10.04 not authorized to mount usb drive

[retro89]

Every time I try to mount usb drive a window pops up and says "unable to mount usb drive Not Authorized"

[Overthere]

I'm gonna piggyback on this thread because I have the same problem, and it is happening only since I upgraded to Lucid Linux. I cannot modify any usb devices (cut, paste, etc) as it doesn't give me permissions, even though I should have all!

I posted on this before but no help yet.

Hoping to have news soon,
brian

P.s. My screen also "flickers" now, whereas it never did before.. :(

[Overthere]

anyone??

[Overthere]

I got this when trying to set permissions:

brian@brian-laptop:/media/usb0$ /dev/sdb /media/usb0 vfat rw,umask=000 0 0
bash: /dev/sdb: Permission denied

Help!!!

Brian

[dino99]

ok guys,

install mountmanager and set prefs for devices and partitions (system admin mountmanager)

[Overthere]

Hello again,
I installed mountmanager and it sees the device when plugged in; how do I change permissions?

Thanks,
Brian

[Overthere]

This is quite frustrating! Sometimes I can't unmount and it gives me:

umount: /media/usb0 is not in the fstab (and you are not root)

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Brian

[g29115]

I am having the same issue and posted in a similar thread elsewhere. No one seems to be responding to this issue. It all happened when I upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04. It affects all USB storage devices I've attached.

Any one have a solution? Caconical? Hello?

[TheRoot]

same problem here, happened after the update !!!

[Nizzok]

Same problem here! Nothing I can do to change the drive's read-status!

[pregiopomo]

I've been having the same problem for a while, and I went for the solution posted here (modyfing the etc/fstub) then I finally went to test it with the laptop of a friend that recently installed Ubuntu 10.04, and on his computer everything worked fine.

So I checked out the Synaptic packages he had installed by default, and I realized that I had some more that probably were creating some conflicts/problems.

Now it works again!!

Here is what i did:

- start the "synaptic package manager"
- insert "usb" in the quick search
- compare your installed packages with the following list (these are the one installed by default):
- usbmuxd
- usbutils
- libusbmuxd1
- libusb-0.1-4
- libusb-1.0-0
- xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
- libmtp8
- usb-creator-gtk
- usb-creator-common
- libmobiledevice0
- libgphoto2-port0
- libgphoto2-2
- media-player-info
- libhpmud0
- hpijs
- hplip
- remove those packages that have been added by you or that may cause conflicts, in my case I had all the previous ones and I removed the following that I added months ago messing up with my laptop:

- usbmount (yep it sound weird, but now is working properly in my laptop!)
- pyton usb
- usb creator
- gnome pilot

I hope this example might help some people as I did receive help reading this forum, this is not "THE WAY" you "HAVE TO" follow to solve this problem, but this is just a way that worked for me, and I think is worth to be shared ;)

[colintivy]

Is 10.04.1 going to be the answer? For the sake of Ubuntu's (relatively) good name i hope so. Most of us are involved with USB drives.

:( :(

[dino99]

the answer is to install mountmanager and set your prefs with it about devices and partitions, no need headhache :P

[dchky]

the answer is to install mountmanager and set your prefs with it about devices and partitions, no need headhache :P

That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

[woofti]

I found I lost the ability to mount my second data drive ("New Volume") after upgrading the video drivers.

On startup this morning it failed to show the purple "Ubuntu" splash screen. The sound icon showed "---" instead of the curvy waves and it wouldn't let me reboot properly, I had to do a cold reboot.

I do not know whether your apt-get stuff did the trick or whether rebooting did it - I have read that sometimes a cold reboot does the trick, sometimes it doesn't.

woof x

[jmolinuevo]

On startup this morning it failed to show the purple "Ubuntu" splash screen. The sound icon showed "---" instead of the curvy waves and it wouldn't let me reboot properly, I had to do a cold reboot.

I do not know whether your apt-get stuff did the trick or whether rebooting did it - I have read that sometimes a cold reboot does the trick, sometimes it doesn't.

woof x

I have the same problem since I fresh-installed Lucid. I have found that all the following happens together, but not always (sometimes the computer works correctly, sometimes not; cold reboot not always solve the problem):

- Unable to shutdown by software (new login window shows when shutdown is clicked)

- sound do not work (sound preferences hardware tab does not show any device)

- Unable to automatically mount disks (not authorized message shows, sudo mount works correctly, but it should not be necessary)

- Unable to access advanced settings on "Users and Groups - Users settings manager" (authentication window to gain privileges does not show)

- daemon.log.1 shows unusual error messages:

laptop console-kit-daemon[787]: WARNING: Could not determine active console
laptop console-kit-daemon[787]: WARNING: Error waiting for native console 1 activation: Invalid argument

May be it is something related to permissions?
Has this been reported as a bug?

