nautilus-share report a warning about missing /var/lib/samba/usershares

[Baptiste Mille-Mathias]

Binary package hint: nautilus-share

if you start nautilus from console you can see this error message:

Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

I assume it needs to create /var/lib/samba/usershares in the package

[Baptiste Mille-Mathias (bmillemathias)]

Okay it seems the command net comes from samba

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 10:08:53PM -0000, Launchpad Bug Tracker wrote:
> Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type
> Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.
>

/var/lib/samba/usershares is created during the postinst of the samba
package while the net command is part of the samba-common package.

However it doesn't stop nautilus from running properly.

  status triaged
  importance low

--
Mathias Gug
Ubuntu Developer http://www.ubuntu.com

[Slava (slava-slavix)]

is there a workaround this problem? i need to enable file sharing. thank you

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

@Slava :
As said by Mathias Gug : "However it doesn't stop nautilus from running properly."

[Václav Šmilauer (eudoxos)]

The problem here is that nautilus may ask you to install samba. The installation will add you to the sambashare group (which alone has the permission to use /var/lib/samba/usershares), BUT the change is not effective until you log off and on again (run id in terminal to check)!!!

When user is asked to confirm samba installation, he/she should be informed about this OR the mount should be run with sg, if samba has just been installed.

[Václav Šmilauer (eudoxos)]

reassigning to nautilus-share, since it should handle whether user really is in sambashare group (see previous comment).

[frizzle21 (frederik-nnaji)]

i'm running a clean Beta install of Hardy... kept going with the updates... Samba behaves in the above described way here, too.
i logged off and back on and it worked immediately..

[Baptiste Mille-Mathias (bmillemathias)]

For me the error is resilient,
I have each time; it's not really a problem, but I would prefer to not appear

[muhalifsirin (alperense)]

I logged out and then in, also I manually added my self to the group sambashare, and still I can not share a single file in hardy, final release. I get the same message all over again.

Please help!

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

I cannot access to file shared on the SMB network with Hardy. Nautilus see the computers but, when I open them, Nautilus displays them empty. Works fine with Gutsy, even on a live CD. I comment here because it might be related. If this is the case, the status of this bug is quite important because it breaks SMB share for a lot of people.

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

I must add that it seems a pretty critical issue to me. (at least here, I must stop a few Ubuntu migration until this problem is solved.) Anyone to recommend a Gtk samba browser so I can still browse the shares without rebooting Windows ?

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

Forget my previous comment. The real bug is bug #206439 which is not related with this one.

[Mathias Gug (mathiaz)]

Could you post the permissions of /var/lib/samba/usershares ?

[bastafidli (ubuntu-bastafidli)]

I can verify that this bug still exists in the final release. The directory didn't exist. I have solved it by doing this

mkdir /var/lib/samba/usershares
chmod 777 /var/lib/samba/usershares

[Lolcat (bigchimp87)]

Had that problem too.
The installation will NOT add you to the sambashare group .
At least not when samba is picked in the installation options.
What worked:
Added me to the sambashare group (did it with the user/groups gui, users, allow local share).
Relogin.
And needed a "sudo smbpasswd -a username" to log into protected folders.

[Tomas Gustavsson (tomplast)]

Hmm, wouldn't a groupadd -a -G sambashare $USER do the trick? Maybe it could be put into the Makefile? Or perhaps not??? I don't know how but this seems fairly easy to fix.

[Anis CHEBBI (chebbi-anis)]

you can solve this by adding a line in smb.conf

sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

in the [Global] section

add
usershare owner only = False

save smb.conf

it works like a charm

[Chow Loong Jin (hyperair)]

As per Václav Šmilauer's post, all that's required after the samba installation is a restart of the session, i.e. logging out and logging back in. The current nautilus-share prompts the user after the auto-installation of samba (and libpam-smbpass) to restart the session. Hence, I'm marking this as fix released.

