Comment 45 for bug 1021375

I just had this problem occur again, I am using 12.04 (still). I also got it tp work correctly, here is what worked for me (YMMV). I am not sure all these step are required, but the combination fixed my problem.

1- sudo chmod 755 /media (this was recommended with -R option, but I did not want that as my raid is mounted under /media)
2- cd
3- mv .config/nautilus .config/nautilus.bak
(the net effect is a new nautilus desktop file is created, for me the delta was deletion of "nautilus-icon-view-auto-layout=true" and a change to the nautilus-icon-view-layout-timestamp value)
4- remove media if it happens to be in
5- logout
6- login
7- insert media and test

Good luck.