USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar [solved]

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chrisonmint

USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar [solved]

Post by chrisonmint »

Hello all,

I am running LM17.1 Xfce and tried to copy a file to a USB stick yesterday. Thunar kept complaining the device was "read only". This was not the case, as a cp command in terminal worked fine. Running 'mount' in terminal also showed the stick was RW...

A bit of googling found this bug report - sadly un-fixed so far:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/1332623

Does everyone experience this bug, or is it just on particular setups?
Has anyone got a workaround?
I like Thunar so far, but if we cant fix it, can I swap it for a different file manager? I'm going to need to put files on USB sticks pretty regularly...
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Buzzsaw
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Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by Buzzsaw »

Does everyone experience this bug
I doubt many people experience it. The bug report is nearly a year old, and it has few contributions. If the bug were common, it would have been fixed already, and the report would have been much more active.
can I swap it for a different file manager?
It's not a good idea to remove Thunar, since it's integrated into Xfce. But you can install other file managers.

I've always used Midnight Commander (or cp/mv) instead of Thunar for copying and moving. Midnight Commander shows more information about the copy/move operation, and it has more options.
chrisonmint

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by chrisonmint »

Buzzsaw wrote: I doubt many people experience it. The bug report is nearly a year old, and it has few contributions. If the bug were common, it would have been fixed already, and the report would have been much more active.
Thats what I was concerned about. For me, it's been consistently happening with one USB stick, but i havent tried others (or tried other ports) to see if I have better luck.

Midnight commander was an interesting suggestion, but unless there is another GUI option (short of swapping the whole DE) then I will stick with using the terminal with cp and mv, I think. Its a shame, as I think Xfce has been nicer to use than MATE, which i also tried on another laptop. My current laptop can probably handle Cinnamon, but I dont want to go through the hassle of reinstalling. It took ages to get the three accounts for me, my partner and a kids login all working to everyones satisfaction!
shengchieh

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by shengchieh »

Make sure you unmount devices before you pull them off the PC. Otherwise funny things happen. I.e., right-click the device icon in the file manager and choose to unmount, then wait a few seconds, then pull the device off.

Sheng-Chieh
Buzzsaw
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Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by Buzzsaw »

If it's alternative Linux GUI file managers you want, then you're in luck. There are many, including Marlin, gentoo (not related to the Gentoo distribution), and Xfe.

You'll find others if you search in Google for Linux file managers.

By the way, although Midnight Commander runs in a terminal, it does have a GUI of sorts; that is you can use it by clicking on things with your mouse.
MikeF90000

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by MikeF90000 »

You might give pcmanfm, the file manager from lxde, a serious try.
PCManFM seems to have all of the 'bells and whistles' including automounting of removable devices. By default it mounts my USB drives R/W.

I've been having other issues with thunar, have tried many a FM and previously settled on caja (from MATE) as an alternate. Unfortunately, caja does not recognize so-called 'GTK' bookmarks yet.
Nemo from the Cinnamon DE might be worth trying. However, it is a bit on the bulky side.

Good luck!
chrisonmint

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by chrisonmint »

Buzzsaw wrote:If it's alternative Linux GUI file managers you want, then you're in luck. There are many, including Marlin, gentoo (not related to the Gentoo distribution), and Xfe.
Great - this is what I was hoping to hear, and (I am a linux newbie) most importantly that this is not going to break things!
MikeF90000 wrote:You might give pcmanfm, the file manager from lxde, a serious try.
PCManFM seems to have all of the 'bells and whistles' including automounting of removable devices. By default it mounts my USB drives R/W.
This is probably going to be top of my list I plan to play around with Lubuntu on an older laptop which was a bit sluggish with LM17 MATE and was reading about PCManFM earlier today.

Automounting of removable drives is a must - if I need to dive into the terminal just to copy files to a USB stick, I might as well stay there!

Thanks for the advice.
MikeF90000

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by MikeF90000 »

chrisonmint wrote:I like Thunar so far, but if we cant fix it, can I swap it for a different file manager?
As you're a Linux 'noob' I should have mentioned that you can install more than one file manager on any DE.
However, it is rarely recommended that the default FM be removed as that could have unexpected / bad consequences.

Be aware that the menus will become more confusing as default launchers often use generic names (File Manager, not pcmanfm).
If desired, the display names can be adjusted by editing the appropriate .desktop file.

Just launch the alternate FM from the menu or the panel. :wink: Good hunting!
chrisonmint

Re: USB memory sticks are Read-Only in Thunar

Post by chrisonmint »

MikeF90000 wrote:
chrisonmint wrote:I like Thunar so far, but if we cant fix it, can I swap it for a different file manager?
As you're a Linux 'noob' I should have mentioned that you can install more than one file manager on any DE.
However, it is rarely recommended that the default FM be removed as that could have unexpected / bad consequences.

Be aware that the menus will become more confusing as default launchers often use generic names (File Manager, not pcmanfm).
If desired, the display names can be adjusted by editing the appropriate .desktop file.

Just launch the alternate FM from the menu or the panel. :wink: Good hunting!
PCmanFM worked nicely, I even went as far as putting the whole LXDE on my test laptop (it was a LM MATE, but i removed MATE after installing lxde...)

BUT, Thunar has been working well with USB sticks since. The issue might have been caused by having another user session running - then switching user. It caused problems with accessing a DVD yesterday too.

Linux desktop env seems to only really like one user at a time...? I have marked this thread as solved.
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