Missing "Safely Remove Drive" option from Quicklists. Only have "Eject".

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I noticed this yesterday on quantal. There are no Safely Remove or Eject options for my USB harddrives.

I think this is a gio/gvfs bug. Do you have Safely Remove/Eject options in the nautilus sidebar?

In Nautilus, right-clicking on a USB-External-Harddrive only provides the "unmount" option also. Selecting it doesn't remove the device from the left-pane of Nautilus NOR does it remove the device from Unity's Task-bar.

In 12.04, you could right-click on the device (from the Unity Taskbar) and select "Safely Remove". After that the device would be removed from the task-bar and you could then unplug it with some degree of confidence.

"Safely Remove" and "Eject" are missing from the Unity-Taskbar-Device-Icon's context menu. I don't know how Nautilus was before, but it too doesn't provide those options now (in its left-pane, under the "Devices" section). Nautilus may have been that way before; I cannot confirm that.

Yet, this bug report is specifically indicating the un-evolved behavior of the Unity-Taskbar-Device-Icon's Context-Menu, which seems to have un-evolved to a less-ensuring indicator of "whether it is safe to unplug your USB hard-drive or not".

To be fair, when you do select "unmount", if you right-click on the device-icon again, the "unmount" option will no longer be selectable. Perhaps this is a more subtle indicator that the drive has been successfully unmounted, but it does take an additional step to confirm (versus the behavior in 12.04). 12.04's behavior was more apparently without that additional step.

One plus, about this new behavior, is that if you want to mount the device again, the device icon remains on the taskbar, and it auto-mounts it upon clicking it. This prevents you from having to unplug and replug the device to get the icon to re-appear on the task bar.

Perhaps a great compromise would be to indeed bring back the "Safely Remove" option (because to a new user that makes more sense than the technical term "unmount". And, once removed, allow the icon to remain on the task bar, but modify the icon so that it indicates an "unmounted" status (with a red x or something else more elegant).

Additionally, upon "Safely Remove", perhaps a message notification should fade up to explicitly indicate that the safe removal was successful.

This is a gio/gvfs bug. Marking as invalid in unity.

I'm sorry about the mess that i did with the status above, i just want to confirm that the problem afects me too. When i need to unplug the external drive the option "safely remove drive" turns off the drive. When i just unmout he still remains spinning. I'm afraid to damage my drive.

Original reporter should use the proper terms for the Unity desktop components involved. There's no "Unity-Task-Bar" -- it's called the Launcher. And the pop-up that appears when right-clicking on a Launcher icon is called a Quicklist, not a context menu. For general Unity terminology, see: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10228/whats-the-right-terminology-for-unitys-ui-elements/19166#19166

Anyhow, under 12.04 and earlier my Patriot USB memory stick also had the "Safely Remove" Quicklist entry, but in 12.10 there's only "Eject" which doesn't perform a sync operation before telling me the device has been ejected. Ejecting (i.e. unmounting) without syncing can corrupt the filesystem if a write operation has been recently performed.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Could you get a "gvfs-mount -li" log with the drive mounted and add it to the bug?

The "safe remove" functionality was removed from udisks2, and it's not planned to bring it back. It caused too much trouble with e. g. devices which are internally wired to an USB port, and you could never use them again until after a reboot. Also, having two options was a constant source of confusion. So I'm afraid this is "wontfix" from the distro side.

Attaching output log of `gvfs-mount -li`. My 16 GB Patriot USB stick is auto-mounted and listed as "Drive(2)".

Also, the safely remove option would recognise if the external drive had multiple partitions and offer to remove the master device if I remember correctly. Now I have to manually unmount four partitions on my 2 TB external disk every time I want to remove it.

Expected behaviour - Expected behaviour - when Unity detects that the user is ejecting a partition that is on an external drive containing more partitions, it should offer to safely remove the whole device. Alternatively there should be two options upon right clicking a drive icon - "unmount only the partition" and "safely remove master device".

Why is it a "Won't fix" when there are workarounds avaible?
http://nikunjlahoti.com/2012/11/09/missing-safely-remove-in-ubuntu-12-10/
Couldn't it be fixed this way? I think this is a serious bug for a operating system. It made me change back to 12.04 because i don't want to lose my data when I disconnect my Harddrive while its still used and spinning!

The function of "Safely Remove" is to remove POWER from USB connected devices.

Unplugging any device while powered up is UNSAFE! This bug is not about unmounting a USB drive/stick.

If Windoz has no problem with "Safely Remove" are we saying Ubuntu cannot do it? Really?

I agree we could just:
  1. Unmount all partitions; and then
  2. Suspend the drive (put it to sleep).
That should be a safe way to remove the drive.

The main issue with this bug is that the Unity launcher is presently tied to the Nautilus behaviour. So far we have only mirrored what Nautilus would let you do. But we don't really need to. If there's a safe way to shut down a drive without risking removing it (it may be an internal device), then we should. But a better solution would be to keep the smarts in the Gnome API so the same fix applies to Nautilus and the launcher.

Again, putting a drive to 'sleep' is NOT correct fix!

You have to REMOVE POWER first, to *safely* remove/disconnect a USB drive.

