KDE Filesharing not working due to incorrect file ownership

[Mark Greenwood]

Description: Ubuntu jaunty (development branch)
Release: 9.04

Fully up-to-date as of 14th Feb 2009

I don't know which package or executable is responsbile.

Trying to enable file-sharing from within Dolphin.
I right-click a folder, choose 'Properties'.
'Share' Tab says "You need to be authorised to share folders"
So I click the button "Configure File Sharing", it asks for my password and then does nothing.

Performing the command from a terminal gives this:

bob@newboy:~$ sudo kcmshell4 fileshare
[sudo] password for bob:
Error: "/var/tmp/kdecache-bob" is owned by uid 1000 instead of uid 0.
kcmshell(3924) KServiceFactory::findServiceByDesktopPath: "findServiceByDesktopPath: fileshare.desktop not found"

Further info:
bob@newboy:~$ groups
bob adm dialout cdrom audio video plugdev fuse lpadmin admin sambashare pulse pulse-access pulse-rt

bob@newboy:~$ apt-cache policy smbclient
smbclient:
  Installed: 2:3.2.5-4ubuntu1
  Candidate: 2:3.2.5-4ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 2:3.2.5-4ubuntu1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

bob@newboy:~$ uname -a
Linux newboy 2.6.28-7-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Mon Feb 9 15:43:21 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

[Scott Lewin (sclewin)]

+1 Having the same problem with 9.04. When I click on "configure file sharing" I get the same pop up saying "kcmshell4 fileshare needs administrative privileges. Please enter your password." I enter my password and nothing.

I am fully updated up to February 19th.

[mugginz (mugginz)]

Do you have kdenetwork-filesharing installed?

[Mark Greenwood (fatgerman)]

No, I don't (this is now a clean install of Jaunty Beta).
I installed it but it made no difference - apart from the fact that I now have a 'Samba' icon in System Settings, but this does nothing when I click on it.
So I checked and samba is not installed either. I think there are some dependencies that need sorting out here.

[mugginz (mugginz)]

Mark, the followsing command will always fail -
   sudo kcmshell4 fileshare

For it to succeed you must use kdesudo instead such as -
   kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare

and it should succeed.

When using Dolphin to share a folder, if you don't have kdenetwork-filesharing then nothing will happen after you type in your admin password. You will also need to install the samba package in order to successfully share a folder using SMB.

[Mark Greenwood (fatgerman)]

OK, still not working:

kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare
kcmshell(3662) KServiceFactory::findServiceByDesktopPath: "findServiceByDesktopPath: fileshare.desktop not found"

apt-cache policy kdenetwork-filesharing
kdenetwork-filesharing:
  Installed: 4:4.2.2-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4:4.2.2-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4:4.2.2-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I also think that if packages are required which are not installed by default, then a dialog should open and ask me to install them; or kdenetwork-filesharing should be installed by default.

[mugginz (mugginz)]

Can you check to see if the following file exists on your system:
/usr/share/kde4/services/fileshare.desktop

I also agree about the fact that the user should be prompted to install kdenetwork-filesharing if it's not installed but I also think that a default Kubuntu install should have samba server and kdenetwork-filesharing installed by default.

[Mark Greenwood (fatgerman)]

The file does exist, oddly. I've attached it.
Thanks,
Mark

[mugginz (mugginz)]

Your fileshare.desktop seems to be exactly the same as mine.

You could also try "kdesudo kcmshell4 filetypes" or "kdesudo kcmshell4 fonts" just to see if the problems isolated to fileshare or not.

Thanks.

[Mark Greenwood (fatgerman)]

OK, "kdesudo kcmshell4 filetypes" worked. So, I tried again with "kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare". This also worked! The only thing I've done is an update and a reboot. How very strange.

[mugginz (mugginz)]

Well, that's a good thing. Maybe we can close this bug report..... However.....

I have noticed the behavior of kcmshell4 isn't erectly perfect in regard to launching modules. At least it isn't very tolerant of misconfiguration. Hopefully if I get time myself I can address this. But one thing I would like to do, assuming there'd be no way of convincing the higher ups that it would be a good idea to just install samba and kde-networking by default, would be to have kcmshell4 prompt the user to install these packages when they're required to perform the task the user is attempting.