Regards, Moli.

[CountMeIn]

Has this been reported as a bug?

Regards, Moli.

Hi Moli,

I have the same problem. The bug has been reported here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/consolekit/+bug/544139

Hope that helps.

[stadubu]

Hi
same here
a number of problems after updating to 10.04
- sound doesn't work (laptop is stuck on permanent mute)
- can't mount usb devices (not authorized..)
- won't detect dvd drive
- sudden termination of x window (takes me back to login prompt) on some webpages,some times, always with firefox (not with Opera)
- change of windows appearance (random)

in general, the laptop is behaving strange.

Read all the previous messages, but not sure whats the solution, d/l polkit, mountmanager or ?

Thank you
stad

[jmolinuevo]

Read all the previous messages, but not sure whats the solution, d/l polkit, mountmanager or ?

Stad,

None of the solutions explained in this thread has solved the problem in my computer, so I am afraid we must wait until a solution is published at launchpad, or at least more information on the bug (as pointed by CountMeIn at #17, this has been reported as a bug at launchpad (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/consolekit/+bug/544139)).

[stadubu]

ok Thanks
so now that we know its a bug, whats the process? will somebody fix it, or we;re stuck till next release?
stad

[srejbi]

Hello,

none of the proposed and imagined solutions was working for me (see http://srejbi.info/posts/8_automatic-mounting-broken-again-in-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx for details), until did this:

(sudo, if regular)
nano -w /var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/10-vendor.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla



you will see:



[Mounting, checking, etc. of internal drives]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-;org.freedesktop.udisks.drive-ata-smart

ResultActive=yes
[Change CPU Frequency scaling]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.gnome.cpufreqselector

ResultActive=yes

[Setting the clock]

Identity=unix-group:admin

Action=org.gnome.clockapplet.mechanism.*

ResultActive=yes
insert these 2 lines after the mounting section's ResultActive=yes line.


ResultAny=auth_admin
ResultInactive=yes
I also restarted policykit.

After mounting from Nautilus was ok again. Good luck, hope it applies to all struggling with the same thing... ;)

[dchky]

srejbi: Come here and gimme a big hug!!!! :-)

Months, that's how long I've been grasping at straws trying to find a solution to this - imagined, perceived, tried them all. Yours worked straight up.

Thankyou.

Edit: I was finally able to mount USB drives and such, unfortunately hitting eject would result in the same error, so I made a tweak to the following:

/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.udisks.policy

Under "Mount a device" (org.freedesktop.udisks.filesystem-mount) I changed <allow_any>no</allow_any> to yes, job done : )

Keep in mind my PC is my own, no other users, so you might want to go for one of the auth_admin options if you're in a shared environment...

[derrida derider]

Me too. And it wont mount an ntfs partition either.

[stadubu]

Hi all
gave up on 10.04 - its become unusable: won't recognize CDdrive, usb drives, etc. So, I wiped out all my data and rolled back to 9.1....
USB devices are ok, but can't access the CD drive.
Tried a couple of things, read here & there, but nothing.

seems we're going around in circles:

I'm wondering though, how can the developers release 10.04 with all these bugs, and problems.
Seems to me, shouldn't have to be a unix guru to get some basic things done with your PC: yet, after switching to ubuntu, all I'm doing is searching through forums, decyphering obscure commands (that never work) for basic functions (i.e. access my cd drive !!) that the OS should do out-of-the-box, in the first place.

So I'm wondering: who is Ubuntu made for, after all?


stad

[captainpotato]

Are you using the nvidia driver, and if so, which one? I had exactly the same problem using the current version (as well as other issues, such as the machine not logging out correctly). Once I changed to v.173 the problem with mounting drives went away.

