After minimizing a Nautilus window of another partition or external media or Trash folder, clicking on the "Files" icon on the Launcher again doesn't restore the minimized window, but opens a new one

Thank you for your bug report, is that under unity? Do you have specific steps to reproduce?

Sebastien, thank you for your response. Please read my bug report carefully. :) I think I provided the informations already.

ok, fair enough ;-)

kinda annoying,
i dual boot ubuntu 13.04 with win7 , nautilus attempt to open new window when i click the nautilus (nautilus in minimize mode), it happen when i browse win7 data drive but if i acces my home folder (or ubuntu drive) n minimize it, this problem not appear.
sorry about my english :D

Yes. The same happens to me: Any folder different from /home/myuser does that.

By the way: Can this new version of Nautilus show the status bar (in the lower right area, right under the list of files)?

Also: Can I set the 'tree view' in the folders located to the left?

Thanks in advance guys.

There's a workaround for this issue. Hover over the Nautilus launcher icon and scroll the mouse wheel. :)

Too late now. Using Thunar. Has no bugs (at least no Nautilu's ones), it's fast, has tree-view, shows previews of photos and videos...
Who needs Nautilus?

thanks for the tip skrumbholz . =)

I tried to give a look into the problem, even though i'm not expert in unity internals, GTK, desktop files, ecc. There is a big chaos. There is a transition going on between using nautilus.desktop and nautilus-home.desktop (apparently Unity used to use nautilus-home.desktop but is converging to the "standard" nautilus.desktop), as a result there are various .desktop files. There are also .desktop files for the mounted external drives (and launcher icons for external drives have strange / incosistent behaviour, by the way: when clicking on them the nautilus window that opens is 'assigned' to the nautilus launcher [the small arrow is on that] but the drive launcher still controls it: it can bring the window on foreground if it isn't).
On top of that, nautilus already has functions to determine if a specific location is already open, and in that case it avoids opening a new window for it (unless you use the --new-window parameter).

it happend to me too..
There is no any solution yet?

Also, when two windows is opened, it works as excepted

Just now I noticed that with directories mounted on /media (via a direct invokation of udisks in a script) nautilus works as expected. Well, at least for me, at least right now.

This bug also affects me when I have a Nautilus window of my external drive minimized. If I click the Nautilus icon, it simply opens a new window, instead of showing that minimized one. I'm not quite sure, but it seems to happen frequently with mounted devices.

I can confirm, that this bug can be reproduced in latest 13.04. Nautilus opens second instance, instead to recover the old one. It's always reproduced for me.

I have the same problem, in 13.04. i decided to use another file manager.until debug

I can no longer reproduce this bug in Saucy, the icon now works as expected. Can anyone else confirm this?

On 9/11/2013 5:44 AM, Adolfo Jayme Barrientos wrote:
> I can no longer reproduce this bug in Saucy, the icon now works as
> expected. Can anyone else confirm this?
>
Can't confirm, see the same in updated saucy,
To refresh -
Open nautilus, browse to any dir. mounted in /media/<username>/,then
minimize nautilus.
Clicking on the launcher icon opens a new nautilus window at user Home
instead of minimized window

In my saucy install this is still present. Just to confirm it is present in saucy.

Hey, all. I have a workaround on this. Try this. (Feedback, Please. I may lost some step.)
1. Use fstab to mount your (external) disk into another directory on /media . For example /media/disk
   a. Please use auto, (if ntfs) ntfs-3g as mount option.
2. Create a link of /media/disk and give it a name based on your username. Put this link on the same directory (e.g. /media/)
3. Well, try it now.
Well, I don't know that the bug I reported already exist.

This bug exists only if you pin Nautilus to panel.

I noticed this bug *after* the update to Saucy.

I noticed that if open at least 2 tabs in window (even if both tabs show contents of an external hard drive) - it will open and minimized as it should.
(Ubuntu 13.10)

Actually there is no need to minimize the original Nautilus window to reproduce this bug. All it takes is the Nautilus window loosing focus, e.g. when changing to another application and then attempting to get back to the Nautilus window showing an external drive.

