk2c-deactivatedaccount)]

I wanted to add:
The umount problem is very easy to reproduce with a usb-harddisc. My usb (flash) sticks allmost work every time.
(only once my stick could get umounted the right-click-way).
But discs are not umountable evrey time (here).

[x (xk2c-deactivatedaccount)]

installing the hal stuff from feisty-backports solved it for me

[Sergio Zanchetta (primes2h)]

I confirm, with hal version 0.5.9-1ubuntu2~feisty1 from backport everything works fine.
It changed eject command in nautilus with umount.
It fixed also Bug #108643 so that bug was the same one and was related to nautilus "eject" problem.

[Sam Brauer (sampbrauer)]

I installed the HAL stuff from feisty-backports too, and while it is better (the Unmount command in the menu works) I don't think it's as good as the way things worked when I ran dapper. In dapper (not sure about edgy, because I never ran it), the Eject command unmounted an external hard drive and then the drive would spin down. In feisty, the same drive doesn't spin down. Sometimes I just turn it off while it's still spinning (which I hope is safe), or sometimes I'll run "sudo eject /dev/foo" which does in fact cause it to spin down.

It seems to me that replacing the Eject command with Unmount is a decent temporary workaround, but ideally the Eject functionality should be fixed and then Eject should be returned to the menu in Nautilus.

[Martin Schwenke (martin-meltin)]

I'm very surprised that the fix for this hasn't made feisty-updates.

I have several USB devices that I could unmount/eject just fine from the "right-clock menu" in Edgy but they are immediately remounted after being ejected in Feisty. Ways of fixing this so I can "safely" remove my devices include:

* Reverting to the command line to unmount the filesystem.
* Discover that I need to install a package from something called feisty-backports, figure out how to do that and then actually do it successfully.
* Edit /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-storage-policy.fdi to stop the devices being ejected.

As an experienced Linux user all of these are OK for me.

However, if this happens to inexperienced users it is a showstopper because they do not have the know-how to be expected to do any of the above. That is, from a usability point-of-view for inexperienced users:

* This is a regression.
* This is critical.

Fixing this should be a high priority as it will affect a lot of Ubuntu's target users.

[Alexandre Kraft (alexandre-kraft)]

I totally agree with Martin Schwenke's comment. I have the same problem with an external USB drive (Hitachi Travelstar in a Sarotech Cutie case). Unmount from the right-click menu was working in Edgy, of course this is regression!

And what about usability? How to explain to my mother that Linux is better and easier to use than other systems when she must open a terminal to do a 'sudo eject /media/drive*' then enter her password...?! I can see this bug affects lots of people around me and this is how they starts to resolve it by despite: they unplugged their drive while praying to not lost data.

Are anyone currently working on this critical bug?

[iGadget (igadget)]

Perhaps irrelevant (allthough not to the end user) but I noticed Kubuntu 7.04 doesn't have this problem, which would confirm it's a nautilus-only issue.

And I completely agree with Alexandre - this is very bad publicity for Ubuntu.

[Alan B. Clements (alan-clements)]

On the Contrary iGadget,
I STILL have a problem unmounting a USB device with an ext3 file system. Those that have a Fat-32 seem to unmount correctly in Kubuntu

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The comments state that's fixed with the hal version in gutsy

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Martin, could you have a look of what change is fixing the bug and at backport it to feisty? It seems to be annoying quite some users

[iGadget (igadget)]

Alan,

I ejected (allthough it's called 'safely unmount' in Kubuntu Feisty) an external USB harddrive with an ext3 filesystem. It worked exactly as expected:
-The drive spun down and stopped
-The icon disappeared from the desktop
-The drive was no longer accessible

I believe this is how the 'eject' funtion in Nautilus should work as well (although I'm not sure how I would want it to behave if I had several partitions on my external drive... probably I would want the system to be smart enough to notice the difference between partitions on a disk and the disk itself. And give two options when I right click on one of those partitions on the desktop: 1) 'Unmount this partition on drive [foo]' and 2) 'Eject entire drive [foo]', followed by a popup, warning the user which partitions will also be unmounted when he/she continues. Or something similar, but this would probably be something for a blueprint? :-) ...).

[Matthias Urlichs (smurf)]

That's it exactly, thanks iGadget.

… if you implement such a warning, pelase make it (a) only show when there's at least one other mounted partition on the drive, (b) turnoffable.