Device Notifier - does not pop up when a Thumb Drive is inserted into a USB slot

[bobbicat]

A few days ago I purchased two 8gb thumb drives, they are unused, straight out of the packet and have had no files put on them or any formatting applied to them by me. I have no reason to think they might be faulty.
I have an identical thumb drive, purchased at an earlier date, which has been used, reformatted a number of times and at the moment has files upon it. It is working okay, as are the other thumb drives I possess.
I am running a standard 64bit Kubuntu 14.04 installation on a home built desktop PC, no Windoze on this machine.
I have performed internet searches to attempt to address my problem, but so far have had no meanungful success.
I have used Kubuntu for many years now - but am in no way an 'under the hood' expert.


PROBLEM:
Device Notifier does not pop up when either of the new thumb drives is inserted into a USB slot,
also the devices (thumb drives) do not appear in Dolphin or Startup Disk Creator,
but,
they do appear in Gparted and KDE Partition Manager,
they are not visible to 'sudo blkid' but do appear to 'sudo fdisk -l'


Is there some way to get my system to 'recognise' my devices properly so that their behaviour becomes 'normal'. (i.e. so that device notifier pops up when they are inserted, so that they appear automatically to blkid, in Dolphin and also in Startup Disk Creator?

Is this Forum the right place to be asking questions like this?

[Wheel Inventor]

To get more information...

An example: http://askubuntu.com/questions/48497...d-ubuntu-14-04


What are the commands

- dmesg
- lsusb
- fdisk

telling ?

Can you manually mount it ? Or do you get an error message ?

[bobbicat]

from Wheel Inventor:

What are the commands
- dmesg
- lsusb
- fdisk
telling ?
Can you manually mount it ? Or do you get an error message ?

dmesg

[  323.687705] usb 2-5: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
[  323.826884] usb 2-5: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=6387
[  323.826892] usb 2-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  323.826897] usb 2-5: Product: Mass Storage
[  323.826901] usb 2-5: Manufacturer: Generic
[  323.826904] usb 2-5: SerialNumber: 5DA55FEB
[  323.844844] usb-storage 2-5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[  323.845005] scsi7 : usb-storage 2-5:1.0
[  323.845106] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[  324.844723] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  Flash Disk       8.07 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[  324.845255] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[  324.847284] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] 15663104 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.46 GiB)
[  324.848407] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[  324.848415] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[  324.849710] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[  324.857722]  sde: sde1
[  324.862179] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk

lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 011 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 010 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 058f:6387 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04d9:1702 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 046d:c062 Logitech, Inc. M-UAS144 [LS1 Laser Mouse]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sde: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
204 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1218 cylinders, total 15663104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 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/sde1              32    15663103     7831536    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sudo mount /dev/sde1 /mnt
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
at this command the Device Notifier popped up with its usual options and with a button to 'safely remove'
On pressing this button a pop up window appeared requiring authentication:

"Authentication is required to unmount Generic Flash Drive (/dev/sde1) mounted by another user
An application is attempting to perform an action that requires privileges.Authentication is required to perform this action."

On authentication the device disconnected successfully.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It would appear that the Flash drive will only mount, using the sudo mount command and as a result is subject to root.

[SecretCode]

Do other USB memory devices still work fine?

When you manually mount this one, what does sudo fdisk -l say?

It could be useful to see the output of udiskctl monitor when you plug in the device.

---

Is this Forum the right place to be asking questions like this?

Yes! But it is easier to view posts if you put command output into [ code ] tags, e.g. using the # button you can see above the reply box.

Your post would then look like this:

dmesg:

[  323.687705] usb 2-5: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
[  323.826884] usb 2-5: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=6387
[  323.826892] usb 2-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  323.826897] usb 2-5: Product: Mass Storage
[  323.826901] usb 2-5: Manufacturer: Generic
[  323.826904] usb 2-5: SerialNumber: 5DA55FEB
[  323.844844] usb-storage 2-5:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[  323.845005] scsi7 : usb-storage 2-5:1.0
[  323.845106] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[  324.844723] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  Flash Disk       8.07 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[  324.845255] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[  324.847284] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] 15663104 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.46 GiB)
[  324.848407] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[  324.848415] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[  324.849710] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[  324.857722]  sde: sde1
[  324.862179] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk

lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 011 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 010 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 009 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 058f:6387 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 04d9:1702 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 046d:c062 Logitech, Inc. M-UAS144 [LS1 Laser Mouse]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sde: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
204 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1218 cylinders, total 15663104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 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/sde1              32    15663103     7831536    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

etc

[bobbicat]

Do other USB memory devices still work fine?