That is what Safely Remove did in older versions of Ubuntu.

Actually, you have to unmount all partitions first to avoid filesystem corruption. That's the one thing that is absolutely critical.

After that, yes, remove power if you can. However the reason why Gnome is treating this bug as Won't Fix is because there are too many device types that are unsafe to power down. Devices like optical drives and card readers that look like internal devices to you, but to the OS are USB devices in some cases. So Linux thinks they're safe to power down (which you can't recover from without rebooting).

Some USB sticks have a light to indicate when they are powered. In 12.04, when "Safely Remove" was selected the light on the stick (and USB hub if plugged into a hub) go off. This is the expected behaviour.

There is no longer a "Safely Remove" option in 12.10. If I select "Eject", neither the light on the stick or hub go off. This doesn't give a good indication to the user that the drive can safely be removed.

I also have a problem that a Lexar 64MB Jumpdrive (05dc:0080) will re-appear on the launcher after I eject it.

Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote on 2012-11-13: #13
The "safe remove" functionality was removed from udisks2, and it's not planned to bring it back. It caused too much trouble with e. g. devices which are internally wired to an USB port, and you could never use them again until after a reboot. Also, having two options was a constant source of confusion. So I'm afraid this is "wontfix" from the distro side.

Martin, There is myself and I am sure many others who find this justification "unacceptable"! I have several systems in which devices are connected internally via USB headers/ports. Yes, the option does exist, be it Ubuntu 12.04.1, Windows XP-7, etc. to safely remove these devices via a right-click, even though they are devices that would not normally require such action. Examples of these devices are a wireless N network adapter, an internal media card reader with USB port, etc. Quite frankly, it comes down to a user exercising diligence when right-clicking on any device and knowing what device it is that they are about to safely remove beforehand! Saying that it causes too much trouble for devices that would then require a reboot to use again is in my opinion, a cop-out! It is a chance that most users would be willing to take, to err on the side of caution when it comes to properly powering down a device first before removing it! If it is a choice between having the safely remove command available to remove a device properly by completely powering it down or not having the safely remove command available at all in an attempt to eliminate the confusion that exists in correlation to the eject/unmount commands while helping to prevent some users from accidentally removing the wrong device, I think the majority of users do not find it as confusing as you implicate. I and others I am sure would rather have the option to safely power down our devices using the safely remove command and thus this is a request to have it formally reinstated. This too, has prevented me from upgrading to Ubuntu 12.10!

If there can't be a "safely remove" option, could you at least add an
"unmount all partitions on device" option or something similar so that
people don't have to right-click and unmount X partitions separately before
they can unplug the device? I'm guessing it can't be that hard to find
other partitions mounted from a certain device if one has been selected.

Anyway, from all the machines with Linux installed I've worked on over the
years I haven't once encountered an internally wired USB device and I have
to deal with my multi-TB external disks and their numerous partitions
daily. I think that a mistake of forgetting to unmount one of 6-7
partitions and causing the loss of data greatly outweights having to reboot
your machine if you accidentaly unmount an internally wired CD drive or
something.

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 7:01 AM, Blair Zimmer <email address hidden> wrote:

> Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote on 2012-11-13: #13
> The "safe remove" functionality was removed from udisks2, and it's not
> planned to bring it back. It caused too much trouble with e. g. devices
> which are internally wired to an USB port, and you could never use them
> again until after a reboot. Also, having two options was a constant source
> of confusion. So I'm afraid this is "wontfix" from the distro side.
>
> Martin, There is myself and I am sure many others who find this
> justification "unacceptable"! I have several systems in which devices
> are connected internally via USB headers/ports. Yes, the option does
> exist, be it Ubuntu 12.04.1, Windows XP-7, etc. to safely remove these
> devices via a right-click, even though they are devices that would not
> normally require such action. Examples of these devices are a wireless
> N network adapter, an internal media card reader with USB port, etc.
> Quite frankly, it comes down to a user exercising diligence when right-
> clicking on any device and knowing what device it is that they are about
> to safely remove beforehand! Saying that it causes too much trouble for
> devices that would then require a reboot to use again is in my opinion,
> a cop-out! It is a chance that most users would be willing to take, to
> err on the side of caution when it comes to properly powering down a
> device first before removing it! If it is a choice between having the
> safely remove command available to remove a device properly by
> completely powering it down or not having the safely remove command
> available at all in an attempt to eliminate the confusion that exists in
> correlation to the eject/unmount commands while helping to prevent some
> users from accidentally removing the wrong device, I think the majority
> of users do not find it as confusing as you implicate. I and others I
> am sure would rather have the option to safely power down our devices
> using the safely remove command and thus this is a request to have it
> formally reinstated. This too, has prevented me from upgrading to
> Ubuntu 12.10!
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1081716).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
>
> Title:
> [quantal] Missing "Safely Remove Drive" and "Eje...

I have encountered internally wired USB devices in two cases:
  1. An old Thinkpad connected the internal optical drive via USB.
  2. An internal card reader that fits a 3.5" drive bay and connects to a USB header.
In both cases, a full "Eject" of the device rendered it unusable till next reboot.

But I agree they are rare and we should not be punishing everyone just to avoid problems with such devices.

