USB drives not detected

[Qqmike]

Re: USB drives not detected

I just tested mine again.
Two flash drives, a total of three partitions on the two flash drives, one flash drive is bootable (with two partitions), one is data only; one is 2 GB, one is 4 GB.
Plugged them in, one by one, one after the other, two in, unplug one, re-plug it, etc etc etc--all combos. It all works fine. The only annoying thing is when the Desktop shakes a bit and temporarily may not show any flash drives (until the newly plugged one comes up).
I did in the past get the message when trying to open a file on a flash drive "Disk does not exist," but did not try to replicate that here just now (when it happened in the past, I went into Disk & Filesystems for an Enable). So it's working right now, this minute.

[dibl]

Re: USB drives not detected

@geezer, I haven't tried this, but if you're contemplating a reinstallation, make the Live CD and run that, and then plug in a USB device and see it's working that way. That would at least indicate whether or not your hardware is happy to run Kubuntu and the USB bus is operating.

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

I just tested mine again.
Two flash drives, a total of three partitions on the two flash drives, one flash drive is bootable (with two partitions), one is data only; one is 2 GB, one is 4 GB.
Plugged them in, one by one, one after the other, two in, unplug one, re-plug it, etc etc etc--all combos. It all works fine. The only annoying thing is when the Desktop shakes a bit and temporarily may not show any flash drives (until the newly plugged one comes up).
I did in the past get the message when trying to open a file on a flash drive "Disk does not exist," but did not try to replicate that here just now (when it happened in the past, I went into Disk & Filesystems for an Enable). So it's working right now, this minute.

Is there a method for writing to a file, all of the packages that are currently loaded on my system?

I am fast arriving at the conclusion that a native install from a live cd is about the only known solution. To do that I need a way to snapshot the database of what is currently installed so that I can compare to what is there after a native install.

I looked at the package managers, adept and synaptic, and they are designed to read the database, but not print it.

Synaptic had a feature of writing a shell script for downloading all of the marked packages,, but marking all of the almost 2,000 installed packages is not feasible yet. I may get desperate enough to do that though.

And adept will display all of the displayed packages, but there isn't anything I can do with that information in adept beyond displaying it.

After rooting around it looks like "aptitude-create-state-bundle" will do what I want. I can then run the companion program after the install to install those packages not installed during the new install from the Live CD.

Anybody know if this is true

Okay saw the last post from dibl while I was writing the above.

The USB bus is operating - I can after re-booting mount and unmount 1 USB pen drive and then things stop working.

Things have just gotten stranger and stranger and stranger and stranger.

After writing the above, I decided, that since I hadn't plugged in a USB pen drive since re-booting after diner, to plug in a pen drive, wait 30 seconds and then go through the new familiar routine to enable/mount it and display it's contents in Konqueror. Then I could definitively tell you that yes the USB bus h/w worked and is working.

So I plug in 1 USB pen drive and in about 3-5 seconds the dialog pops up asking what I want to do -- I almost fell over. Clicked OK and sure enough Konqueror opens with the directories displayed.

So I plug in a second USB pen drive and in about 3-5 seconds the dialog pops up AGAIN. I click Ok and a new Konqueror opens displaying the directory contents.


Now what happened to make things start working - did any of you kind people wave your magic wand so that I would shut up and you could start getting back to some serious work?

Have the (K)Ubuntu people invented s/w that heals itself??

If so then I thank you profusely.

Just repeated a second time to convince myself that I wasn't hallucinating the first time.

IT"S WORKING

It automatically mounts when plugged and I can unmount and then it automatically mounts again when plugged.

I don't kn ow what happened, but right now, I'm just going to accept it.

[Qqmike]

Re: USB drives not detected

At one time, I had heard from some good hardware folks that in XP you might have to "train" your USB ports. I'm forgetting the details just now, but something to do with a port--as recognized by XP--associated with a given device. Since this already sounds nuts, I'll leave it at that.


EDITED: for a bit more accuracy in wording, if not sanity.

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

Okay - I have decided I must have been hallucinating yesterday when the USB pen drives worked

Just booted for the day, plugged in a USB pen drive and ... and ... and ... NOTHING.

I know it worked twice on the last boot.

Now it's back to not working.

I guess I have to have some special incantation on boot to get the USB pen drives to work.

Anybody know of one??

[Qqmike]

Re: USB drives not detected

I didn't study it (out of time on this detour! ), but looks like some related here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ha...as_no_package=

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

Just a little more info.

I can

K->System Settings->Advanced->Disks &Filesystems

and the USB pen drive is listed. but no way to "enable" it. So the h/w is working or the USB pen drive wouldn't listed. It's definitely the s/w that isn't working.

I would have to go through the kludgy procedure of "Administrator Mode", "New", create mount point, etc., then "enable".

The system seems to have lost the ability again to dynamically create the mount points and mount.

I have no idea what happened and why it worked on that one boot yesterday.

Looks like I'm back to the Live CD install option again.

Will have to look more closely at those methods for restoring the "package state".

I just hope this USB pen drive fiasco doesn't portend more flaky things about Hardy Heron.

