unmounting a usb stick gives a stupid error

I've gotten that message before with an SD card and it really doesn't make any sense.
KDE4 does not show this message.

Please fix this bug. It makes Kubuntu appear very unprofessional and unpolished. It also needlessly distracts and annoys the user.

Please upgrade this to at least medium importance.

diff at: http://frode.kde.no/misc/kdebase_mediahelper_noEjectError.diff
applies to kdebase/kioslave

It bascially removes the useless error as umount has already succeeded.
It still tries to eject, because some devices require it to powerdown/prepare for removal, safely.

This patch seems to cause kio_umountwrapper to display indefinately when running Safely Remove.

oops. need to add an ::exit(0) after the comment.
Let's hope this works: http://frode.kde.no/misc/kdebase_mediahelper_noEjectError_r1.diff

I don't have time to build or test. Sorry.

TEST CASE: install new kdebase-kio-plugins, log and and back into KDE, plug in USB disk, open it in Konqueror or Dolphin, then Safely Remove it (right click on icon in media:/ in konqueror. right click ->actions->safely remove in Storage Media in dolphin).

cool, i hope the fix gets into one of the next updates :-) realy makes kubuntu feel more professional

Uploaded to hardy-proposed, waiting for approval.

Accepted into -proposed, please test and give feedback here

And then they said, "let there be no errors!"

Finally, the error isn't popping up for me. Working here!

The error message indeed disappeared, but now the icon on the desktop won't disappear after a safely remove. If I just plug out a stick without safely removing it, the icon will disappear but if I safely remove it first, the icon stays on the desktop and there is no way to remove it.
Frankly, I'd rather have a useless error message than an icon for a device that does not exist.

Please let me know if I can provide additional info.

Cheers,
Job

Yeah, i might have found a better way to do this.

Copied to hardy-updates.

Copied hardy-updates to intrepid.

I wonder if this is the correct solution to this bug:

The HAL device for USB sticks does have an 'Eject' method. Whilst this doesn't actually make the USB stick pop out of the socket ;-), it does have the effect of removing the block device file (e.g. /dev/sdf1) and hence causing the desktop icon to be removed.

When 'Safely Remove' is selected, kdeeject is executed. This script does not call the HAL method, instead it calls the 'eject' program and this works only if the user has write access to the device file. But starting from Hardy, the device files are no longer owned by the plugdev group (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Specs/HardyHardwareDetection for the reasons) and hence 'eject' fails and kdeeject displays the error message mentioned in this bug.

For this reason I recon a better solution would be to patch kdeeject to use HAL's eject method as this does not depend on the user having write access to the device. Bug #217550 has such a patch but it might need some improvement?

I am aware of this. And I also discussed it with Johnatan Riddell on IRC.
He thinks changing kdeeject is a feature-change, so it's not OK in -updates.

I however agree with you, and recommend patching kdeeject to talk to HAL.
This is what i refer to in comment 14 to this bug.

Not only is there the cosmetic problems of icons sticking on the desktop...
Some devices (at least my Nokia E50, S60 operating system) will actually complain if they're removed without this "eject" action being executed.

They will inform the user that the device has been unplugged incorrectly and data loss may occur.
This is not very reassuring to the user at all...

Regarding the patch in <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/217550">Bug #217550</a> (which has now been marked a dupe of this one) - the relevant command is given as:

     dbus-send --system --dest=org.freedesktop.Hal "$BLOCK_UDI" org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume.Eject array:string:""

where BLOCK_UDI is gotten from here:

     dcop kded mediamanager properties "/dev/sdd2"

(replace the device file with whatever's appropriate). For some reason, this produces no results from the command line on my system (up-to-date hardy) - no unmount, no eject, nada. Oddly, right-click->Safely-Remove *does* unmount, but does not eject. (This is with the patched kdeeject from Bug #217550.)

This is with an ipod, btw. So the current steps to eject for me are: "Disconnect" in Amarok (which supposedly calls kdeeject, but still doesn't seem to unmount), "Safely Remove" from desktop, then "sudo eject /dev/sdd2" from the command line in order to get "Safe to Disconnect" screen from ipod. (Just unplugging it without the eject causes it the ipod db to become corrupt in some way.) Seems pretty onerous, just for an ipod.

The attached version of kdeeject seems to work for me, including an ipod and several other removable storage devices.

Confirmed the above - Paul Worrall's version of kdeeject actually ejects my ipod, directly from amarok. Nice one, dude!

Confirmed here too: the icon now immediately disappears from the desktop. Thanks Paul!

thanks Paul Worrall that's solved it.

err. strange. I now use Pauls's kdeeject and it works great with flash-USB Medias (USB-Pen drive) but my USB-Harddisc now gets immediately remounted when i "safely remove it".
Can that patch be modified/improved to prevent that case also? TIA