Safely Remove missing from ubuntu 12.10 qicklist ...
do we have any solutions ... Unplugging any device while powered up is dangerous!

So - we had this feature. And then it got removed to avoid rare problems and replace them with common problems?
(sigh)

Excuse me, is there any way it could get fixed in Ubuntu, evethough Gnome guys decided they won't fix it? There surely must be a way to recognise HDDs from card readers. A script that would do it is nice, but needs more clicks, can't we just have the old feature back?

This Gnome approach to things makes me a bit angry and wishing bad things to people.

Jan,

The "won't fix" decision is not by users and IMHO is bogus. Ubuntu 12.04 had the 'Safely Remove' feature and it worked. 'They *removed* it in 12.10 version.

'They' are also saying that Windoz CAN have the feature but Ubuntu cannot, which is BS.

By the way, I've tried Linux Mint and SUSE and both had the feature.

You can use my bash script from command line or through a shortcut key.

Why not have "Eject" for USB sticks and other removable media, and "Safely remove" for external hard disks? For USB sticks and alike, "Eject" is alright, because it's usually safe. But for an external hard disk, it should be made more safe:
Clicking "Safely remove" should show a dialog window to confirm the action, so that users don't do this by accident.

How does the system distinguish between USB sticks and external hard drives (other than size)?

I've noticed that Nautilus actions do not trigger OSD notifications. Removing external media by right-clicking within nautilus will not generate OSD notifications.

The OSD notification behavior is not consistent. In 12.04 right-clicking and Ejecting in the LAUNCHER triggers an OSD notification, but right-clicking and selecting Safely-Remove in the launcher does not.

I think that any action on external media - from the Launcher or from Nautilus - should generate OSD notifications whether its Eject, or Safely Remove, or Unmount, etc.

Lisa,

[Safely Remove] = eject + REMOVE POWER from USB device.

The 'remove power' is the main issue. Removing/disconnecting ANY electronic device with power still applied is dangerous. This is the reason for [Safely Remove] option for mounted USB sticks.

Without the [Safely Remove] option, the only way to SAFELY remove/disconnect a USB stick is to shutdown your system first.

As I said before, the reasoning given for NOT putting [Safely Remove] is bogus and dangerous thinking. It is evidence that those who made the decision to remove the option are saying they are dumber than Windoz or other Linux OS which HAVE the option.

Thanks all for your interest to this issue, Ubuntu is neither writting udisk nor responsible for that change, could one of you engage the conversation with the people writing this software by opening a bug on https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=udisks ?

OK, I've opened a bug upstream:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60293

Please, everybody who is interested subscribe to that thread too (you can add yourselves to the CC list and save changes, the beauty of having 10 different bug systems :).

> OK, I've opened a bug upstream:

thank you!

Setting to fix commited, it will be fixed in raring once udisks 2.1 lands and gvfs is rebuilt with it

We can thank gnomers, they made linux very similar to Window$ 7. Is does not power off USB devices on safely removal :)
For example, Window$ XP (which is in EOL stage) powers off the port.

It seems that Nautilus and Gnome disk utility also missed 'Safely remove drive' option. I reported corresponding bugs to launchpad and upstream (https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/1127135 and https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-disk-utility/+bug/1127127).

Hi Guys, my toy project for solve temporarily this bug

https://github.com/fenrrir/bdin

Is it possible tofix this bug in Quntal too?
04.03.2013 11:50 пользователь "Launchpad Bug Tracker" <
<email address hidden>> написал:

> ** Branch linked: lp:ubuntu/raring-proposed/udisks2
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
>
> Title:
> Missing "Safely Remove Drive" option from Quicklists. Only have
> "Eject".
>
> Status in GVFS:
> Invalid
> Status in abstraction for enumerating and managing block devices:
> Won't Fix
> Status in Unity:
> Invalid
> Status in "gvfs" package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Released
> Status in "udisks2" package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Committed
>
> Bug description:
> In Ubuntu 12.04, I could right-click on my usb-external-harddrive's
> Unity-Task-Bar icon (launcher icon) and select "Safely Remove". Upon
> doing this, the icon would disappear and I would proceed in unplugging
> my external hard drive.
>
> However, since upgrading to Ubuntu 12.10, this option is no longer
> available in the context menus (Quicklists) for external drives.
>
> Instead, all I see is "Unmount", and after clicking "Unmount" the icon
> remains on the task-bar (launcher) and no indication is given that
> would imply that the unmount occurred successfully.
>
> The intent of this report is to bring back the "Safely Remove" option
> which (by making the icon disappear after selected) indicates that you
> may now safely removal your USB external hard drive (by unplugging its
> usb connector).
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
> Package: unity 6.8.0-0ubuntu2
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
> Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
> NonfreeKernelModules: wl
> ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu3
> Architecture: amd64
> CompizPlugins:
> [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,vpswitch,snap,mousepoll,resize,place,move,wall,grid,regex,imgpng,session,gnomecompat,animation,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,workarounds,scale,expo,ezoom,unityshell]
> Date: Wed Oct 17 14:55:17 2012
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64
> (20120425)
> ProcEnviron:
> TERM=xterm
> PATH=(custom, no user)
> XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: unity
> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-04 (13 days ago)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gvfs/+bug/1067876/+subscriptions
>

This bug was fixed in the package udisks2 - 2.0.92-0ubuntu1

---------------
udisks2 (2.0.92-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  * New upstream release:
    - Add drive poweroff method, so that gvfs can power down hotplugged drives
      instead of just ejecting them. (LP: #1067876)
  * libudisks2-0.symbols: Add new symbols from this release.
  * mount_in_media.patch: Port redirection of "mounted-fs" storage to /var/lib
    to new code structure.
  * Drop test_luks_with_vfat.patch, current kernel has this fixed.
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Mon, 04 Mar 2013 08:02:09 +0100

> Is it possible tofix this bug in Quntal too?

