Error unmounting external hard drive

[hackel]

I'm using the media-applet 0.3.2 Ubuntu package, with gnome-mount 0.8-1ubuntu1. When I click to eject an external hard drive (labeled "External") in media-applet, it appears to work properly, however I get the following message:

Cannot unmount the volume 'External'.
Cannot remove directory

The /media/External directory does get removed, however. The following messages are displayed on the console:

mount added :68606E5F606E344A,External
(media-applet:17455): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_origin: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed
mount removed : 68606E5F606E344A,External
unable to read content type attributeunable to read content type attribute

I get the exact same error message when I run "gnome-mount -vu -d /dev/sdb1" manuallly.
If I run "gnome-mount -ve -d /dev/sdb1" (eject instead of unmount), I get the following error:
Cannot eject volume
There was an error ejecting the volume or drive.
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure: Cannot remove directory

But this time, the partition gets unmounted, but the /media/External directory still exists, and I am not able to re-mount the drive with either media-applet or gnome-mount. Mounting manually (with "mount", as root) still works fine, and once I've mounted it once manually, I can remount it again with gnome-mount, however, if I don't first remove the /media/External directory, it will mount it to /media/External_.

[Dariel Dato-on (odd-rationale)]

I can reproduce the part where if you "don't first remove the /media/External directory, it will mount it to /media/External_".

This seems to be a permissions problem. gnome-mount uses HAL to mount external mediums. HAL usually mounts to /media/$disklabel. If you manually created /media/External as root (sudo mkdir /media/External) or somehow the permissions of that folder gets changed, then HAL does not have the permission to mount to that directory. Hence using /media/External_.

Perhaps you could try unplugging the external medium, removing that directory (sudo rmdir /media/External) and External_ if it exists, then try plugging the external medium back, and mounting it with gnome-mount.

Mixing the use of gnome-mount and mount may cause permissions problems sometimes.

Hope that helps!

[hackel (hackel)]

I didn't explain myself clearly. I did not ever create the /media/External directory, it was created by hal. When I ran mount manually, I was mounting to /mnt. If I remove the /media/External directory as you said, then the next time it is re-created by hal. However, if I try to eject using gnome-mount, then the /media/External directory is left behind, and even if I remove that directory manually, I can no longer mount the disk with gnome-mount. When I try, nothing happens at all until I either unplug and plug the USB drive, or mount it manually to /mnt and unmount it. See below:

If I try to eject the drive after automounting:

hackel@hermes:~$ gnome-mount -vte -d /dev/sdb1
gnome-mount 0.8
** (gnome-mount:27280): DEBUG: Ejecting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A
** (gnome-mount:27280): DEBUG: Setting up 750ms timer for Flushing Cache dialog
** (gnome-mount:27280): DEBUG: in unmount_done : user_data = 0x0
** Message: Eject failed for /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A: org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure : Cannot remove directory

Drive *is* unmounted, but /media/External remains (with permissions 700), and I am no longer able to mount the drive with gnome-mount, because it thinks it is already mounted:

hackel@hermes:~$ gnome-mount -vt -d /dev/sdb1
gnome-mount 0.8
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: Mounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: read default option 'locale=' from gconf strlist key /system/storage/default_options/ntfs-3g/mount_options
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: read default option 'exec' from gconf strlist key /system/storage/default_options/ntfs-3g/mount_options
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: Mounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A with mount_point='External', fstype='ntfs-3g', num_options=2
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: option='locale=en_GB.UTF-8'
** (gnome-mount:26892): DEBUG: option='exec'
** Message: Mount failed for /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.AlreadyMounted : Device /dev/sdb1 is already mounted.

If I mount the drive manually to /mnt and then unmount it, gnome-mount will work again. Also, if i remove the cable and plug it back in, it automounts properly. Now, if I try to unmount it:

hackel@hermes:~$ gnome-mount -vtu -d /dev/sdb1
gnome-mount 0.8
** (gnome-mount:27093): DEBUG: Unmounting /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A
** (gnome-mount:27093): DEBUG: Setting up 750ms timer for Flushing Cache dialog
** (gnome-mount:27093): DEBUG: in unmount_done : user_data = 0x0
** Message: Unmount failed for /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/volume_uuid_68606E5F606E344A: org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.UnknownFailure : Cannot remove directory

Drive *is* unmounted and /media/External is gone. It appears that everything worked properly, yet I get the "cannot remove directory" error.

Hopefully this clarifies what is going on. Perhaps this is actually a hal error?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported, but feel free to report any other bugs you find.