[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#884799: Bug#884799: thunar: Shredding a file causes Thunar to block permanently. (USB)

[Lorenzo Ancora]

> First, it's usually a bad idea to run shred on flash-based devices, but I
> think it's unrelevant here.
I agree, but Thunar should not crash (and/or corrupt the memory of other programs) regardless of the number of writings.
I think that the problem is not caused by GNU shred itself, but from how Thunar reacts to the file updates.
In general the changes of a single file should not freeze a file manager when viewing a directory.
> I tried here with Thunar 1.7.0 from experimental, and it works just fine. I'll
> try on Thunar 1.6.13 from unstable when I get a chance, but I'm really
> expecting the same result.
On my system the bug persists, sometimes it freezes while shredding, other times after shredding.
It does not happen all times, but when it happens there is always a freeze of the GUI.
I've tried with files of different sizes and the size of the file does not seem to impact the duration of the "freeze effect", but if the file has valid content and has a thumbnail (like a PDF), the freeze can be permanent (or at least extremely long) regardless of the file size. When the freeze is permanent, the session manager becomes unstable.

Some hardware specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 @ 1.80GHz;
RAM: 8 GB (huge pages: madvise);
Swap: 5 GB;
USB key: SanDisk(R) cruzer micro 4 GB (works fine, never had a problem).

As you can see I have lots of memory and processing power for Thunar.

If you need more information I am at your disposal. :-)

Regards,
Lorenzo

Il 21/12/2017 21:16, Yves-Alexis Perez ha scritto:
> On Wed, 2017-12-20 at 21:07 +0000, Lorenzo Ancora wrote:
>> Hello,
>> let me clarify your doubts, so it will be easier to debug. :-)
>>> I'm sorry to hear that, but I don't think I can reproduce that (also it's
>>> unclear what “shredding” exactly means here).
>> It means standard secure deletion by using "shred" from the GNU Coreutils.
>> GNU shred:
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/shred-invocation.html
>> Command: $ shred -zu smallFileOnUSBkey.txt
> First, it's usually a bad idea to run shred on flash-based devices, but I
> think it's unrelevant here.
>
> I tried here with Thunar 1.7.0 from experimental, and it works just fine. I'll
> try on Thunar 1.6.13 from unstable when I get a chance, but I'm really
> expecting the same result.
>
> Regards,