Safely remove drive is not safe for SD card readers
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nautilus |
Fix Released
|
Medium
|
|||
One Hundred Papercuts |
Fix Released
|
Medium
|
Unassigned | ||
nautilus (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: nautilus
RELEASE OF UBUNTU:
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04
VERSION OF PACKAGE:
nautilus:
Installed: 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1
Candidate: 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1
Version table:
*** 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1 0
500 http://
100 /var/lib/
1:
500 http://
STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
(1) Insert SD card
(2) In nautilus, right click on the card and click on "Safely remove drive".
(3) Remove and then re-insert SD card.
WHAT I EXPECTED TO HAPPEN:
SD card should be prepared for removal, but inserting it or another SD card after that should work.
WHAT HAPPENED INSTEAD:
SD card reader is left powered down and not on the USB bus, so new SDcard insertions are not seen by the system at all.
DESCRIPTION:
USB connected SD card readers and similar devices appear to the OS as being "external" or "removable" devices. This causes Nautilus to provide a right-click context menu item currently named "Safely remove drive".
Using that item triggers a call to DriveDetatch() which powers down the device and removes it from the USB bus. At this point, there is no way to use the device again until a reboot.
Attempts to handle this at lower technical kernel/gvfs layers have been only partially successful, in that users continue to follow Windows-derived "right-click, Safely remove" UI actions and so accidentally disable their devices.
Since clearly, in this situation, clicking on "Safely remove drive" is not at all safe (!), it would seem appropriate to rename this menu item to something less likely to be used accidentally by novice users who expect it to be safe.
SUGGESTED WORDING CHANGE:
One possible wording might be "Power down external device". This is unlikely to be mentally associated with the Windows "Safely remove" wording, and also makes it clear that this is intended for use with an *external* device, so hopefully fewer users will try it on a device that is in fact internal to their machine.
HISTORY:
This new bug report was triggered by discussion in bug #504440 and created at the suggestion of David Tombs.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: nautilus 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSign
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelMo
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Jan 22 14:35:28 2011
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
PATH=(custom, user)
LANG=en_US.utf8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Changed in nautilus (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Confirmed → Triaged |
Changed in nautilus: | |
importance: | Unknown → Medium |
status: | Unknown → In Progress |
Changed in nautilus: | |
status: | In Progress → Fix Released |
Changed in hundredpapercuts: | |
milestone: | none → papercuts-nautilus |
Changed in hundredpapercuts: | |
status: | Confirmed → Triaged |
assignee: | nobody → Paper Cuts Ninja (papercuts-ninja) |
Changed in hundredpapercuts: | |
assignee: | Papercuts Ninjas (papercuts-ninja) → nobody |
Marking Confirmed/Wishlist -- this is a good suggestion, and would alleviate the misunderstanding on "safely remove...". Needs upstream check for similar bug.