USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

Gremnon · 2012-11-04 11:07:09

Ran a routine weekly update on an arch box this morning, didn't think anything of it as usual. Until Thunar started spitting errors at me whenever I tried to mount a USB device. gvfs makes the devices appear in the left pane for one-click mounting... usually.
A partition on the hard drive attached has started telling me I don't have permissions to mount it any more - never had issues before, I'm in storage so I don't see why.
The other issue comes with a USB hard drive, and when trying to mount it as above, Thunar throws this at me:

Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /run/media/pip/HD-PVU2: Command-line `mount -t "vfat" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid,uid=1000,gid-100,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec" "/dev/sdb1" "/run/media/pip/HD-PVU2"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: unknown filesystem type 'vfat'

Searching both pacman and AUR gave me no packages to do with vfat filesystems, and the wiki article "USB Storage Devices" provided no solutions at all.

Using XFCE4 DE on 32-bit Arch. All packages have been updated to latest versions as of the time of this post.

WorMzy · 2012-11-04 11:59:19

Did you upgrade your kernel during this update? If you did, make sure you reboot.

Gremnon · 2012-11-04 12:00:38

Yes, there was a kernel update and a reboot has been performed. Problem persists even post-reboot.

mister_playboy · 2012-11-05 01:59:07

I'm having the same problem on 64-bit Arch KDE.

It seems to be caused by the fact we aren't booting with systemd.

When I run systemctl, I get

Failed to get D-Bus connection: No connection to service manager

Which seems to confirm I've booted with init.

I've installed systemd-sysvcompat, which may solve the problem by itself.

I've also looked at the systemd article on the Wiki and created the config files that replace rc.conf. That should stop those warnings about during boot.

I'll do some more searching before I try rebooting, however.

ackt1c · 2012-11-07 10:15:55

consolekit problem?
try mounting it from prompt.

Gremnon · 2012-11-07 10:25:26

Yes, have tried that. Mount is unable to find an appropriate 'mount' command for vfat systems, and if left to attempt automatic FS detection it mistakes the vfat system for ext4, which then fails to mount because it is not a valid ext4 volume.

ackt1c · 2012-11-07 10:36:52

pacman -S ntfs-3g

Probably don't need to mention mount as root/sudo. Don't consider it an insult.

Last edited by ackt1c (2012-11-07 10:37:51)

Gremnon · 2012-11-07 11:14:39

Package is already installed, and I fail to see why installing the ntfs package will provide access to a vfat filesystem.
No offence taken, I know it tends to be a common thing. I have been running mount with 'su -c' instead of sudo or directly as root.

Trilby · 2012-11-07 11:59:06

ntfs-3g is the wrong package. This would be under extra/dosfstools.

ackt1c · 2012-11-07 12:04:50

my bad

Last edited by ackt1c (2012-11-07 12:05:40)

Hwiparam · 2012-11-07 13:03:51

I probably experience the same kind of problem as you guys. I'm using udisksvm to mount USB drives and when I plug one, I get something like that:

$ udisksvm
--------------------------------------------------
Automounting for non optical devices enabled
--------------------------------------------------
Added object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Intenso_Basic_10011100031138
--------------------------------------------------
Added object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb
--------------------------------------------------
Added object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb1
--------------------------------------------------
Automounting /dev/sdb1...
Mounting failed with error:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Error.NotAuthorizedCanObtain: Not authorized to perform operation
--------------------------------------------------
traydvm for /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb1 now running with pid : 2694
--------------------------------------------------
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gi/types.py:47: Warning: g_variant_unref: assertion `value->ref_count > 0' failed
  return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs)

$ udisksvm
--------------------------------------------------
Automounting for non optical devices enabled
--------------------------------------------------
Added object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/drives/Nokia_S60_359557013658840
--------------------------------------------------
Added object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb
--------------------------------------------------
Added interface on object : /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb
--------------------------------------------------
Automounting /dev/sdb...
Mounting failed with error:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.UDisks2.Error.NotAuthorizedCanObtain: Not authorized to perform operation
--------------------------------------------------
traydvm for /org/freedesktop/UDisks2/block_devices/sdb now running with pid : 3025
--------------------------------------------------
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gi/types.py:47: Warning: g_variant_unref: assertion `value->ref_count > 0' failed
  return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs)

And the device is not mounted automatically. I have the packages dosfstools, ntfs-3g, systemd-sysvcompat installed (I use systemd). Mounting manually from console works well.

Trilby · 2012-11-07 13:15:39

Hwiparam, this seems like a very different problem than the OP - perhaps it should have a separate thread.

The OP cannot mount vfat filesystems specifically (if I understand), and this is true whether done by a daemon or attempted manually. You have no problem mounting manually, but your daemon tool doesn't mount manually due to what looks like a permissions issue. Hence, different problem.

Gremnon · 2012-11-07 13:29:20

Have checked - dosfstools is installed. I did a reinstall of the package and now when attempting to mount from Thunar, the error message is the same as the other partition, as noted in the first post - not authorized to perform operation.
Have tried putting the original command and manually mounting from a terminal and there it reverts back to telling me it cannot mount due to incorrect filesystem. There is no mount.vfat among the other mount commands, and appending '-t vfat' to the mount command - run as root, yes - also returns the same problem.

Could the 'not authorized' issues come from my still running init instead of systemd?
It seems like a bit of a long shot, but could it also be the reason the system cannot recognise vfat filesystems any more?

ackt1c · 2012-11-07 13:34:13

I'm just wondering what fs the actual device is? Maybe that will help correlate between vfat vs. permission.

Hwiparam · 2012-11-07 13:35:45

@Trilby,
Well, I've just figured out what was going on in my case. I just had to remove consoklekit and the "ck-launch-session" phrase from my ~/.xinitrc (now I have only "exec openbox-session"). Then I had to activate systemd-logind. now the command "loginctl show-session $XDG_SESSION_ID" shows "Active=yes" and automounting works fine again.
EDIT: https://www.archlinux.org/news/consolek … by-logind/

Last edited by Hwiparam (2012-11-07 13:39:26)

Gremnon · 2012-11-07 13:38:31

@ackt1c: It happens on two USB devices, one an mp3 player and the other an external hard drive. The only Windows computer in the house reports the hard drive to be using FAT32, I don't have the mp3 player to hand (it isn't mine) to find out what that is.

ackt1c · 2012-11-07 13:42:31

Searching shows me this is a fstab problem...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fs … ormal_User

Gremnon · 2012-11-07 13:47:10

That would be useful if the device was always attached... but it isn't. It's used regularly by other systems. That's why I've always preferred to be able to mount and unmount through Thunar, Nautilus, etc. rather than having to manually mount and unmount every time.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-04 11:07:09

USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#2 2012-11-04 11:59:19

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#3 2012-11-04 12:00:38

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#4 2012-11-05 01:59:07

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#5 2012-11-07 10:15:55

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#6 2012-11-07 10:25:26

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#7 2012-11-07 10:36:52

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#8 2012-11-07 11:14:39

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#9 2012-11-07 11:59:06

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#10 2012-11-07 12:04:50

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#11 2012-11-07 13:03:51

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#12 2012-11-07 13:15:39

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#13 2012-11-07 13:29:20

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#14 2012-11-07 13:34:13

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#15 2012-11-07 13:35:45

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#16 2012-11-07 13:38:31

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#17 2012-11-07 13:42:31

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

#18 2012-11-07 13:47:10

Re: USB disks no longer mount, unknown filesystem

Board footer