Yes they do, but they have had modifications such as formatting, zero writing and so on performed on them at various times.
The problem memory devices in question are straight out of the packet, have never been written to and have only ever been read from.
I suspect that formatting them might be an answer, but ideally I would like them to work as is, straight off the shelf. I don't think this is unreasonable.
It is a side issue - but I have read that formatting thumb drives and sdram in Linux can create its own problems. I don't want to deal with that right now but might raise the question in another thread.

When you manually mount this one, what does sudo fdisk -l say?

sudo mount /dev/sde1 /mnt
sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sde: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
204 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1218 cylinders, total 15663104 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 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/sde1              32    15663103     7831536    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

It could be useful to see the output of udiskctl monitor when you plug in the device. (note: the correct syntax is udisksctl not udiskctl)

udisksctl monitor

Monitoring the udisks daemon. Press Ctrl+C to exit.
13:28:00.020: The udisks-daemon is running (name-owner :1.31).
13:28:18.141: Added /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_Flash_Disk_5DA55FEB
  org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Drive:
    CanPowerOff:                true
    Configuration:              {}
    ConnectionBus:              usb
    Ejectable:                  true
    Id:                         Generic-Flash-Disk-5DA55FEB
    Media:                      
    MediaAvailable:             true
    MediaChangeDetected:        true
    MediaCompatibility:         
    MediaRemovable:             true
    Model:                      Flash Disk
    Optical:                    false
    OpticalBlank:               false
    OpticalNumAudioTracks:      0
    OpticalNumDataTracks:       0
    OpticalNumSessions:         0
    OpticalNumTracks:           0
    Removable:                  true
    Revision:                   8.07
    RotationRate:               -1
    Seat:                       seat0
    Serial:                     5DA55FEB
    SiblingId:                  /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.2/usb2/2-5/2-5:1.0
    Size:                       8019509248
    SortKey:                    01hotplug/1429360098139275
    TimeDetected:               1429360098139275
    TimeMediaDetected:          1429360098139275
    Vendor:                     Generic
    WWN:                        
13:28:18.146: Added /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde
  org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Block:                                                                                                                                               
    Configuration:              []                                                                                                                                             
    CryptoBackingDevice:        '/'                                                                                                                                            
    Device:                     /dev/sde                                                                                                                                       
    DeviceNumber:               2112                                                                                                                                           
    Drive:                      '/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_Flash_Disk_5DA55FEB'                                                                                  
    HintAuto:                   true                                                                                                                                           
    HintIconName:                                                                                                                                                              
    HintIgnore:                 false                                                                                                                                          
    HintName:                                                                                                                                                                  
    HintPartitionable:          true                                                                                                                                           
    HintSymbolicIconName:       
    HintSystem:                 false
    Id:                         
    IdLabel:                    
    IdType:                     
    IdUUID:                     
    IdUsage:                    
    IdVersion:                  
    MDRaid:                     '/'
    MDRaidMember:               '/'
    PreferredDevice:            /dev/sde
    ReadOnly:                   false
    Size:                       8019509248
    Symlinks:                   /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_5DA55FEB-0:0
                                /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:13.2-usb-0:5:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0
  org.freedesktop.UDisks2.PartitionTable:
    Type:               dos
13:28:18.235: Added /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde1
  org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Block:
    Configuration:              []
    CryptoBackingDevice:        '/'
    Device:                     /dev/sde1
    DeviceNumber:               2113
    Drive:                      '/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Generic_Flash_Disk_5DA55FEB'
    HintAuto:                   true
    HintIconName:               
    HintIgnore:                 false
    HintName:                   
    HintPartitionable:          true
    HintSymbolicIconName:       
    HintSystem:                 false
    Id:                         
    IdLabel:                    
    IdType:                     
    IdUUID:                     
    IdUsage:                    
    IdVersion:                  
    MDRaid:                     '/'
    MDRaidMember:               '/'
    PreferredDevice:            /dev/sde1
    ReadOnly:                   false
    Size:                       8019492864
    Symlinks:                   /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_5DA55FEB-0:0-part1
                                /dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:13.2-usb-0:5:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
  org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Partition:
    Flags:              0
    IsContained:        false
    IsContainer:        false
    Name:               
    Number:             1
    Offset:             16384
    Size:               8019492864
    Table:              '/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde'
    Type:               0x0c
    UUID:

[SecretCode]

I was wondering if it was a problematic filesystem format like exfat, but it shows up as fat32 which shouldn't be a problem. Can you write to it, when you mount it manually?