Recently I've found that this bug also affects process windows while copying from an external drive - those windows cannot be accessed by clicking on nautilus' icon. Sometimes it gets focus when I click on external drive icon, sometimes it doesn't. Strange.

The same problem always happens to me. on 13.04 and after upgrade to 13.10. so always i have two nautilus windows. its hurt me.

Hey Marco, you worked on similar issues with the nautilus copy dialog in the past, do you want to have a look to this one?

I'm using 13.10. It seems to be somewhat related to this: http://askubuntu.com/q/235805/38137

If you click on the Hard Drive launcher icon, a folder window appears but the indicators show that it is a file window. If you then minimize this window, it appears to go to the "Files" launcher, but actually the correct way to restore it is to click on the Hard Drive launcher icon again.

This is ok (ok, perhaps a little confusing for the user - the indicator should really point to the Hard Drive launcher not the Files launcher when such a window is open) provided that the hard drive icon remains docked to the launcher. The real problem comes when you undock the Hard Drive/Partition's icon from the launcher - then you have the same behaviour with no reasonable alternative.

I hope this explanation makes sense.

I can confirm this bug is present also in Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit

I have 3 other partitions apart from Ubuntu 14.04 one, one of which is set in fstab to be automatically mounted at startup (and not by gvfsd). I've noticed the behavior mentioned in this bug applies for the other partitions, but not for this one. Maybe this info could be useful. Here is the relative fstab line:

UUID=4031F06913658C89 /mnt/DATI auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0

This bug exists in 14.04 (64 bit).
If I UNPIN nautilus from Launcher, it works like it should work.

And now.. In 13.10 workaround was to hover with mouse and scroll. But now that not possible for unfocused windows. Fkkk.

@Boza: See bug 1098578, that behavior is coming back as an option.

(Sorry, I meant bug 1288957.)

I can confirm what reported by EliCoten, If we click on the drive icon we get the last window minimized although there is no pointer on it.

Bug still exists in 14.04 64bit, no way to bring minimized nautilus to front

I can also confirm this is happening on 14.04 x64

I also confirm this bug on 14.04

Well, on my 14.04 (13.04->13.10->14.04) it's now working properly.

Bug still exists in 14.04 64 bit and very annoying.

I get the code (corresponding to my distro series), commented the section indicated in the diff file then compiled Unity with this guide: https://unity.ubuntu.com/getinvolved/development/unity/
And is working like a charm. If you are impatient like me I recomend you to do this. It's pretty easy.

*facepalm*

For the guys who can‘t compile Unity, I just made a binary patch to fix this. It's safe and fast to use without side effects.
Please comment on the gist if you have any suggest.

https://gist.github.com/CzBiX/8608f3520b92a77c79e0

PS: This patch only support 15.10 64bit right now.

This annoying problem has been finally solved for me; THANKS A MILLION TO CzBix :-)
I hope the developers up there incorporate this soon.

[angry rant]
I'm really getting sick of people fighting about whether this is a bug or not (despite there being no other application that I've seen that has this behavior), and changing tags, and submitting patches, and rejecting patches, and there being like 20 duplicate bugs of this and over 300 affected people, AND YET IT'S STILL NOT FIXED. This bug has existed for over TWO YEARS.