Sorry but no, those updates include new version of several components which add new code and features, they are not suitable for stable updates

I use only LTS releases on my PCs, so I'm not affected by this bug at
everyday life.

I have Quantal on USB-flash for testing. There are 70+ users of Quantal,
which are affected by this bug.
As far I know Quantal is supported until 2014 April. I hope you can fix
this bug in Quantal using another method in near future.

> I have Quantal on USB-flash for testing. There are 70+ users of Quantal,
> which are affected by this bug.
> As far I know Quantal is supported until 2014 April. I hope you can fix
> this bug in Quantal using another method in near future.

It doesn't sound like a very effective use of developers' time to craft a separate temporary solution for an older release, when the problem is so easily worked around (just choose Unmount, then manually unplug the device). Personally, I'd rather people spent time on making Raring the best release it can be - it's under 8 weeks to release, even.

I agree about the effective use of developers' time. Nonetheless two points:
- In case a mounted drive contains multiple partitions, all would automatically be mounted. Then you should perform unmount for each partition separately which is repititive and boring. There might be options to override the default behavior but it is not expected an ordinary user know how.
- Generally when a bug is reported, it means software did not perform to expectations, left unattended it might show itself later - might return mightier.

I'm sorry, but this bug is not fixed in Raring (with latest proposed udisks2 2.0.92-0ubuntu2).

My USB flash is still powered after eject. My USB HDD did not spin down after unmount.
But if I manually enter in terminal the following command
"udisks --detach /dev/sdc"
flash led goes dark, HDD spins down.

I understand that it is not Ubuntu problem, it is an another example of Gnomers simplicity fashion.

> I'm sorry, but this bug is not fixed in Raring (with latest proposed udisks2 2.0.92-0ubuntu2).

right, gvfs didn't get rebuilt with the new udisks yet, that should happen when somebody updates gvfs to the current version

It's not just a matter of rebuilding gvfs, something else seems missing.

I tried to collect logs from commands
'udisks --monitor-detail'
'udisksctl monitor'
'gvfs-mount -o'
all they say that devices are not detached (they still powered) after pressing Eject button (if any) in Nautilus.

It seems that Dolphin is affected by this bug too.

I analyzed why USB sticks still show "Eject" instead of "Save removal", and send the analysis to https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=695281 . It turns out this is a really hard problem to work around, as USB sticks basically lie about themselves and there is no real information about whether a device has or hasn't removable media. But if I work around that particular bit, it works fine, so I suppose devices like iPods should now indeed show "Save removal". I'm closing the gvfs task again as the general issue is fixed now, and there is only that quirk for devices which lie about having removable media.

This bug was fixed in the package gvfs - 1.15.4-0ubuntu1

---------------
gvfs (1.15.4-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Rebuild against current udisks2 to enable can_stop. (LP: #1067876)
  * Drop debian/tests/gvfs-testbed, debian/tests/test_polkitd.py: Included
    upstream now. Change debian/tests/integration to call them in tests/.
  * Drop genisoimage test dependency, not needed any more by current test
    suite.
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:50:25 +0100

Thank you, Martin!

For more accurate results I made a clean install of Raring on external HDD.

I updated gvfs to the latest version (1.15.4-0ubuntu1).
For USB flashes I have "/sys/block/sdc/removable = 0" and
and 'gvfs-mount -o' reports on Eject (from Nautilus or Unity) "Volume removed" or "Mount removed", device is still powered.
udisksd[2274]: Unmounted /dev/sdc1 on behalf of uid 1000
/var/log/syslog: kernel: [ 2507.403900] sdc: detected capacity change from XXXXXXXXXXX to 0

If I send manually 'udisks --detach /dev/sdc' after which 'gvfs-mount -o' reports "Drive disconnected".
/var/log/syslog: kernel: [ 2694.313868] usb 3-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 25

For USB HDD I have "/sys/block/sdc/removable = 0" and
 'gvfs-mount -o' reports on "Safely remove" (from Nautilus) or "Safely remove parent drive" (from Unity) "Drive disconnected", but HDD is still rotating.
/var/log/syslog: kernel: [ 2954.171781] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, device number 29
So device is removed from the /dev filesystem. So I can't --detach it with 'udisks --detach /dev/sdc'.

It seems to be a complex problem between udisks2 and gvfs, etc.
Two weeks ago I tested Fedora 18 and OpenSuSe 12.2 - they have 'Safely remove' broken too.

