"Cannot mount volume" error explanation is a mess

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

Ubuntu Gutsy, all updates installed

Upon connecting an external hard disk, I get the error message:
------------
Cannot mount volume.

Unable to mount the volume.

Details

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /
dev/sdb7, ______ missing codepage or helper program,
or other error ______ In some cases useful info is found
in syslog - try ______ dmesg | tail or so
------------
This text is located in util-linux package at: mount/mount.c:1216
------------
This bug report is not about whatever problem caused the error. It is about the error message itself.
* It uses the word "mount", which makes little sense to most people. ("Open" or "read" would be better.)
* "Cannot mount volume" and "Unable to mount the volume" are redundant with each other. Only one of them should be present.
* The details are full of odd whitespace (simulated above by underscores). This should be collapsed.
* The details are mostly jargon, only helpful to me if I guess that I'm supposed to type them into a terminal window. (But even if I do, then what?)
* "or so" doesn't make sense in this context.

It may save time to fix bug 132279 at the same time as this bug.

[Patrick Kilgore (patrick-kilgore)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I am currently in a separate continent from my external hard disk, so I can't test whether this error message is still shown in an alert.

However, <https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/hardy/+source/util-linux/+pots/util-linux-ng/cs/1526/+translate> shows that at least one faulty part of this string is still present in Ubuntu.

[Patrick Kilgore (patrick-kilgore)]

I agree with you on the "mount" verbiage, but good luck getting that changed. Mounting means that the kernel has established a connection with the drive. Reading means it can get data from the drive. Sometimes you cannot "read" a drive but it has mounted fine. Other times, like in your case, you know a drive can be read, but there was an error in the mounting process. Its a matter of semantics, but the term is even used in Windows these days so it's difficult to get rid of.

The spaces, however, seem very strange and since their still around I'm going to properly package this and hopefully someone will have a look see.

Thanks for taking the time to help make Ubuntu better!

[Patrick Kilgore (patrick-kilgore)]

Yes, I do know the difference between their and they're sometimes my fingers don't like to listen!

[Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow)]

This makes me think that ubuntu-doc should look at adding a glossary to the documentation for ubuntu, that way searching for 'mount' in Yelp should include the glossary. The glossary might even deserve a special status so it always returns a result for relevant searches. I'm subscribing ubuntu-doc so matthew can think this over.