On Sat, 2026-06-06 at 20:38 +0100, Chris Ramsden wrote: > Asus Zenbook > Debian 13 Trixie > Mate DE > > I have just noticed that this computer has stopped recognising USB > thumbdrives. > > They are listed in lsusb, but do not appear in my file browser > (caja), > nor in df. > > The same machine sees the same USB thumbdrives when booted into > windows, so it appears not to be faulty hardware. > > I can't say when this started happening; I haven't plugged in any USB > thumbdrives for a few weeks. >
Hi.. This sounds familiar, like something I experienced with Thunar ages ago. I can remember finally stumbling upon "Enable Volume Management" in Thunar's settings. That option specifically references removable drives, devices, and media. No clue what triggered mine to fail. Maybe settings became corrupted during a new debootstrap install or suchly. A glitchy software update could have been the culprit, too. Mine's currently unticked meaning I haven't had to enable that feature in a long time. Meanwhile, everything I plug in works as expected these days. My thought process in replying is that it might help to try a search on keywords like volume management, Debian, and one's personal choice of file manager. Maybe it will help... Maybe. Cindy :) Afterthought: I tried my own suggested search. DuckDuckGo concluded by saying, "While you can use Caja for USB volume management, it might not handle automounting and other features as effectively as Dolphin or other KDE-specific file managers." For what it's worth: Thunar used to be installable (and thus also uninstallable) as a stand-alone package regardless of the desktop environment (e.g. LXDE). Thunar could be used to test if it sees what's currently not appearing otherwise. "Enable Volume Management" setting can be found toward the bottom of: Edit > Preferences > Advanced (tab) In enabling my own just now, I see references to mount and auto-run. THAT would be why mine is not enabled. I can't stand when that happens because I have so many various partitions attached in my setup. But, as I said previously, mine started working again after I messed with that a few years ago. Either there was a timely software update (possibly even as a fix to a reported bug) or ticking "Enable Volume Management" on for a few minutes generated a config file of some sort in my daily user's home directory. PPS DuckDuckGo did explicitly reference the Dolphin file manager in case a user wants to stay as true to KDE applications as possible... -- Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA * runs with birdseed! *