I dont think that there is something wrong with my hardware. You can make tests and collect all logs on your machine and compare the results.

> For USB flashes I have "/sys/block/sdc/removable = 0" and

interesting, so your hardware isn't lying then, unlike my USB sticks :-) So on that one you still get "eject" instead of "safe removal"? Can you confirm that you plugged this in _after_ starting your desktop session? As a heuristics for "hotpluggable" vs. "builtin" gvfs now only offers safe removal for devices which appeared during a running session, not for devices which were already present at boot.

If that's ok, can you please do "udisksctl dump > /tmp/udisks.txt" and attach /tmp/udisks.txt here? (After plugging in that USB flash drive)

>>> For USB flashes I have "/sys/block/sdc/removable = 0" and
It seems I made a mistake when copying text. I have = 1 for them. I'm sorry.

I made a big work (4 usb flashes, 1 USB HDD + 3 laptops, 1 PC). I tested Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Ubuntu 13.04, Fedora 18, OpenSuse 12.3.
The results are not good: a have only one flash, which can be detached completely (with poweroff) with the newest Ubuntu 13.04.

The report is located in Google Docs, you can download and explore it (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dHJBalI2b09TQ2ZNOHJOQnhFbEVXaXc&usp=sharing).
On first sheet I wrote a summary for my devices (name, fdisk -l, lsusb, udisksctl dump, cat /sys/block/sdc/removable, comment).
On the second sheet I collected test results - on different machines, distros, with safely remove test by Nautilus, udisks and Unity.

I think we need more test results.
It's unbelievable, that almost all modern Linux distributions can't safely remove USB-flashes and spin down USB-HDDs.

In ubuntu 12.04 the "safely remove" option used to completely power off my external hard disk.There were no lights and it was sure that the hard disk was safe to remove.Also the disk would not be present the nautilus devices list.

But after i upgraded to 12.10 the "safely remove" option was not there.The "Unmount" option only dismounts the selected partition on the disk and does not power down the entire drive. The lights keep blinking and even the drive keeps spinning.
I wait for the drive to go to standby mode so that i can be sure to safely remove it.

Please fix this bug in 13.04..

Thank you, Ajitesh Madai!
It seems that all major distros are affected by this bug (see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dEtqbmhOVnJuVmRmOEx1QXpMSncwbEE&usp=sharing - you can add your flash or HDD model to this list too).
Only Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Gentoo stable (may be also SLED, Debian, Alt) do normal safely remove with powering off the device.

I saw something interesting with Nautilus 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu10:
it showed "Safely remove drive" for only 1 of my 5 flashes - Kingston DataTraveller G2 16 GB (USB VID/PID 0951:1624) and powered off it. It's a small progress.
It showed "Safely remove drive" for my USB-HDD (Seagate ST9750420A in USB Tsunami e-data 2500 enclosure), but did not spin down it.

I got similar results for Fedora 19 with Nautilus 3.8 (see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dEtqbmhOVnJuVmRmOEx1QXpMSncwbEE#gid=0).

+1 to my last comment (#69), it still does not work as expected.

Can anybody configrm that safely remove is not fixed this time?

Today I did a fresh install from ubuntu-13.04-beta2-desktop-i386.iso (md5 = 52a5b6d4db2abf327b94e732250b8ad1) and it is still affected by this bug.

Norbert, I have 13.04 beta running (64bit) and I only have the option to eject, not safely remove.

Thank you, Mark!
I have 32bit 13.04, it does not have safely remove option too.

Safely remove remains broken but nobody cares.
While 'udisks --detach' and 'bdin' works (not user-friendly).

Safely remove remains broken but nobody cares.
While 'udisks --detach' and 'bdin' works (not user-friendly).

(Again!)

I submitted this bug in October of 2012, and I'm surprised that this regression hasn't been fixed for 13.04.

I too have confirmed that the issue remains (currently) with only 3 days remaining before the release of Ubuntu13.04:
http://djazz.mine.nu/files/ubuntucountdown/

Congratulations, you brought this bug to 13.04 Raring Ringtail release!

@Norbert: please refrain from writting sarcastic comments there, the bug tracker is a medium to get work done, not to troll volunteers because they didn't work on your pet issues during their evenings. You are welcome to submit a patch as well if you want, the code is available

Thank you reply, Sebastien. I don't want to troll volunteers. I'm sorry.

I understand that problem is caused by fundamental changes in upstream (udisks, gvfs, nautilus, etc.) and that Ubuntu developers took buggy packages from upstream. I prefer LTS versions, I use 12.04.2 on 1 my PC and 2 laptops.

As original bug reporter stated, today is 04/2013 and bug was reported at 10/2012 - so where is a progress?
Bug exists in Fedora, OpenSuse, etc (see above).
It seems that nobody cared here and in upstream. This is a reason of my sarcasm.

> It seems that nobody cared here

well, that's a wrong assumption, I wouldn't be subscribed to this bug and wouldn't comment on it if I wasn't caring. See the number of the bug "1068786", it's over a million bugs registered on launchpad... not sure how many people care and work on those but it's probably in the magnitude of some hundreds, who do work on them on their free time or sometime on work time from companies, like Canonical, who give time and resources to improve Ubuntu.

