Device Notifier on KDE 4.8.3 32 bit

[Just17]

Thanks OldGuy .......  wish I knew what he did .....  it might solve my problem too 

[OldGuy]

We are both running kde latest, but yesterday it didn't work, today we had another update and it did.  I'm sure you are up to date.  Is it only one usb device or all?  Just curious.

[Just17]

We are both running kde latest, but yesterday it didn't work, today we had another update and it did.  I'm sure you are up to date.  Is it only one usb device or all?  Just curious.

It affects fixed partitions too ........ 

So I removed the widget and replaced it .........  and now it works ........

Thanks for the info about it starting to work today 

I had tried this several times previously with no luck.

Hopefully it will continue to work now 

DAMN!   As I typed this I got a Plasma Crash and it stopped working again!


Oh well!

[OldGuy]

We are both running kde latest, but yesterday it didn't work, today we had another update and it did.  I'm sure you are up to date.  Is it only one usb device or all?  Just curious.

It affects fixed partitions too ........ 

I have my set for removable devices only. 

His iPod Touch won't show open (but that's the apple hardware, we downloaded kde-graphics-kamera and now we can open it (it shows open)) but really can't find his pictures.  And, I think, that's not your concern.  I'm looking into iFuse and gtkpod for answers on that. 

You may have done this already, but have you tried putting that widget (notifier) on the desktop to see if there is any difference?  I tested "device manager" & "device notifier" on my desktop - they both show the ability to mount / unmount.  The device manager also showed my window partion as well as my usb.  But dm can be configured to show only removable stuff too. 

[Just17]

It was on the desktop that I first noticed it ......  I rarely use the one is the tray, but have all my internal partitions listed in the widget on the desktop, where  simple click mounts or unmounts the partitions as I need it.

The Plasma crash killed it as I said above .....  but removing and replacing it again allows it to work again ........  until the next Plasma crash I suppose.

Maybe I should take notice of those crashes if they are related .....  most often I just close the notification.

If replacing the widget is a functioning workaround, I can live with that for a while 

Previously replacing the widget did not work.

Thanks again 

[OldGuy]

I'm glad it's working (for now), yep I guess if we can trap the crashes figure out what causes them the team might know if a fix is needed.  Have a great day.

[muungwana]

device notifier has been broken on my system for as long as i can remember so i started working on a tool of my own to manage usb sticks a while ago.

Next version of zuluCrypt will ship with another application called "zuluMount". It can be used to mount/unmount "normal" partitions in addition to luks based encrypted volumes in partitions.

It is primarily meant to mount/mount partitions in external devices.If you prefer it, you will need to modify a line in the source code to allow you to mount/unmount internal partitions( referred as "system partitions" ).

Security considerations necessitated requiring root's privileges to manage system partitions.External partitions can be managed from normal user account.

The git version is stable enough and sources can be obtained from: http://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/source/checkout

[muungwana]

just made a commit, normal users can now use zuluMount to mount/unmount "system partitions" if the partition entry has "user" option in "/etc/fstab".

"non system partitions" can also be mounted with normal user privileges.

a "system partition" is defined as a partition with an entry in "/etc/fstab".
a "non system partition" is defined as a partition without an entry in "/etc/fstab". These are usually partitions in removable devices.

[Just17]

I'm glad it's working (for now), yep I guess if we can trap the crashes figure out what causes them the team might know if a fix is needed.  Have a great day.

While viewing this forum I had a Plasma crash .....  a couple of small windows appeared for a short time on the screen, the browser window was reduced in width to a 1" strip and the Crash Report came up.
The desktop reset itself before I could try to see what those two windows were .....  but suspect they were Device Notifier windows.

The Crash Report said

Executable: kdeinit4 PID: 3480 Signal: Segmentation fault (11)

The device notifier widget, on the desktop and in the tray both were faulty after the crash.
Removing and replacing them again gives me working notifiers.

Maybe that will allow someone to direct me to a fault location that is causing this.

Thanks.

[muungwana]

open the terminal, log in as root and then run this command

cat /var/log/syslog | grep disk

what do you get?

this is my output:

[ink@mtz ~]$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep disk
Sep  2 04:13:44 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[30836]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfc3aaf0 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  2 10:51:40 mtz ifplugd(eth0)[1645]: client: 2012/09/02 10:51:40| WARNING cache_mem is larger than total disk cache space!
Sep  2 12:48:21 mtz klogd: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
Sep  3 01:01:36 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[663]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfbcd110 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  3 01:01:57 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[24065]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfba8600 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  3 14:55:13 mtz klogd: sd 5:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk
Sep  3 20:49:29 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[24213]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfa2fab0 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  3 20:49:45 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[27247]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfd73880 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  4 01:07:58 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[27362]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfc7c280 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
Sep  4 02:42:51 mtz klogd: udisks-daemon[3996]: segfault at c ip 0805ce9c sp bfc45d90 error 4 in udisks-daemon[8048000+3e000]
[ink@mtz ~]$

Crashing udisk is something i can now do at will, every opening of luks based partition crashes it. udisks is not stable, its old and need to be updated. I have known this for ages, i just havent report it here.

device notifier depends on udisks, when udisk crash, device notifier crashes and it brings down plasma-desktop with it.

Right now, it just crashes silently because it no longer use device notifier and hence its crashing doesnt affect me.

[Just17]

Thanks  muungwana  ......  unfortunately I do not have syslog running.

Will now enable it and check it after I get a Device Niotifier crash.

[Just17]

Nothing relevant in the log after the last Plasma crash .......  in fact udisk is not mentioned once in the whole log file.

Mounting of the partitions is done using hald here ....  I have no entries in fstab for any of them except the   /,   /home  & swap

[muungwana]

i though kde switched to udisks and hal is deprecated.

so device notifier is shaky on two different backends. That could mean something.

keep looking at those logs. If it still crashes and no longs for hal or udisks then the problem is with the device notifier itself.

You can test with reset settings. Maybe a bad setting is to blame

[Just17]

Each time I add DN to the tray or to the desktop I change the settings to display the internal partitions.