Nautilus won't accept a newly-mounted disk as a drop target until it has been viewed

[Alastair Carey]

Ok, I searched for this already but couldn't find it. I've noticed a minor niggle in Nautilus that is quite annoying after a while... so, you have Nautilus displaying a standard directory tree view on the right with a list view on the left (a la Windows Explorer). You go to a directory in the tree view that contains some stuff you want to move. You select the items to be moved in the list view, then plug in a new disk to put them on. The disk is mounted, and it appears in Nautilus's tree view. Great! But when you drag and drop the items you've selected in the list view, the new disk isn't available as a drop target. You have to click the new disk first in the tree view, then go back to the previous directory, then reselect your items again, and now _this_ time the new disk is available as a drop target.

I'm guessing this is easy to fix, and it would save a lot of clicking around.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, what ubuntu version do you use? I tried on karmic with an usb key and that works correctly

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Hi Sebastian, this is on 9.04 fully patched. I use external USB hard
disks, the problem is very reproducible. If you don't have any luck
seeing it, let me know and I'll give you exact steps (or, if there's an
easy way of doing so, record a desktop video) for you. Cheers A.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden>
Reply-to: Bug 387836 <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 387836] Re: Nautilus won't accept a newly-mounted disk as
a drop target until it has been viewed
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:29:55 -0000

thank you for your bug report, what ubuntu version do you use? I tried
on karmic with an usb key and that works correctly

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

as said I don't get this issue so either it's fixed in karmic or specific to some configuration, in any case should be sent to GNOME by somebody having the bug

[Vish (vish)]

Until someone can confirm this bug in Karmic , I'm Marking this as incomplete.

 A paper cut is a minor usability annoyance that an average user would encounter on his/her first day of using a new installation of Ubuntu 9.10.
 For further info about papercuts criteria , pls read > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut
 Don't worry though, This bug has been marked as "incomplete" ONLY in the papercuts project.
 For resolution of the bug, kindly identify the packages affected and assign the bug to all the package, otherwise the devs of the concerned package might not be notified of this problem.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Well, I don't have Karmic, so can't test it there. All I can tell you is that it is present in 9.04, has been since the days of 8.04, and has been noticeable since my first day of using a new installation of Ubuntu :)

If it's fixed in 9.10, great. I can't test that until Karmic gets to at least a beta release, though.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Confirmed in Karmic Alpha 6 fully patched

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Problem still exists in Karmic release fully patched as at 19-Nov-09

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

I have just been able to reproduce this on Karmic. But now I am no longer able to reproduce it and wonder what I have done the first time, since now a newly inserted CD will always be directly available as a drop target. Could you make the steps to reproduce a bit more precise in the form
1. ... do that ...
2. do this ...
Thanks in advance.

[Vish (vish)]

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. However, a paper cut should be a small usability issue, in the default Ubuntu install, that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. So this bug can't be addressed as part of this project.

- Closing papercut task as this seems more of a bug. Further it isnt easily reproducible.
For further information about papercuts criteria, please read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut.

Don't worry though, this bug has been marked as "Invalid" only in the papercuts project.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

I really don't understand the papercut thing... it seems to me, based on Vish's criteria, that this is actually a perfect example (it is easily reproducible, is in the default install [has been since 8.04!], would affect everybody, and [I'm guessing] is easy to fix). But anyway, I don't really want to argue about that, so whatever.

@Martin: I never tried this with CDs as I don't use them. But I have this problem EVERY SINGLE DAY with USB removable disks. Here are the steps:

1. You want to move (e.g.) some video files from a local disk to an external USB disk.
2. Open Nautilus, select the files on the local disk.
3. Plug in the external USB disk you're going to copy these files to.
4. The external disk appears in Nautilus's tree view.
5. Drag and drop the files you have selected to the disk in the tree view... oh, wait, YOU CAN'T because the new entry in the tree view is not available as a drop target!
6. To make the new disk available as a drop target, you actually have to select it in the tree view, thus losing your selection of files. Annoying.

I don't think it's just me as this happens on every version of Ubuntu I've ever used on every hardware platform I've ever used Ubuntu. Either I'm cursed, or other people just haven't bothered to report this problem... I can't imagine I'm the only person having it, it's so obvious!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you try if that's still an issue in lucid?

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Yes, still an issue. Exactly the same steps as described above. I actually don't use Gnome any more (massive Nautilus performance problems and crashiness around the turn of the year pushed me over to KDE and it's GREAT!), but I just logged into a session there on a fully patched Lucid beta and yes, the problem still persists. But it doesn't affect me any more, I'm happy to say. Dolphin rules!

