Is haldeamon running?
ps waux | grep hald
495 833 0.0 0.1 18672 5444 ? Ssl 10:31 0:02 hald
root 905 0.0 0.0 14820 1544 ? Sl 10:31 0:00 hald-runner
root 959 0.0 0.0 5672 1428 ? S 10:31 0:00 hald-addon-input: Listening on /dev/input/event0 /dev/input/event3 /dev/input/event5 /dev/input/event4 /dev/input/event2 /dev/input/event6 /dev/input/event9
root 966 0.0 0.0 5668 1436 ? S 10:31 0:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-generic-backlight
root 999 0.0 0.0 5684 1420 ? S 10:31 0:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-cpufreq
495 1002 0.0 0.0 3604 1104 ? S 10:31 0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket
root 1180 0.0 0.0 5676 1440 ? S 10:31 0:00 hald-addon-storage: polling /dev/sr0 (every 2 sec)
root 1253 0.0 0.0 5672 1412 ? S 10:31 0:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-rfkill-killswitch
root 2314 0.0 0.0 5672 1404 ? S 10:31 0:00 /usr/lib/hal/hald-addon-leds
root 12801 0.0 0.0 4252 848 pts/2 R+ 11:29 0:00 grep --color hald
and now Gwenview and the file manager option is working although the 'mount' icon still isn't.
This is the second 'event' that has happened in the last Two days (see the 'synaptic fails to launch' thread).
Weird, quirky stuff going on.