[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#728065: Bug#728065: thunar: USB and eSATA devices not seen by Thunar

[Yves-Alexis Perez]

On Mon, 2013-10-28 at 16:57 -0700, David Christensen wrote:

> 
> I did some more testing with a Canon PowerShot A570IS camera (USB 
> interface) just now:

Actually, that's not a good test. Thunar only supports/shows USB Mass
Storage devices, which Canon cameras are not (they use some proprietary
canon protocol on USB mode, or PTP on PTP mode). You need to interface
with it using gphoto2, which is what Shotwell is actually doing.

> 
> 1.  (Xfce XMouse?) -> Settings -> Removable Drives and Media -> Storage 
> -> Removable Storage -> all boxes unchecked.
> 
> 2.  Open Thunar and Shotwell.
> 
> 2.  Plug in Canon PowerShot A570IS camera via USB.  Camera does not 
> change to USB connected state.  No desktop icon.  Nothing in Thunar. 
> However, an entry appears for the camera in the left pane of Shotwell.
> 
> 3.  Select camera in Shotwell.  Camera goes to USB connected state. 
> Shotwell accesses camera and displays thumbnails in right pane.  Nothing 
> on desktop.  Nothing in Thunar.
> 
> 
> Therefore, something is broken for the Xfce desktop and Thunar -- I 
> expected a camera icon on the desktop and a camera entry in the left 
> pane of Thunar at steps #2 and #3.  Shotwell seems okay.
> 
> 
> I also did some testing with two different USB flash drives and obtained 
> the same results:
> 
> 1.  (Xfce Mouse?) -> Settings -> Removable Drives and Media -> Storage 
> -> Removable Storage -> all boxes unchecked.
> 
> 2.  Open Thunar.
> 
> 3.  Plug in USB flash drive.  Drive icon appears on desktop.  Drive 
> entry appears in left pane of Thunar.
> 
> 4.  Desktop icon context menu has option to mount drive; don't invoke it.
> 
> 5.  Select drive in left pane of Thunar.  Drive contents displayed in 
> right pane.
> 
> 6.  Desktop icon context menu on desktop now has option to eject drive.
> 
> 
> Therefore, everything seems to be working correctly with Xfce and Thunar 
> for USB flash drives.

Indeed.
> 
> 
> I also did some testing on another Wheezy/Xfce machine with a Seagate 
> FreeAgent Xtreme external hard disk drive via USB and eSATA -- nothing 
> on desktop or in Thunar.
> 
> 
> Therefore, it seems that whatever Xfce/ Debian/ Linux subsystem 
> underlies Thunar works for USB flash drives, but not for the camera or 
> for the external hard disk drive.

This one is weird.
> 
> 
> Another clue -- hot-plug for the external hard drive stoppled working 
> around Sept. 3, when I did a BIOS update.  I seem to recall a kernel 
> update around the same time.

Can you check:

- if the USB drive is correctly seen by the kernel (shows in dmesg, can
be mounted manually)
- if the USB drive is correctly seen by udisks (I think it's someting
like udisks --dump, and udisks --monitor can help too).

Regards,
-- 
Yves-Alexis