Summary: there are ton to do, a limited number of people doing hard work. Trolling them for not doing enough, for you (and others), on their free time can be depressing.

This bug is very hot here, 94 users are affected.
It still exists in Fedora 18 and OpenSuSe 12.3.

Bug exists in Gnome 3.8 too (Ubuntu 13.04 with ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3, Fedora 19, OpenSuse Thumbleweed).

Please inform Gnome developers and fix this bug using joint efforts. I have already wrote to upstream.

What sort of devices are you using? eject should work just fine on usb stick? is there a real problem or just an user perception one? having some details on what the actual problem is, if there is one, would be useful. Eject should lead to the datas to be synced on the filesystem before eject and so not lead to any issue with the datas...

Hello, Sebastien!

I’ll summarize my posts here.

My main linux distro is Ubuntu 12.04 and I think that Ubuntu is the best distro and will fix the bug #1 soon :)

In Ubuntu 12.04, Gentoo stable, Debian 6 and Debian 7 safely remove works for both USB-flash and USB-HDD.

In Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 (even with Gnome 3.8 from ppa); OpenSuse 12.3 and Tumbleweed; Fedora 18 and 19; Sabayon 11 safely remove does not exist or does not work as before.

I did some tests at my free time for Ubuntu and linux community. It seems that this bug is not Ubuntu-oriented, it is distro-wide.

We have 94 users affected by this bug here (they does not make as much buzz as me) and some in other bug-trackers.

I tested 4 USB-flashes and 1 USB-HDD on different PCs and distros (see my table at Google Docs for product names and USB VIDs and PIDs - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dEtqbmhOVnJuVmRmOEx1QXpMSncwbEE#gid=0 ).

1. USB flashes
I understand that removing unmounted (and synced) flash is quite safely operation. But in 12.04 (and other distros) flash led switched off after Safely remove. For me it is more comfortable to remove flash which LED is switched off.

In Ubuntu 13.04 I see Safely remove entry for only one my USB flash (Kingston DataTraveller G2 16 GB), and it works as expected (after pressing Safely remove LED on flash switched off, flash is removed from lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks).

For 3 other flashes I see only Eject option. After pressing Eject LED on flash is switced on, flash is removed from fdisk -l, but still exists in lsusb and gnome-disks). After Eject I can not switch USB-flash manually (by udisks --detach).

2. USB HDDs
In Ubuntu 13.04 there is no way to spin down USB-HDD from GUI. I can spin down HDD only from console with udisks --detach. There is a Safely remove option in Nautilus window, but it does not spin down the drive. It removes drive from lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks, but plates are rotating. I understand that SATA HDD are hot-swappable, but it’s not comfortable for me to remove rotating hard-drive.

So I hope that convenient safely remove will be back in next releases of major distros and Ubuntu.

I prefer LTS versions of Ubuntu - I use 12.04, and safely remove works in it as I expect.
If you does not believe my results - you can repeat these tests by yourself.

And another issue from my point of view that Norbert forgot to mention -
when your external hard drive has several partitions (which I think is
quite common nowadays, with multi-TB sizes), there is no more an option to
remove the whole device with a single action. This used to be the "safely
remove drive" option.

Instead, one has to right-click -> eject every partition on it (quite
cumbersome for my 4 partitions, especially since I have to discern them by
name from my internal HD partitions used for Windows).

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Norbert <email address hidden>wrote:

> Hello, Sebastien!
>
> I’ll summarize my posts here.
>
> My main linux distro is Ubuntu 12.04 and I think that Ubuntu is the best
> distro and will fix the bug #1 soon :)
>
> In Ubuntu 12.04, Gentoo stable, Debian 6 and Debian 7 safely remove
> works for both USB-flash and USB-HDD.
>
> In Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 (even with Gnome 3.8 from ppa); OpenSuse 12.3
> and Tumbleweed; Fedora 18 and 19; Sabayon 11 safely remove does not
> exist or does not work as before.
>
> I did some tests at my free time for Ubuntu and linux community. It
> seems that this bug is not Ubuntu-oriented, it is distro-wide.
>
> We have 94 users affected by this bug here (they does not make as much
> buzz as me) and some in other bug-trackers.
>
>
> I tested 4 USB-flashes and 1 USB-HDD on different PCs and distros (see my
> table at Google Docs for product names and USB VIDs and PIDs -
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao5e713Ig9g_dEtqbmhOVnJuVmRmOEx1QXpMSncwbEE#gid=0).
>
> 1. USB flashes
> I understand that removing unmounted (and synced) flash is quite safely
> operation. But in 12.04 (and other distros) flash led switched off after
> Safely remove. For me it is more comfortable to remove flash which LED is
> switched off.
>
> In Ubuntu 13.04 I see Safely remove entry for only one my USB flash
> (Kingston DataTraveller G2 16 GB), and it works as expected (after
> pressing Safely remove LED on flash switched off, flash is removed from
> lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks).
>
> For 3 other flashes I see only Eject option. After pressing Eject LED on
> flash is switced on, flash is removed from fdisk -l, but still exists in
> lsusb and gnome-disks). After Eject I can not switch USB-flash manually
> (by udisks --detach).
>
> 2. USB HDDs
> In Ubuntu 13.04 there is no way to spin down USB-HDD from GUI. I can spin
> down HDD only from console with udisks --detach. There is a Safely remove
> option in Nautilus window, but it does not spin down the drive. It removes
> drive from lsusb, fdisk -l and gnome-disks, but plates are rotating. I
> understand that SATA HDD are hot-swappable, but it’s not comfortable for me
> to remove rotating hard-drive.
>
> So I hope that convenient safely remove will be back in next releases of
> major distros and Ubuntu.
>
> I prefer LTS versions of Ubuntu - I use 12.04, and safely remove works in
> it as I expect.
> If you does not believe my results - you can repeat these tests by
> yourself.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1081716).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
>
> Title:
>...

