SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

[bernieszu]

Could the upgrade have changed my permissions? Since upgrading I have been unable to write to any USB disK - owner is shown a root and only owner can write to the disks.

I know I have to go into konsole to change them back, but I'm scared!!!!! Can anybody explain in SIMPLE terms what I need to do (in Konsole)or if there is an easier way to give myself permission to write to my own USB disks??

[josefko]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

I think there is no reason to be scared. Maybe it is even default behaviour and definitely it is default behaviour after fresh install.

Nice way to manage it is to install file manager krusader from repository. After installation you find a blue icon for normal user and a red icon for user root in K menu. Start Krusader as a root, use blue-red-green icon in it to open disk. Then you can change permission of folders just right click on the folder or you can change permissions of the whole disk when you find it in /media folder.

You can do the same starting Dolphin from Konsole as user root with

kdesudo dolphin

[bernieszu]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

Thanks a lot Josefko,

I didn't think of just opening Dolphin through Konsole and doing it in Dolphin. That's much easier.

[Snowhog]

Re: SOLVED - Upgrade changed my permissions?

Write any file to the USB while acting as root. Then, also as root, modify the ownership of that file to reflect yourself. This then permits you, as the actual owner, to have access to the device when it is plugged in next.

This is the behavior I posted about, concerning my external USB HDs. See:

External USB HD/partition ownership issue quirk and fix

[bernieszu]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

Josefko's suggested fix didn't work. Even going in as root it tells me I don't have sufficient access to change ownership! Opening dolphin through kdesudo and attempting to change permissions, I got the messages shown below through konsole:

These are bog standard USB memory sticks and cards that I can use in any computer. And they are FAT filesystems, so according to Dibl there shouldn't be ANY permissions issues with them?

Snowhog, I tried your suggestion but that doesn't work either. Since I am acting as root the ownership of any file I create is shown as root. But then, even though I AM root, it won't let me change the permissions! It says something along the lines of 'You don't have enough access to change the permissions'

I went to your suggested link, snowhog, and I agree that most non-technical users would normally expect NOT to have to deal with permissions when using these unless they have themselves set restrictions on a particular file. Sometimes Linux makes me feel REALLY stupid.

Is it a bug? If so, I don't want to spend hours mucking around trying to fix something that may be fixed automatically by an update in a few days - also, if I DO manage to change the permissions then I might find myself wasting more hours changing everything back again after the update.

And what's all that stuff in the konsole output about currency? And connecting to a server? and nepomuk? Why does Linux make me feel soooooo stupid! If there was a little 'smiley' icon up there for swearing and tearing my hair out, I'd be using it now. :-X

$ kdesudo dolphin
kdesudo(4937): ""CurrencyIntroducedDate" - conversion of "" to QDate failed" " (wrong format: expected 3 items, got 1)"
...over and over again and then...
kdesudo(4937): ""CurrencyIntroducedDate" - conversion of "" to QDate failed" " (wrong format: expected 3 items, got 1)"
Object::connect: No such slot DolphinSearchBox::slotClearButtonClicked()
Object::connect: No such signal DolphinController::requestUrlChange(const KUrl&)
Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QStr ing,QString,QString)
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown - The name org.kde.nepomuk.services.nepomukstorage was not provided by any .service files"
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "QLocalSocket::connectToServer: Invalid name"
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown - The name org.kde.nepomuk.services.nepomukstorage was not provided by any .service files"
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "QLocalSocket::connectToServer: Invalid name"
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown - The name org.kde.nepomuk.services.nepomukstorage was not provided by any .service files"
"/usr/bin/dolphin(4944)" Error in thread 3079329552 : "QLocalSocket::connectToServer: Invalid name"

[josefko]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

Sorry my general advice didn't help. If there are some Lucid dependent issues I can't help as I patiently wait with installing it till most such issues are solved, at least a month.

[bernieszu]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

Thanks anyway josefko,
I think it must be a Lucid issue, since I've seen a few posts here about permissions and being unable to write to disk. I think in future I will follow your example and wait for a month before installing a new distro. Now that's what I call excellent advice!
Bernie

[bernieszu]

Re: Upgrade changed my permissions?

Got home tonight to find a notification of 17 bug fixes waiting for me. Great! I thought, maybe now I'll be able to write to one of my usb drives. Installed all - but sadly, NO. The permissions issue remains unresolved. Any ideas anyone? Or do I just need to be patient?