I don't see any errors suggested by the udisksctl output.

Can you post the contents of this file: ~/.kde/share/config/kded_device_automounterrc

[bobbicat]

I was wondering if it was a problematic filesystem format like exfat, but it shows up as fat32 which shouldn't be a problem. Can you write to it, when you mount it manually?

The file is mounted by 'sudo mount /dev/sde1' , so is owned by root and could only be written to by root, unless ownership were changed, I suppose.

I don't see any errors suggested by the udisksctl output.
Can you post the contents of this file: ~/.kde/share/config/kded_device_automounterrc

~/.kde/share/config/kded_device_automounterrc

[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/loop0]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=Loop Device
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sda1]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=549.0 MiB Hard Drive
LastSeenMounted=true


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sda3]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=30.3 GiB Hard Drive
LastSeenMounted=true


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sda4]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=second
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb1]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=465.8 GiB Hard Drive
LastSeenMounted=true


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdc1]
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=149.0 GiB Hard Drive
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdd1]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-harddisk
LastNameSeen=149.0 GiB Hard Drive
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-removable-media-usb
LastNameSeen=GParted-live
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde1]
EverMounted=true
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-removable-media-usb
LastNameSeen=7.5 GiB Removable Media
LastSeenMounted=true


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sde2]
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-removable-media-usb
LastNameSeen=Kubuntu 15.04 amd64
LastSeenMounted=false


[Devices][/org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdf1]
ForceAttachAutomount=false
ForceLoginAutomount=false
Icon=drive-removable-media-usb
LastNameSeen=3.7 GiB Removable Media
LastSeenMounted=false

[SecretCode]

You could test writing to it with sudo touch /mnt/testfile

If the memory stick is working fine I don't know what else to check ...

[bobbicat]

You could test writing to it with sudo touch /mnt/testfile
If the memory stick is working fine I don't know what else to check ...

sudo mount /dev/sde1 /mnt
sudo touch /mnt/testfile

successfully creates a root file called 'testfile' on /dev/sde1

As you suggest - this is puzzling
I do appreciate your efforts SecretCode, perhaps this must remain a mystery, for now.

[bobbicat]

I am going to start looking at the way a newly inserted device is notified to relevant programs, as I believe that this notification is not occurring.
I wonder if a configuration file is influencing this process.
I'm out of my depth but I'm sure some Internet searches will help me find pointers. If I get any results I will bring them back to these Forums.


I will be looking at new device detection, udisks2 support, udev and udev rules, systemd. Though, to be honest, I hardly know what these are. I suspect, from what I have read, that they are relevant.

I would report a bug but I'm unsure how to define the possible bug I am experiencing. Perhaps, even, defining the bug would be enough to eradicate it.

[oshunluvr]

I doubt it's a bug. More likely those cheap Chinese Alcor Micro Corp. drives have a poorly done partition table. blkid looks at partitions, not raw devices. Thus, it's not detecting the partition properly and device manager isn't either. This explains why fdisk "sees" it but blkid doesn't.

The answer is going to be reformat-and-forget-it, but if you really need to know what's going on, start with the MBRs. Copy the partition table bytes from a work drive and a non-working new one and compare:


sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=part1 bs=1 seek=446 count=64
sudo dd if=/dev/sde of=part2 bs=1 seek=446 count=64
diff <(xxd part1) <(xxd part2)

I don't know if you'll be able to decipher anything usable. You could also try running fdisk, verify the partition table, and save it (or re-creating it and saving it).

All-in-all; less work to reformat.

Of course, I could be totally wrong - just guessing here.


SIDEBAR: Another cool little cli tool for listing drives: lsscsi - not installed by default but it's just a sudo apt-get install away