[stadubu]

Are you using the nvidia driver, and if so, which one? I had exactly the same problem using the current version (as well as other issues, such as the machine not logging out correctly). Once I changed to v.173 the problem with mounting drives went away.


thanks captain
frankly I dont know. you're saying a graphics driver causes this?
anyway, doing system>administration>hardware drivers: shows nothing (actually shows "no proprietary drivers are in use in this system" ) !!!
how else can I see if its missing?
stad

[jdeltoro1973]

I had fixed this issue once then after an update it came back again and once again
this worked for me again

sudo apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

and Reboot.

:popcorn:

That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) sudo apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

[reyquito]

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

That fixed the problem for me as well. I started having issues after I installed Mount Manager and misconfigured some things.

Thanks a lot.

[JohnElway]

That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

This worked for me as well. I was having the same combination of problems as many others have (no sound, couldn't access usb drive, couldn't reboot from the UI, etc.), so I entered the above command in terminal, did a cold reboot via the terminal with this command:


sudo reboot

Everything seems to be working great now! Thanks dchky!:p

[stadubu]

That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

This seems to work. after the reboot, seems to mount my USB drive fine.
Great job dchky !! :KS
Thanks

[New Open Close]

Just for the record, I tried everything in this thread ... and nothing worked. Then, at the beginning, I noticed that someone said to un-install USBMOUNT. That worked for me, my MP3 thumb drive mounted itself as mass storage ... and I was able to write to the drive.

[Ronson76]

Are you using the nvidia driver, and if so, which one? I had exactly the same problem using the current version (as well as other issues, such as the machine not logging out correctly). Once I changed to v.173 the problem with mounting drives went away.

Exactly this solved my problem. I did nothing else but this. ):P

[purvez]

The following worked for me too. However I have a USB wireless adaptor which stopped working and I had to do a second boot before it started working again. Not quite sure what happened but did give me a bit of a heart attack for a while!!

I still cannot reboot/shutdown from the desktop. Have to do 'sudo reboot' etc.

Thanks for the resolution on the USB sticks.

Purvez


Quote:
Originally Posted by dchky http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9382410#post9382410)
That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.

[elmy]

The following worked for me too. However I have a USB wireless adaptor which stopped working and I had to do a second boot before it started working again. Not quite sure what happened but did give me a bit of a heart attack for a while!!

I still cannot reboot/shutdown from the desktop. Have to do 'sudo reboot' etc.

Thanks for the resolution on the USB sticks.

Purvez


Quote:
Originally Posted by dchky http://ubuntuforums.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9382410#post9382410)
That is NOT the answer at all - we all know we can manually mount our devices, that is not what is broken, please try to stay on topic.

The problem is in polkit, what fixed the problem for me was this:

(sudo if that's your thing) apt-get install policykit policykit-gnome policykit-desktop-privileges

Reboot. After this mounting drives appears to work as it should.




The Policykit procedure worked for me also, but only until the next reboot, then it went back into its old habit.

If I remove / reinstall polciy kit again and then reboot, it fixes it again, but only for 1 reboot.

This is 1 part of a 3 part simultaneous problem:-

1) The USB Drive won't mount because its not authorised.
2) The audio does not work
3) The computer will not shutdown, it just logs out.

These 3 items are related, and yes the policykit does affect it, but so does uninstalling and reinstalling alsa-base and alsa-utils.

I fixed issue 2 (audio) by adding my user as a member of the the audio group (from terminal using sudo - otherwise it doesn't remember if you do it from the GUI). This works but not completley, sometimes I reboot and there is no ubuntu sound at login, but after logging in its fine (issue 1 and 3 still persist in this situation).

When I reboot and the ubuntu sound does play (about 25% of the time), then issue 1 and 3 go away and everything works.

I believe if someone can advise what group is responsible for USB permissions and Shutdown permissions, that adding the "logged in" user to it will fix it. I just don't know which groups (I tried disks, for the flash drive issue, but it didn't work)

[elmy]

I'm wondering though, how can the developers release 10.04 with all these bugs, and problems.
Seems to me, shouldn't have to be a unix guru to get some basic things done with your PC: yet, after switching to ubuntu, all I'm doing is searching through forums, decyphering obscure commands (that never work) for basic functions (i.e. access my cd drive !!) that the OS should do out-of-the-box, in the first place.

So I'm wondering: who is Ubuntu made for, after all?


stad

I'm afraid I agree with this, although I appreciate the complexities of operating systems, this sort of thing should be operating system 101.

Combined with the constant crashing, and this flash drive issue, it makes it nearly impossible to use.

A typical session for me on ubuntu 10.04.