Problem is, I'm leaving the country on Monday and MUST transfer some files from this desktop. I can upload them to online storage if I must - but only at speeds that allow teeth to grow before the upload is finished.

[bernieszu]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

Er....Hrmhhhh,

Here's where I admit my stupidity.
In desperation I went back and tried josefko's suggested solution again.
This time it worked!
What was the difference?

When I tried it before, I opened dolphin as root using kdesudo, but once dolphin was open I didn't realise that I needed to open the usb drive through the red 'root' folder in the dolphin sidebar. I just opened the drive in the normal way, so presumably I wasn't going into it as root and that's why it was telling me I didn't have access to do it.

Tonight, I noticed the red folder for the first time and once I did it that way it worked a treat!

So thanks again, josefko.

Still don't fancy having to go in as root every time I want to write to a usb, though!

........ Later....

I noticed that when I tried to write to my usb, the dmesg always had something to do with Nopomuk, so I thought maybe it was some error in the Nepomuk . Went to Synaptic Package Manager and marked Neopmuk for reinstallation and reinstalled Nepomuk. Then I tried a 'normal' write to my usb, it failed again - as I expected it would - but I got a VERY interesting result from dmesg this time!
[ 186.055438] nepomukservices[1389]: segfault at 400 ip 062daa5c sp b5fa1ac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[6266000+153000]
[ 233.088211] nepomukservices[1517]: segfault at 400 ip 0063fa5c sp b602dac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[5cb000+153000]
[ 308.025066] nepomukservices[1524]: segfault at 400 ip 00a3da5c sp b5fc9ac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[9c9000+153000]
[ 359.135423] nepomukservices[1598]: segfault at 400 ip 00319a5c sp b5f58ac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[2a5000+153000]
[ 417.050450] nepomukservices[1609]: segfault at 400 ip 00931a5c sp b5f3dac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[8bd000+153000]
[ 475.537944] nepomukservices[1622]: segfault at 400 ip 009daa5c sp b6016ac0 error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so[966000+153000]

So I'm off now to try to look that up in bug reports!

[josefko]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

At least something
But be aware to write from USB to your home partition as a root.
I never heard that FAT flash drives can have permission issue and I never had such problem personally. I think that permissions cannot be written into FAT filesystem. Try if you don't have accidentaly ext2, ext3 or NTFS on it. Use

sudo fdisk -l

when USB disk is plugged.

If it is really FAT and you still have the problem so it is the problem of permissions in /media/your_usb folder. You can change permissions or ownership the way I told you
kdesudo Dolphin, right click on /media/your_usb folder and change permissions or/and ownership
or using shell

sudo chown yourusername:yourusername /media/your_usb

[bernieszu]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

Thanks josefko,
Will try that now......

Using the shell command, I just get a message saying changing ownership is not permitted.
Dolphin doesn't let me change permissions either.

sudo fdisk -l returns this

Disk /dev/sdb: 1030 MB, 1030225920 bytes
4 heads, 3 sectors/track, 167680 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 12 * 512 = 6144 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 21 167680 1005958+ 6 FAT16


Just saw on ubuntu launchpad that the 'error 6 in libc-2.11.1.so' message is related to bug 540237 and that a fix has been released for it, but I have no idea how to access the fix - or even if that is the right fix?
I do think this is some kind of bug in the new distro.

[josefko]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

I have no idea how to access the fix

I think that it should come with some daily update, updates are for such things.

fdisk says, that you really have FAT disk.

I don't understand why root can't change ownership. I hope you opened usb first to mount it and then you found the right folder, mine is for example /media/CORSAIR4GB. It is the name I gave to the disk when I formatted it.

[bernieszu]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

Oh Oh!

I'm not THAT stupid - yes I opened it first and found the right folder.

But I am THIS stupid

I never gave the disk a name. It's just there as usb0. Does that make a difference? Do I need to give every usb stick a name? Do I need to give them all different names? Why has this never been a problem before?

[Snowhog]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

You do not have to name USB sticks, or any other device/partition. The issue you (and others) are experiencing with USB stick permissions 'happened' with the upgrade/installation of Lucid 10.04. It wasn't this way in Karmic 9.10. I'm sure that the devs are getting an earful on this particular issue. I expect, that a future update will remedy it as well - I hope.

[bernieszu]

Re: SOLVED (sort of)Upgrade changed my permissions?

Thanks Snowhog,

I was getting convinced of that myself. Especially since that error message in libc appeared. Will wait for udates to resolve it.