USB not working

[pulpfile]

I can't get Kubuntu to recognize my flash drive anymore. I think I upgraded something with Adept, and it stopped working after that.

The drive shows up in KDE Info Center under USB Devices, but not on the desktop, or in the media folder.

[podunk]

Re: USB not working

Can you check the drive on another computer?

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

Yep, it works on Windows.
From what I could find on Google, this is a problem with KDE 3.5.5. Some people claim that if you upgrade libhal, it starts working again. Unfortunately, I found that this doesn't work for me. According to aptitude, I have the latest version of libhal already.

I just made a shell script with
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /media/drivename
in it. That works, but I still have to run it from the command line every time.
How can I get this script to run at startup?

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

OK, so now I can mount the drive from Konsole, but it's read-only(!)
BLAH

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

Pulpfile,

you may want to give "mounting (via fstab) by device ID" a try further reading 8)

HTH
Birdy

Postscript: reference updated

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

you may want to give "mounting (via fstab) by device ID" a try further reading 8)

I read that, but I didn't really understand a lot of it. heh

Anyway, after searching for hours, I think I finally found a way to make it work. (Most pages told me that it was an issue with HAL in the new version of KDE, and I would have to downgrade HAL, which I have no idea how to do...)

This works (at least, it's working for now...)
Scroll down to the Troubleshooting Section.
I just did
sudo mkdir /mnt/usbdrive
and added
/dev/sde1 /mnt/usbdrive auto user,noauto 0 0
to the /etc/fstab
and it mounts, reads, writes; everything.
So, if anybody else is having trouble with their flash drives and finds this thread, there ya go.

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

Pulpfile,

thanks for the feedback - I will give my notes another look, maybe elaborate things to make them clearer ...

As for your solution: of course, this is going to work - as long as you do not change the order of your usb devices and/or the way you plug them in (for, if you do, you will see interesting things happen: as, for example, my external harddrive, if powered on during system boot, gets connected to /dev/hdb, while otherwise it is to be found at /dev/hde ... I think you get the point).

To cut it short: if this works for you, that is fine - once it starts letting you down, we may try to straighten things out in a more "sustainable" way

Birdy

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

Well, I do have other USB devices, and there doesn't seem to be any simple solution for them.
I've tried calling the drives by
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-[hd-id]
and LABEL= and UUID=
(which is supposed to work, too, right?) Since /dev/disk/by-id/usb-drivename is just linked to /dev/sda, I have no idea why one works, and the other doesn't. I think I got LABEL= to work once, but then it didn't work later.

So, while I can mount everything one way or another, sooner or later (such as, with pmount), it just bothers me that I can't get fstab to do what I want.
Is it this confusing for everybody?

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

Is it this confusing for everybody?

Not for me, as I have to admit therefore, I will try to unravel a few things, taking one of my fstab files for an example:

/dev/disk/by-id/usb-WDC_WD16_00BB-22GUC0_DEF10AC32D9E-part1  /media/backup 
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-SWISSBIT_Twist_10003406R5000049-part1  /media/floppy

Depending on the order in which I power them up / plug them in, the former device will show up as /dev/sdb1, the latter as /dev/sdf1 - or vice versa ... the device's name ("usb_" etc.), however, allways stays the same. That is the reason why in such a case the "by ID" approach proves more reliable the "regular" one.

To put it in other words: while the role a usb device is supposed to play will be assigned dynamically ("hot-plug"), the name of the device remains static ("ID").

HTH
Birdy

[dibl]

Re: USB not working

Penguin.ch, this looks like a really good method to keep the devices organized on the USB bus. But, I noticed the following problem with my Edgy system:

The SIM card from my digital camera, when placed in a "dumb" card reader on a USB cable, is recognized as a device by the Kubuntu digital camera program (can't remember the name and I'm in the office on a Windows machine so I can't look it up). But the program does not find any images, and therefore can't upload them.

But, if I leave the SIM card in the camera, plug the camera into a USB cable, and turn it on, then the program recognizes the both the camera and the images, and will download them when commanded.

So, the problem seems to be related to whether there is power on the USB device, right?

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

Dibl,

I am not sure about that at all - what I "believe to know" is that cameras and card readers are handled differently (although lurking around the same bus ...): when I plug-in a camera, it gets connected to /dev/sdf1 or the like - which the card reader does not (as far as I know); you may check the development of /etc/mtab for this.

HTH
Birdy

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

OK, here's what I'm doing.
I plug in my music player, and do
ls /dev/disk/by-id -lah
which gives me
usb-iriver_T10 -> ../../sda

In fstab, I have a line
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-iriver_T10 /media/iriver_t10 auto noauto,user 0 0
I log out, then log back in again. It's still not showing up.
The /media/iriver_t10 directory does exist, it's just empty. Something's just not connecting here.
I tried uuid, too.

Also, when the drives DO mount (such as when I use pmount or mount) and I right-click to Safely Remove, nothing happens. (Actually, it does pause like it's doing something, but the icon doesn't disappear.)

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

Pulpfile,

the parameter noauto you are using in the according entry to your file system table means that the device in question will not (!) be mounted automatically ... remove this, reboot your system and try again

Birdy

[pulpfile]

Re: USB not working

Okay, that's what I thought at first---but then something made me think different.

Thanks for your help!

[penguin.ch]

Re: USB not working

In addition, I would like to point out that your system's behaviour may vary, depending on wether the (removable) device in question is plugged in prior or after (re-) boot ...

HTH
Birdy