Get up in morning, and check laptop for completed torrents:-
Laptop crashed during the night and is nearly melting because its so hot from sitting crashed with no fan running.

- Execute first reboot (holding the power key to shutdown. System boots but no ubuntu sound, I can use it (but it also means the flash drive won't mount, and I won't be able to shutdown unless I "sudo init 0" from the terminal.

- Decision, reboot again or log in and just continue torrenting. Usually I reboot because I need the drive space so I move completed torrents to my USB drive.

- 3 reboots or so later, I might get the Ubuntu Sound..Okay we are good. Login okay, start torrents again... and if I'm lucky it won't crash for a while. When it crashes (frequently) repeat the above procedure!

This is one of the many factors of frustration that has a cumulative effect on peoples mental status and combined with the other stressful factors and frustrations of "human ingenuity failing to reach the parts that only Heineken can reach" is the sort of thing that causes road rage!!! or worse!! in a need to vent the frustration. I'm lucky, I can walk away in disgust before the desire to smash my laptop against the wall takes over and then regretting my inability for self control. Not everybody is born with this same ability for self control and discipline.

Its at this point I reach for a can of "whoop ***" as it revitalises my attitude and restores my faith in humanity. A good thing too, or I'd have destroyed my laptop a dozen times by now.

8-)

[dbsjunk]

This is also happening to me, but in a slightly different manner:

If I am logged in to the console X session the USB disks will mount.

However, I get errors in other VNC sessions (e.g., extra X sessions) that I don't have permission to mount the disk. Indeed, if I am not logged in at the console the drive will not mount even though I am logged in via another VNC session.

This points to a more fundamental issue with the detection of when a user should have rights to do something.

This is on 10.10, by the way.

This appears to be the same as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/518533

Interesting:
I can no longer shutdown from the menu bar at this point as others have said.
I could do this before I installed and ran VNC server.
I suspect this means that having two Gnome sessions running at once, or having one running inside VNC, caused the problem.
Possibly related, I ran into the also-reported problem that my VNC session started up with the key "d" mapped to "hide all windows" and had to unmap this. Perhaps there is some corruption going on here?

[Barney]

Uninstall USBMOUNT worked for me. No USB ports were functional; uninstalled usbmount, all okay, headphones, too.

[Barney]

The saga continued: Having again lost my usb ports, on 09/07, I posted ->
USB ports inop w/2.6.32-33
USB ports went inop with kernel 2.6.32-33 ??? All worked normally before.

usbmount installed/uninstalled, no difference.

Any help?
************

Much searching produced this fix: I used synaptic to install usb-modeswitch and usb-modeswitch-data. During the installation, synaptic requested that the 10.04.3 LiveCD be inserted - I did that, and the installation continued. After the installation, rather than reboot, I shutdown, removing the LiveCD while power was still on. After shutdown, I removed the unit's power cord, waited a few seconds, plugged it back in, and restarted the computer. Viola, all the usb ports are functioning properly!

Why the order of battle above, I don't know; but, it worked for me.

[Barney]

Again, the saga continues: One day later, no usb ports recognized; printer, usb portable hard drive, usb thumb drive.........looks as though all usb ports/functions just went bye-bye.

Any help?

[Barney]

Continuing right along: No usb ports this AM, serious head scratching, nothing in BIOS about usb, found system time in BIOS incorrect, hmmmm - changed battery on motherboard & set time and date, viola -- usb recognizes Kingston thumbdrive, plugged printer in/recognized, plugged Logitech headset in FREEZE --- usb ports disappear! Of course, removed headset, shutdown, pulled power cord out-put it back in, started up and thumb drive and printer still show. Logitech headset the culprit -- always worked fine before.

[edit] PulseAudio disabled some time ago, ALSA had been working just fine. Want to be able to use the usb Logitech headset with Skype.

Also discovered in synaptic - hardinfo - nice little package that tells one oodles of stuff about one's machine.

Searching now to see why headset may be screwing things up.

[stafio]

I was having the same issue with only one user on my system. I was able to mount usb drives with my login, but the other user was not able to. In Dolphin, this message would show at the bottom
org.freedesktop.udisks.error.permissiondenied ubuntu

I'm happy to say that the fix provided by srejbi (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9414308&postcount=21) worked for me.

[dark_axis]

I've done this:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11554627&postcount=65

and I can mount/umount and shutdown/reboot from nautilius