Startup Disk Creator requiring multiple authentications.

[Ronnie McMaster]

Binary package hint: usb-creator

Whenever I use the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator, I have to sit by the PC and enter my password at least twice or it will fail if I am not there to authenticate installing the boot loader promptly. I do not see the purpose any requiring authentication to write to a USB drive, but don't mind doing so once.

Please fix this so that folks only have to authenticate once.

Thanks,
uRock

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: usb-creator-gtk 0.2.25.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-28.50-generic 2.6.35.11
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-28-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri May 27 10:54:17 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: usb-creator

[Ronnie McMaster (ronnie-mcmaster)]

As for a work around, I have started running USB Creator as root to avoid having to be present and authenticate to prevent installation failure.

sudo usb-creator-gtk

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

This is the result of fix for Bug 771553
If it's intended to now have to enter password 2-3 times then this isn't a bug, otherwise it is..

[theghost (theghost)]

I had this bug on 11.04 too.

I had to enter my password 3 times.
You have to stay the whole time at the pc to create a live usb stick. If you don't enter the password for creating the bootloader at the end in time, the whole creation fails and you have to start creating again.

Please improve the behaviour, e.g.:

- The user should enter his password at the beginning once. Then the creation should finish automatically without additional password prompts.

-> Unetbootin for example can do this with just one password prompt. You could adapt it's behaviour for usb-creator.

[Ronnie McMaster (ronnie-mcmaster)]

Doug, the problem isn't so much that a password has to be entered 3 times, but if one isn't present to do it promptly, then it will fail. If this is the planned action the developers want, then it will probably push more people to stop using it and to use Unetbootin.

As mentioned in post #2, I am running it as root, which seems to go without a hitch.

[stlubuntu (jlrbennett)]

This affects me on Ubuntu 10.04.3 (64-bit) and it clearly a change from prior behavior. Would it be possible to revert a prior version of the app to restore prior behavior?

[komputes (komputes)]

This still affects me in Precise 12.04 LTS Beta. What bothers me is that I get two dialogs:

1) Password to erase a disk. Behaviour of formatting the disk is inconsistent with Disk Utility which does not need a password.
USB creator needs a password for com.ubuntu.usbcreator.format

2) Password for "Installing the Bootloader" times out and then the installation fails if I'm not there to put in the password.

The errors you get if you do not enter the password, or cancel are cryptic to average users (dbus, policykit errors).

[komputes (komputes)]

The issue where usb-creator fails if the user is not there to authenticate promptly to "Installing the boot loader" password prompt is also discussed in Bug #859539 and Bug #722019. It seems to depend on MAX_DBUS_TIMEOUT.

File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/usbcreator/install.py", line 215, in install_bootloader timeout=MAX_DBUS_TIMEOUT)

Is there any way this could be changed to avoid this time out?