Calibre Mount Helper in Ubuntu 10.04

[capidamonte]

How is this supposed to work? Am I set up wrongly?

At the moment I have this in my /media folder:

disk
disk-1
disk-3
Jetbook Main Memory
Jetbook Main Memory (1)
Jetbook Storage Card
Jetbook Storage Card (1)

When Calibre exits, it does not always clean up after itself.

I'm also getting multiple entries in my hal.mtab file:

/dev/sdh    1000    0    vfat    nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,umask=0077,shortname=winnt,utf8    /media/disk
/dev/sdh    1000    0    vfat    nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,umask=0077,shortname=winnt,utf8    /media/disk
/dev/sdg    1000    0    vfat    nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,umask=0077,shortname=winnt,utf8    /media/disk-2
/dev/sdh    1000    0    vfat    nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,umask=0077,shortname=winnt,utf8    /media/disk

I've cleaned both of these out a few times, but I'd like to know how Calibre expects to work, and whether something is awry with my setup. Even after cleaning them up, if I restart Calibre, multiple folders get recreated sometimes. The number of folders keeps increasing overall.

Thanks.

[capidamonte]

I think I may have a clue to what's going on.

If I have a root file manager (Thunar) open, the Libre's disks get mounted as root. Calibre is running as my regular user. I'm thinking that when it exits, Calibre cannot clean up.

Linux gurus: Is there anyway to avoid this, aside from not having a root File Manager open?

Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

you need ti use the eject action within calibre to have the directories unmounted and removed.

[capidamonte]

I do that. The system won't let me unmount them once Calibre sees them, anyway. Sometimes it takes a while to properly unmount the drives (using Calibre) from my desktop but not more than 30 seconds or so. If I don't wait, I get scrambled files (sync issues.) Calibre will have indicated that I am unmounted already, though.

Nonetheless, it still leaves folders in /media -- it almost seems like the system is catching it first, then Calibre is making changes but sometimes Calibre doesn't quite catch it in time.

I'm not getting consistent naming on the folders, either. Sometimes they are Jetbook Main Memory, Jetbook Storage Card or multiple variants, and sometimes, as right now, I'm actually getting three disk names: disk, disk-1 and disk-3, which makes zero sense. disk-3 is owned by root for some reason. When Calibre unmounts the disks, disk-3 is left behind.

It's weird and inconsistent.

I just unmounted and remounted after changing disk-3 ownership to my username. This time I got disk and disk-1 and Jetbook Main Memory. disk-1 and Jetbook Main Memory both lead to the Libre's main memory. disk is the storage card. disk-3 is still empty.

Unmounting via Calibre leaves disk-3 and Jetbook Main Memory behind. Remounting produces disk and disk-1, Jetbook Main Memory(1) and Jetbook Storage Card. The old Jetbook Main Memory and disk-3 are still there. So now I have six folders in /media. Unmount: the three Jetbook folders remain behind with disk-3.

My next remount added two more Jetbook folders, but only one disk folder. You can see part of what's happening here. When Calibre finds folders that it left behind, it makes new ones. The disk thing seems to be beyond simple observation -- it's got to be related to whether Calibre is successfully creating its own folders, and the timing of it.

At the moment I have seven folders for the two external disks in the Libre.

I also have two extra entries apiece for /media/disk and /media/disk-1 in my .hal-mtab file, even after a reboot.

Something is up.

[kovidgoyal]

you've got two automount system vying for control, calibre's and your OSes. Turn either one off and you should see consistent behavior.

[capidamonte]

Care to give a hint on how to shut off Calibre's? I can't seem to find it in the preferences or the manual.

[kovidgoyal]

just delete the calibre-mount-helper program.

[capidamonte]

Well, there's always that.

[capidamonte]

If anyone else is on Xubuntu, I updated Thunar (file manager) to version 1.1.1 using this PPA. Seems to have solved the problem for the moment.

This new version of Thunar uses udev instead of HAL.

[capidamonte]

There's gotta be more.

I was fine for a few days. Everything worked perfectly. Calibre and system volume management cooperated to mount the disks to folders named Jetbook Main Memory and Jetbook Storage Card. I upgraded to 0.7.17 Now I'm getting the following error:

(30, 'Read-only file system')

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 68, in run
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 289, in _books
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/devices/usbms/driver.py", line 162, in books
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/devices/usbms/driver.py", line 304, in sync_booklists
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/devices/usbms/driver.py", line 301, in write_prefix
IOError: [Errno 30] Read-only file system: u'/media/Jetbook Storage Card/metadata.calibre'

And I'm getting files named Jetbook\040Storage\040Card with numerical variations. And the standard names, too.

If Calibre is not running, the disks mount normally. If I start Calibre with the disks mounted, Calibre causes files and folders to become read-only.

I have done nothing but move files on and off the SD card using Calibre (and once using the file manager, not as root.)

[kovidgoyal]

Filesystem errors cause filesystems to be remounted as readonly in linux.

[capidamonte]

I think it is Calibre that is causing those errors. Something weird is going on.

This morning it was recognized fine. I transferred some files. All was good, proper foldernames in /media.

15 minutes later, I reconnected and my Libre was recognized as a MiBuk -- and folders named (1) and (2) were created. I didn't transfer any files, as last time this happened, I got files in the wrong place.

Calibre properly unmounted the device and removed the folders.

Remount, and it's a Jetbook again.

What can I do to help discover what the problem is? I can't seem to determine a consistent way to make it error out.

EDIT: maybe a clue? gparted sees both the Libre main memory and the SD card as unallocated, although the SD card appears as FAT32 when in my laptop's card-reader.

[kovidgoyal]

you can prevent it from being detected as a mibuk by disabling the mibuk plugin

[capidamonte]

Disabled the MiBuk plugin. Hopefully that will be the end of the issue...

Thanks, as always!