[Piotr Kęplicz (keplicz)]

It seems that KDE cache doesn't get updated when it should.

As a workaround, if you experience "findServiceByDesktopPath: fileshare.desktop not found" error when clicking on "Configure file sharing" (kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare), try removing contents of /var/tmp/kdecache-root. It'll be updated automatically and the file sharing dialog should start without errors.

[markofealing (mark-ferns16)]

I've experienced exactly the same problem on both Kubuntu 9.04 and 9.10, and agree that the user should be prompted to install kdenetwork-filesharing if it's not installed. After all who is going to know that kdenetwork-filesharing exists let alone has to be installed. No message returned when the GUI interface does not do as expected is a bad thing!

In my case I didn't have kdenetwork-filesharing installed and after installing I got a response similar to Mark Greenwood although in my case the desktop file did exist. However, file sharing still failed to work in Dolphin even after a reboot.

Entering kdesudo kcmshell4 filetypes also worked, but fileshare still failed to work. It only worked after I entered kdesudo kcmshell4 fonts. Now this is when something odd happened as I got:

kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/klauncher
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/bin/kded4
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/bin/kbuildsycoca4
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/bin/kbuildsycoca4
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/kde4libexec/kconf_update
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/kde4libexec/kconf_update

fonts then opened

After I closed fonts and ran fileshare, fileshare worked!

If I then enter fonts again, I don't get the above messages, it just opens the window. It's almost as if fonts needs to be initialised, before fileshare will work!

This is on my Kubuntu 9.04 laptop, I'll give the same a try on my Kubuntu 9.10 desktop (64-bit) and will update this report.

However, on the face of it to me it looks like a bug if fonts needs to be initialised before fileshare will work.

[markofealing (mark-ferns16)]

In Kubuntu 9.10 (64-bit), entering kdesu kcmshell4 fileshare produced the following:

kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_klauncher.so
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kded4.so
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kbuildsycoca4.so
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kbuildsycoca4.so
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kconf_update.so
findServiceByDesktopPath: fileshare.desktop not found

As it looked like kdenetwork-filesharing was not installed, entered sudo apt-get install kdenetwork-filesharing
 and installed package.

Entering kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare now correctly produced the fileshare dialogue window. No reboot was required.

Entering kdesudo kcmshell4 fonts afterwards did not reproduce the kdeinit4 dialogue experienced on my laptop, and just for completeness filetypes also produced no kdeinit4 messages. My laptop was originally running KDE3 (Kubuntu 7.10) and has been upgraded over the years to 9.04. The desktop had originally 9.04 and has recently been upgraded to Kubuntu 9.10.

Therefore, I stand by my conclusion that for some reason entering kdesudo kcmshell4 fonts on my laptop initialised fileshare.

secondly, the i/f design in Dolphin needs looking at with regards to behavior of the "Configure File Sharing.." button on the Share tab in folder properties. It is not acceptable that when you click on this button, it asks for sudo password and then nothing happens if kdenetwork-filesharing is not installed. Because the Share tab exists, it is not unreasonable to assume that filesharing in Dolphin is installed and working, clearly this is not the case.

Therefore, I propose that one of three things should happen to rectify this issue:

1. You are advised that the package is missing and instructions are given on how to rectify

or more desirable

2. You are advised that the package is missing and you are given the option to install it by clicking on an install button. As you have already entered the sudo password this is not unreasonable and because of this you should not need to enter the sudo password again.

or most desirable

3. As Dolphin is installed by default in KDE4, kcmshell4 fileshare should be a dependency for the samba client install and therefore installed when samba is installed. This then avoids any confusion as to the status of fileshaing in Dolphin.

[flying sheep (flying-sheep)]

this is very inconvenient.
pressing the button in dolphin should produce a dialog asking if you want to install “kdenetwork-filesharing” instead of silently failing to access something which isn’t there.