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#1 2009-02-14 04:50:58

Obsolete Disks
Member
Registered: 2009-02-14
Posts: 18

[Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

Yesterday I re-installed from scratch, and despite numerous attempts, Gnome refuses to mount USB drives.

What makes this unusual is that I've never had this trouble before; when I (mistakenly) installed the 32-bit version successfully, and the 64-bit installation I erased, mounted SCSI, Optical, and USB flash naturally.  (I actually would have preferred to mount them deliberately, but...)

For whatever reason, between a couple weeks ago and yesterday/today, Gnome no longer can mount via HAL my removable media devices, under a user account.  Inserted media is detected properly, but attempting to mount via a desktop icon context menu or the menu or the disk mounter widget does nothing.  If I launch from root or from a user as sudo xinit, media automatically mounts properly.  This suggests it's a permissions thing, but I know my user account(s) are members of optical and of storage, so that should be covered.  I can mount media manually (mkdir /media/USB; mount /dev/sdb1 /media/USB) but I juggle many USB drives (more than I have sockets) sometimes so this is not an attractive prospect.

I keep a list of every step and command I've used to install with, a less verbose form of the Arch Wiki Beginners' Guide, so there should not be any differences between the previous and current installation as far as getting into Gnome goes.

Last edited by Obsolete Disks (2009-02-14 05:51:44)

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#2 2009-02-14 05:06:35

Preycon
Member
From: México, D.F.
Registered: 2009-02-14
Posts: 50

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

Try modify /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf as root:

<match user="$USER">
    <match action="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.*">
        <return result="yes"/>
    </match>
    <match action="hal-storage-mount-fixed-extra-options">
        <return result="yes" />
    </match>
    <match action="hal-storage-mount-removable-extra-options">
        <return result="yes" />
    </match>
</match>

Change $USER for your username... then /etc/rc.d/hal restart as root smile

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#3 2009-02-14 05:24:43

Obsolete Disks
Member
Registered: 2009-02-14
Posts: 18

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

This worked. Thank you very much.

Is there any reason why this PolicyKit file didn't need editing before but did today? Was something changed in Arch recently?

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#4 2009-02-14 06:22:53

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,544

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

@Preycon: In order to encourage users to search, etc, please don't just copy easily found material smile We like to try to help our users help themselves for that kinda stuff.

@Obsolete Disks: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HAL … utomounter smile

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#5 2009-02-14 06:38:57

Obsolete Disks
Member
Registered: 2009-02-14
Posts: 18

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

I would not have identified that to be a solution because I never received an error message of any kind, which is a condition mentioned in that article.

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#6 2009-02-14 06:43:35

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,544

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

Obsolete Disks wrote:

I would not have identified that to be a solution because I never received an error message of any kind, which is a condition mentioned in that article.

But it is the page for HAL, which you knew was a component of the automount system.

Eh, it's kind of a loose case. Sorry if I offended smile

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#7 2009-02-14 07:45:57

Obsolete Disks
Member
Registered: 2009-02-14
Posts: 18

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

I figured HAL was fine because the device was recognized when attached and removed, it worked when running as root/su, and there were no error messages; the only oddity was that the GNOME GUI mount feature did nothing.  My guess was something changed in Arch or GNOME this week that affected user permissions or similar.  So I asked those with greater experience.

No worries. Perhaps someone with Wiki access can add that this PolicyKit workaround is also valid for cases where GNOME's GUI mount functionality is inert unless you are running as root/su but everything else seems fine.  It's possible many new installations will be coming here with the same trouble if something did indeed change recently.

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#8 2009-02-14 07:57:26

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,544

Re: [Solved] Gnome, suddenly does not mount removable media

I made a slight change, since (from what I can tell) no matter the frontend the problem is always that non-root can't use automount but root can.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-02-14 08:02:09)

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