Nautilus' Format option doesn't actually work

Bug #1227440 reported by Jeremy Bícha
66
This bug affects 12 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GNOME Disks
Invalid
Medium
gnome-disk-utility (Fedora)
Fix Released
Medium
gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Unassigned
nautilus (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Unassigned

Bug Description

As reported by GNOME, the new Format option when right-clicking on a USB stick doesn't actually format the device.

This feature was added to nautilus with

https://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/commit/?id=a73c8c773

If we can't fix this before Saucy freezes, it would be better to not show the Format option in Nautilus.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: gnome-disk-utility 3.8.2-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-7.13-generic 3.11.0
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-7-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Sep 18 21:56:49 2013
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-disk-utility
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Marking as High since that's what the earlier bug 1222446 was triaged at.

Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in gnome-disk-utility:
importance: Unknown → Medium
status: Unknown → New
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Esa-leirivaara (esa-leirivaara) wrote :

It still doesn't work...

Revision history for this message
Nick Moffitt (nick-moffitt) wrote :

Oddly enough, using gnome-disk-utility stuff manually works fine. It's just something about the way nautilus launches it.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

similar bug on the fedora bug tracker, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=970394

Revision history for this message
Tom Rhodes (tom-rhodes) wrote :

The dialogue that pops up to format looks like it's the same as that invoked from the Disks utility (which works). Looks like whatever call is made when you confirm you want to format the drive fails. Would it be possible to launch the disks utility directly from clicking "Format" in the right click context menu in Nautilus?

Revision history for this message
Adam Dingle (adam-yorba) wrote :

This is still broken in Trusty.

Nautilus is invoking gnome-disks like this:

gnome-disks --block-device /dev/sdb1 --format-device --xid 39846040

I believe the problem is actually in gnome-disks, not Nautilus. When I launch gnome-disks directly and attempt to format either a single partition of a USB stick or the whole drive, the format does nothing and I see an error message like this:

Error formatting disk
Error synchronizing after initial wipe: Timed out waiting for object (udisks-error-quark, 0)

Changed in gnome-disk-utility:
status: New → Invalid
Changed in gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Fix Committed
Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-disk-utility - 3.10.0-1ubuntu2

---------------
gnome-disk-utility (3.10.0-1ubuntu2) trusty; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/git_xid_check.patch,
    debian/patches/git_xid_working.patch,
    debian/patches/git_header_update.patch:
    - backport fixes to make the nautilus format option work (lp: #1227440)
 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Jan 2014 19:18:32 +0100

Changed in gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
jhfhlkjlj (fdsuufijjejejejej-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

And what are we poor sods that are stuck on 3.8 in Ubuntu 13.10 supposed to do...?

Tom Rhodes (tom-rhodes)
Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Doug McMahon (mc3man) wrote :

Not fixed at all based on bug description, does anyone pay attention anymore??
Only a volume that is unmounted will get the 'format' option in nautilus. As far as removable volumes like usb 'sticks' there is no option in nautilus to unmount so consequently no format option

The only way to get this is to disable automount which then also disables autoplay of optical media. (and once mounted no means within nautilus to unmount

Changed in gnome-disk-utility (Fedora):
importance: Unknown → Medium
status: Unknown → Fix Released
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Duplicates of this bug

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.