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

(And, just as a quick follow-up - Dolphin under KDE handles this situation absolutely perfectly.)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for the reply, nice that you changed desktop and you like it that's not really revelant to this bug though, could you run gvfs-mount -li before clicking on the new disk and after clicking on it?
It could be that the disk doesn't get mounted for you for some reason and it's mounted only when clicking

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Oh, I agree it's not directly relevant to the bug. But it does demonstrate the lengths to which I had to resort to work around this (and other) Nautilus problems.

I plug an external, two-partition USB disk in, both partitions appear in Nautilus (neither is available as a drop target), but I don't click on either. gvfs-mount -li reports this:

Drive(0): 320 GB Hard Disk
  Type: GProxyDrive (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
  ids:
   unix-device: '/dev/sdb'
  themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
  is_media_removable=0
  has_media=1
  is_media_check_automatic=0
  can_poll_for_media=0
  can_eject=0
  can_start=0
  can_stop=1
  start_stop_type=shutdown
  Volume(0): Windows XP System Disk
    Type: GProxyVolume (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
    ids:
     uuid: 'DC6073B7607396CC'
     unix-device: '/dev/sdb1'
     label: 'Windows XP System Disk'
    themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
    can_mount=1
    can_eject=0
    should_automount=1
    Mount(0): Windows XP System Disk -> file:///media/Windows%20XP%20System%20Disk
      Type: GProxyMount (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
      default_location=file:///media/Windows%20XP%20System%20Disk
      themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
      can_unmount=1
      can_eject=0
      is_shadowed=0
  Volume(1): Portable Media
    Type: GProxyVolume (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
    ids:
     uuid: '2768D14E2E43D1D2'
     unix-device: '/dev/sdb2'
     label: 'Portable Media'
    themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
    can_mount=1
    can_eject=0
    should_automount=1
    Mount(0): Portable Media -> file:///media/Portable%20Media
      Type: GProxyMount (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
      default_location=file:///media/Portable%20Media
      themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
      can_unmount=1
      can_eject=0
      is_shadowed=0
Drive(1): CD/DVD Drive
  Type: GProxyDrive (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
  ids:
   unix-device: '/dev/sr0'
  themed icons: [drive-optical] [drive]
  is_media_removable=1
  has_media=0
  is_media_check_automatic=1
  can_poll_for_media=1
  can_eject=0
  can_start=0
  can_stop=0
  start_stop_type=unknown
Volume(2): cdrom2
  Type: GProxyVolume (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
  themed icons: [drive-optical] [drive]
  can_mount=1
  can_eject=0
  should_automount=0

I click the disk and it's now available as a drop target. gvfs-mount -li reports this:

Drive(0): 320 GB Hard Disk
  Type: GProxyDrive (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
  ids:
   unix-device: '/dev/sdb'
  themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
  is_media_removable=0
  has_media=1
  is_media_check_automatic=0
  can_poll_for_media=0
  can_eject=0
  can_start=0
  can_stop=1
  start_stop_type=shutdown
  Volume(0): Windows XP System Disk
    Type: GProxyVolume (GProxyVolumeMonitorGdu)
    ids:
     uuid: 'DC6073B7607396CC'
     unix-device: '/dev/sdb1'
     label: 'Windows XP System Disk'
    themed icons: [drive-harddisk-usb] [drive-harddisk] [drive]
    can_mount=1
    can_eject=0
    should_automount=1
    Mount(0): Windows XP System Disk -> file:///media/Windows%20XP%20System%20Disk
      Type: GProxyMount (GProxyVo...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

ok thanks for the updated informations, I still don't get the issue there on an USB stick, not sure what in your configuration triggers it though, good luck if change software every time you run into a bug easier to workaround though

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of Nautilus is available on Maverick and we are wondering if this bug is still an issue for you with that version? Could you please test and comment back? Thanks in advance.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

I'm afraid so. On Ubuntu 10.10, upgraded from 10.04, fully patched as at 17 Oct 10 1734 GMT, the problem persists. When Nautilus is open, and an external hard disk is then plugged in, the disk appears in Nautilus's tree view, but no content can be dropped on it until it is clicked or expanded. If you have a preferred tool for capturing a screen video, I would be happy to upload a video that demonstrates the problem. The problem has persisted since 9.04. I'm amazed every time I check this bug that I seem to be the only person affected by it!

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Ah, now here's something that might be of interest. I upgraded to Nautilus Elemental today, and the bug is gone: I can plug in an external storage device and drag-and-drop to it immediately without any additional clicks. Terrific!

This is Nautilus version 2.32.0, with embedded terminal and clutterflow.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

s/Elemental/Elementary/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for nautilus (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]