Hello, guys!
I have recently installed Debian Wheezy and installed Nautilus 3.8 from experimental (package 'nautilus_3.8.0-1_i386.deb' from here http://packages.debian.org/experimental/i386/nautilus/download) with
apt-get install -t experimental nautilus.

I found interesting moment. There is no udisks2 package in the system. Safely remove works as expected for both USB-flash (with all 5 my flashes) and USB-HDD. It's great!

Dražen Lučanin [2013-04-29 9:38 -0000]:
> And another issue from my point of view that Norbert forgot to mention -
> when your external hard drive has several partitions (which I think is
> quite common nowadays, with multi-TB sizes), there is no more an option to
> remove the whole device with a single action. This used to be the "safely
> remove drive" option.

That's not the case here, though. eject is supposed to unmount all
partitions and make all /dev/sdaN go away.

What's the matter with the developers of Nautilus? Under Ubuntu 13.04, I can no longer see all attached drives. Instead, 'Computer' now displays the root directory of the main drive, which is wrong. My mobile broadband dongle doesn't show up at all anymore and it seems to have been affected after constantly removing it without being able to eject it. I now have to use Disk Utility to eject it properly. If Disk Utility can see all attached devices and provide the ability to eject them, then why can't Nautilus anymore? Besides this big problem, the arrangement on the toolbar is so inconsistent and there is no status bar anymore to show the total number of items. Please restore essential functionality and provide a decent interface.

Hello, guys!

Bug is still exists in Ubuntu 12.10 and 13.04 (both are supported).

Bug is present in development branch (Saucy Salamander, 13.10) too.

Bug is present in development branch (Saucy Salamander, 13.10) Ubuntu GNOME too.

Bug is present in development branch (Saucy Salamander, 13.10) Ubuntu GNOME too. Tested today.

Regular Ubuntu 13.10 is still affected too.

Regular Saucy is still affected by this bug.

Ubuntu 13.10 GNOME is affected too.

I started seeing the "eject master device" option in the latest updates to
Ubuntu 13.04, which unmounts all the partitions.

On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Norbert <email address hidden> wrote:

> Ubuntu 13.10 GNOME is affected too.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1081716).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
>
> Title:
> Missing "Safely Remove Drive" option from Quicklists. Only have
> "Eject".
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gvfs/+bug/1067876/+subscriptions
>

>I started seeing the "eject master device" option in the latest updates to
>Ubuntu 13.04, which unmounts all the partitions.
It's good, Dražen.

But I mean normal safely remove which switches USB-flash LED off and spins down external USB-HDD.
This functionality is missed now (starting from Ubuntu 12.10).
But non-user-friendly "udisks --detach /dev/sdX" works normally.

OK, Norbert, I understand. I will also sleep easier once we get our "safely
remove" option back :)

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Norbert <email address hidden>wrote:

> >I started seeing the "eject master device" option in the latest updates to
> >Ubuntu 13.04, which unmounts all the partitions.
> It's good, Dražen.
>
> But I mean normal safely remove which switches USB-flash LED off and spins
> down external USB-HDD.
> This functionality is missed now (starting from Ubuntu 12.10).
> But non-user-friendly "udisks --detach /dev/sdX" works normally.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1081716).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
>
> Title:
> Missing "Safely Remove Drive" option from Quicklists. Only have
> "Eject".
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gvfs/+bug/1067876/+subscriptions
>

Bug is still here. It seems that 13.10 will have this bug.

Bug exists in Saucy final release.

Bug exists in Ubuntu 14.04 with all installed updates.

Bug still exists in Ubuntu 14.04 with all installed updates.

I'm seeing the safely remove option just fine in 13.10.

Thank you for good news, Phillip!
For what devices do you have safely remove option?
If it is USB-flash - did LED on it switched off after Safely Remove?
If it is USB-HDD - did it spinned-down after Safely Remove?

I tested 3 flashes and 2 USB-HDDs on Ubuntu 13.10 on Unity session.
Unity launcher and Nautilus showed Safely Remove only for my HDDs. After Safely remove they do not spin-down as were in 12.04. My USB-flashes have only Eject, after Eject they have LED on, which is not expected.
So for me Safely remove is still broken.

I tested with usb flash sticks, and yes, the light goes off after safely remove.

After you safe remote the hd, does the /dev/?da file still show up?