Maybe I'll just do 7.10, restore and forego 8.04 until it gets to 8.1 or 8.2

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected



Okay - it looks like the USB pen Drive problem has been around for LOOOOOOONG time with no resolution. The one bug report that is the same was on the Ubuntu 2.6.20 kernal, was thought to be of only "medium" importance. No note about whether the bug was fixed or not, but there is one note that about a "fix committed". So if the 2.6.20 kernal only was fixed, maybe the release kernal wasn't - don't know cannot remember the release kernal version number.

I'm not sure from looking at what you linked if the resolution is unknown or just not applied or maybe they thought they applied it, but didn't, or the resolution got applied, but left out of the release, or

Also, I notice that there was a flurry of posts about a "stupid error message" that the Pen drive couldn't be ejected when unmounted. I kept getting that message when the system did work and I unmounted from the desk top icons. So that problem was well known and is still present in the version that I got downloaded and installed.

So either the upgrade system that was downloaded and installed was not the final release 8.04, or none of the known problems were fixed or ??

I'm almost of the opinion that I must have gotten a flaky release version from the download site. Since it was all automatic, I have no idea what download site was used. So I have no way of informing anybody about the problem.

Anyway, the problems are known and have been for a long time. Beyond that I don't really know what or why it wasn't been fixed.

WIll have to try the Hardy Live CD and see if that works - OR NOT.

Will keep the 7.10 Live CD handy anyway.

[Qqmike]

Re: USB drives not detected

Looks like I messed up the link--it's long and causing this screen to elongate!
Snowhog, somewhere posted a how-to about that.

> maybe the admins will see this and fix it for us <
(it's also now in your quote of mine)

You could run
uname -a
get your version #,
and post a pedestrian (nontechnical) comment at the bug site, indicating a summary of what's not working.
(Of course, depending on the bug folks, they might shoot back requesting tech details.)

On my end, I just keep working past it (at CLI and at Disk & Filesystems(.

[dibl]

Re: USB drives not detected

While looking for something else entirely, I happened upon this:

http://www.sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-6340.html

I don't know if that is relevant to your situation or not, but I thought I would share it on the chance.

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

While looking for something else entirely, I happened upon this:

http://www.sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-6340.html

I don't know if that is relevant to your situation or not, but I thought I would share it on the chance.

Looked for the file mentioned - not there.

Looked through ALL of the files. Saw no mention of anything that might prevent auto-mounting.

Learned a little about how the folks inform the system what can and cannot be done. Interesting browsing through the files, reading the comments about hiden and not hidden partitions.

But sadly no file to delete and solve the problem.

Thankls for remembering.

[Snowhog]

Re: USB drives not detected

How To: Include hyperlinks in posts - the SHORT way!

It would be very nice if you would return to your earlier posts where you have the LONG URL links and following my How To, redo them so this thread is not so WIDE. :P

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

Latest twist on this story:

1: had a need to read some files on a DVD. Loaded into DVD drive - nothing. Didn't mount. Same story as for USB pen drives. Will habe to boot Vista or Fedora to read DVD. Funny because the DVD was written using K3B on 8.04. My effort to backup everything before doing a Live CD install.

2: have been do some snooping and it appears that upgrading to 8.04 leads to ALL kinds of problems. Doing a fresh install doesn't.

So whatever they doing on the upgrade just isn't working for a lot of people.

Filed a bug report, but haven't heard anything. Have been leaving the upgrade intact in case they had questions, but cannot wait any longer.

[Qqmike]

Re: USB drives not detected

Hi geezer,

Upgrade versus Fresh Install: I agree fully.
(although I did Fresh and still got a few quirky USB gotcha's)
In fact, go further than that and take care of partitioning/editing prior to the CD install using GParted Live CD.
Also snooping around, I find reliable sources indicating that if you do upgrade (fresh or otherwise), and wish to use/maintain your existing separate /home with some continuity, then do NOT go up by more than one version (e.g., 7.10 to 8.04 is OK, but not 7.04 to 8.04).
This will probably trigger some comments ...
And, if you notice, most of those rather esoteric ? Issues ? you see posted around result after doing an in-place upgrade.
btw, how do you like the elongated response?

[geezer]

Re: USB drives not detected

Hi geezer,

Upgrade versus Fresh Install: I agree fully.
(although I did Fresh and still got a few quirky USB gotcha's)
In fact, go further than that and take care of partitioning/editing prior to the CD install using GParted Live CD.
Also snooping around, I find reliable sources indicating that if you do upgrade (fresh or otherwise), and wish to use/maintain your existing separate /home with some continuity, then do NOT go up by more than one version (e.g., 7.10 to 8.04 is OK, but not 7.04 to 8.04).
This will probably trigger some comments ...
And, if you notice, most of those rather esoteric ? Issues ? you see posted around result after doing an in-place upgrade.
btw, how do you like the elongated response?

Not too sure by what you mean by "use/maintain your existing separate /home with some continuity" - to me, by definition, a fresh install means that I wipe the current install partition, i.e., reformat the partition, and install. Nothing is left of the old - it's been totally wiped. Thus there can be no continuity for a fresh install. Maybe others define fresh install differently ? Without reformatting, I consider that an upgrade. Maybe I'm just different in that.

Also, don't understand "how do you like the elongated response"