On Sat, 2026-06-06 at 16:37 -0400, Cindy Sue Causey wrote: > 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... Thanks Cindy, some useful ideas there, but I am doubtful that if it doesn't appear in df, it's not going to be accessible to higher lever tools.
I'll try some other file managers.