On Sat, 18 Jan 2014 20:59:06 -0000, you wrote:

Q> I'm seeing the safely remove option just fine in 13.10.
Q>

It is NOT working correctly. It does unmount a thumb drive but DOES
NOT POWER IT OFF. I know because my thumb drives have a power LED,
after 'Safely' removing, or unmounting, the LED is still on.

"Safely" remove works correctly in Windoze because it removes *power*
from the port.

Q> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
Q> report.
Q> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1067876
Q>
Q> Title:
Q> Missing "Safely Remove Drive" option from Quicklists. Only have
Q> "Eject".
Q>
Q> Status in GVFS:
Q> New
Q> Status in The Linux Mint Distribution:
Q> New
Q> Status in Nautilus:
Q> New
Q> Status in abstraction for enumerating and managing block devices:
Q> Won't Fix
Q> Status in Unity:
Q> Invalid
Q> Status in “gvfs” package in Ubuntu:
Q> Fix Released
Q> Status in “udisks2” package in Ubuntu:
Q> Fix Released
Q> Status in “udisks2” package in ALT Linux:
Q> Unknown
Q> Status in Fedora:
Q> Unknown
Q> Status in “nautilus” package in Gentoo Linux:
Q> New
Q> Status in “nautilus” package in Mandriva:
Q> Confirmed
Q> Status in openSUSE:
Q> Confirmed
Q>
Q> Bug description:
Q> In Ubuntu 12.04, I could right-click on my usb-external-harddrive's
Q> Unity-Task-Bar icon (launcher icon) and select "Safely Remove". Upon
Q> doing this, the icon would disappear and I would proceed in unplugging
Q> my external hard drive.
Q>
Q> However, since upgrading to Ubuntu 12.10, this option is no longer
Q> available in the context menus (Quicklists) for external drives.
Q>
Q> Instead, all I see is "Unmount", and after clicking "Unmount" the icon
Q> remains on the task-bar (launcher) and no indication is given that
Q> would imply that the unmount occurred successfully.
Q>
Q> The intent of this report is to bring back the "Safely Remove" option
Q> which (by making the icon disappear after selected) indicates that you
Q> may now safely removal your USB external hard drive (by unplugging its
Q> usb connector).
Q>
Q> ProblemType: Bug
Q> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Q> Package: unity 6.8.0-0ubuntu2
Q> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Q> Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
Q> NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Q> ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu3
Q> Architecture: amd64
Q> CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,vpswitch,snap,mousepoll,resize,place,move,wall,grid,regex,imgpng,session,gnomecompat,animation,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,workarounds,scale,expo,ezoom,unityshell]
Q> Date: Wed Oct 17 14:55:17 2012
Q> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
Q> ProcEnviron:
Q>  TERM=xterm
Q>  PATH=(custom, no user)
Q>  XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
Q>  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Q>  SHELL=/bin/bash
Q> SourcePackage: unity
Q> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-04 (13 days ago)
Q>
Q> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
Q> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gvfs/+bug/1067876/+subscriptions
--
=========== Tecknomage ===========
   Computer Systems Specialist
         IT Technician
           (retired)
  ...

Can you run tail -f -n 0 /var/log/syslog, then activate the safely remove option, and paste the output, and check to see if the /dev/sdX node is still present?

It seems that problem is fixed with the newest version udisks2 2.1.3-1 in Trusty.
From NEWS file:
      Send SCSI START STOP UNIT when powering down a drive (see this commit - http://cgit.freedesktop.org/udisks/commit/?id=fcdd8f48b6ac9b1b6da82fdf5f59230fc2ea6feb)
      udisksctl: add power-off verb to power off drives (see this commit - http://cgit.freedesktop.org/udisks/commit/?id=a54c2fa14c522487a78828d4a9dfd89f916a3576)

It spins down my USB-HDD with safely remove. It's great.

Please note:
   * with modern version of udisks2 "Safely remove drive" in Nautilus and "Safely remove parent drive" in Unity options are available only for USB-HDDs,
   * for USB-flashes there is only Eject option and it is normal.

I do not encounter the problem with 14.04 anymore.

This issue still affects me with 14.04, and usb eject option is not always normal.

For flash drives yes, but I have a usb camera and the eject option did not function as it did with 12.04. With 12.04 I used safely remove but with 14.04 I can only use eject and it severely corrupted the camera drive. Not cool.

So while eject may work normally for most flash drives, it does have the potential to cause problems.

Please bring back safely remove as it worked as it should in 12.04.

Dear sureau!
If you can please report the bug upstream (to Udisks Bugzilla, for example write a comment here -
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71802 ). The problem comes from this component, not Ubuntu itself.

Also I can recommend you to try GNOME Disk Utility (gnome-disks command).
For me it normally do Safe removal for my USB-HDD and USB-Flash.

Ubuntu 16.04 is also missing "Safely Remove Drive" option. Instead it has the "Eject" option, but after selecting this option on an ESATA external hard-drive it offers no feedback to indicate that the "ejection" was successfully.

Because of this, I always have to shutdown my computer before unplugging my ESATA external hard drive. Nothing else gives me any indication that it is safe to unplug it.

Upgraded to Kubuntu 16.04.1, same problem. Had to manually use udisksctl to power off external USB drive.

What project should be added to affected list? KDE base apps, plasma, kio..?