[Anthony LPG (cubausatony)]

virtual@virtualpc:~$ sudo nautilus
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension

** (nautilus:10359): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Operation not supported
seahorse nautilus module shutdown
virtual@virtualpc:~$ sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf
virtual@virtualpc:~$ testparm
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
Processing section "[printers]"
Processing section "[print$]"
Loaded services file OK.
ERROR: lock directory /var/run/samba does not exist
ERROR: pid directory /var/run/samba does not exist
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
Press enter to see a dump of your service definitions

[global]
 server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
 map to guest = Bad User
 obey pam restrictions = Yes
 passdb backend = tdbsam
 pam password change = Yes
 passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
 passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
 unix password sync = Yes
 syslog = 0
 log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
 max log size = 1000
 dns proxy = No
 usershare allow guests = Yes
 usershare owner only = No
 panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
 invalid users = root

[printers]
 comment = All Printers
 path = /var/spool/samba
 create mask = 0700
 printable = Yes
 browseable = No

[print$]
 comment = Printer Drivers
 path = /var/lib/samba/printers
virtual@virtualpc:~$

[Julian Alarcon (julian-alarcon)]

THis warning is still present on Ubuntu 13.04, I don't know if we should report a new bug (or even if this should be a bug).

[Rey Leonard Amorato (rl.amorato)]

Confirmed on ubuntu 13.04. Sometimes a notification pops up out of no where with this error message.

[Dennis Baudys (thecondordb)]

condor@herkules:~$ uname -a

Linux herkules 3.8.0-31-generic # 46-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 10 20:03:44 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

condor@herkules:~$ sudo apt-cache policy nautilus-share

nautilus-share:
  Installiert: 0.7.3-1ubuntu3
  Installationskandidat: 0.7.3-1ubuntu3
  Versionstabelle:
 *** 0.7.3-1ubuntu3 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

condor@herkules:~$ nautilus

(nautilus:2880): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
(nautilus:2880): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_set: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: »net usershare« gab den Fehler 255 zurück: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

[John Drinkwater (johndrinkwater)]

Just seen this message in syslog and I wonder why Fix Released is marked on nautilus-share if 8 years later this is still occuring?

[Sebastian Meyer (wastl)]

I am running Ubuntu 16.04.1 and can confirm the appearance of this error message in the terminal when nautilus is launched. The error sometimes also pops up in a notification window, as observed in Comment #21.

Since I do not use the nautilus-share extension, I simply removed the corresponding package to get rid of this error - as suggested in a comment on the duplicate bug report
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus-share/+bug/225859/comments/3).

[Roger Davis (rogerdavis-d)]

Also happens in 18.04 !!!

[Roger Davis (rogerdavis-d)]

Initializing nautilus-dropbox 2.10.0
Nautilus-Share-Message: 20:23:01.714: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: mkdir failed on directory /var/run/samba/msg.lock: Permission denied
net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

[Bib (bybeu)]

Still affected in 16.04.6 upgraded from Trusty : the log in this machine shows

Mar 28 17:41:43 nux gnome-session[25837]: Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: « net usershare » returned error 255 : mkdir failed on directory /var/run/samba/msg.lock: Permission denied
Mar 28 17:41:43 nux gnome-session[25837]: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error None file or directory of this kind
Mar 28 17:41:43 nux gnome-session[25837]: Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

even after I created /var/lib/samba/usershares and touch /var/run/samba/msg.lock (*):

~ ls -l /var/lib/samba/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 march 4 2017 private
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 march 28 17:42 usershares

# members sambashare
me

$ ls -l /var/run/samba/msg.lock
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 mars 28 18:55 /var/run/samba/msg.lock

(*)Maybe I should have mkdir msg.lock ?
Yes I should:
$ net usershare info --long
directory /var/run/samba/msg.lock isn't a directory

# rm /var/run/samba/msg.lock
# mkdir /var/run/samba/msg.lock

Wait and see

Here only nautilus-share is installed (I was prompted to install it by Files one day when I wanted to share a folder - Samba not installed : not prompted=no need)

[Bib (bybeu)]

We have the same behaviour @Linux Mint : https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1608061
Maybe I had nemo in 14.04 before upgrade to 16.04. Also as I said I have not samba installed but dependencies like samba-common[-bin], samba-libs etc.
I'll remove all this even nautilus-share as I don't need it any more : I use sftp over ssh bookmarks instead