Does Canonical even TRY to fix bugs? For instance, the bug where Unity freezes when dragging windows between workspaces (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1301623)? Also, since I've upgraded to 15.10, there's been a double menu bar thing in VLC (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vlc/+bug/1510624), as well as another issue (not sure if it's just me or what) where VLC seems to crash sometimes when opening files in VLC from Nautilus too fast. (I would say I'm just opening files too fast except that this worked fine in 15.04.) As well as BREAKING NANO (!) in 15.10 because of something with the new file locking system that no one really needs (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nano/+bug/1509081). (Also, yay, more hidden crap in my home directory to make the list of hidden files there even longer than it already is.) That one appears to have been fixed upstream but not yet released to the channels as an update. And in Ubuntu 15.04, removing "Open in new tab" from Terminal and replacing this with a "New terminal" option that you need to change what it does in the preferences in order to be able to open a new tab without having to use keyboard shortcuts, what the hell? Same reaction for no longer being able to bookmark something by dragging it to the sidebar in Nautilus and instead having to go to the Bookmarks menu. And LOL the Jayatana thing that they eventually had to disable in an update. I already had disabled that myself and manually re-enabled it in Eclipse when I got sick of seeing spam in my output console whenever I launched any Java program I had written.
Additionally, it seems random when I open a text file as to whether it opens in a new tab inside the currently open gedit window or in a new separate gedit window instead. Same for opening tabs in incognito mode in Chromium.

I really do like the Unity concept and the way it was intended to work, but it's stupid crap like this that ruins the whole experience. Please, someone explain to me why, when there are hundreds of Ubuntu-based spinoffs, there is only ONE (Leeenux, which appears to use a DE based on a continuation of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix that eventually turned into Unity) that uses Unity as the default desktop environment.
[/angry rant]

I will give you my "Unity Team's study" plus a link to the Big Bug Bonanza initiative:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxrljVxXN2upRERERWRJcmdtY1U/view?usp=sharing
http://www.whizzy.org/2015/09/big-bug-bonanza-16-04-lts/

Read this:
"Over the years the bug lists for Unity 7 and Compiz have grown to become unmanageable. To make sure we are focusing on the most important issues we have to do some serious tidying up of the bug lists and we need some help.

At the time of writing there are 2680 open bugs for Unity 7 ...."

I hope this answer your question. Regards.

I fount temporarily solution, which is not fix the source of the problem, yet at least improves the user experience...
Hover the mouse over the Nautilus icon in the launcher, and roll the mouse wheel down/up, it should switch to the Naulitus window without open new instance of it.

omg, it's still here

This behaviour is very annoying.

Yes it's still here.....

Please indicate the version you are using. This will be probably fixed in 16.04. I'm afraid it won't be fixed in older versions.

For more info see bugs:

#1063838
#1161323

So, no chance getting it fixed for 14.04 LTS ?
it's a pain if you have to work with external harddrives a lot ...

Marco Trevisan wrote:

"Now the launcher will link each nautilus window to the related volume or trash
icon, while the Nautilus launcher icon will only be active if the file manager is
browsing other locations.
It's now possible to manage sub-windows from the parent icon like it happens for
every other application (so even spreading them or select from QL)"

@florians I do not know. Just update in april.

It seems like this was fixed in Xenial with unity 7.4.0+16.04.20160209.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (7.4.0+16.04.20160209.3-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * debian: Recommends session-shortcuts, prodiving easy way to
    shutdown, reboot and logout from dash

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * CMake: use GNUInstallDirs with native multi-arch support
    (LP: #1508635, #1485668)
  * Launcher: add FileManager, Trash and Volume icons integration
    (LP: #1524721, #1161323, #1063838, #1063823)
  * SwitcherModel: avoid to access to invalid selection or to divide by
    zero (LP: #1537524)

  [ handsome_feng ]
  * Extend the lockscreen theme for kylin.

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Tue, 09 Feb 2016 12:21:15 +0000

It might be fixed now but not in a very good way.
Now a new launcher item gets created every time I change the location in Nautilus to another partition. And that item dissapears when I move to a location on the root partition. So one second I have the focus on the top of the launcher the other second I have on the bottom of it. It keeps changing all the time depending on the partition that I'm on.
Usabilitiy-wise it's pretty bad and frustrating.

Well, this is a mess. I use a NTFS partition for my files and if I open
Trash I have 3 differents icons for the same program.
Files, or Nautilus, it's one program and should work like any other
program. 1 icon for each program instead of 1 icon for each windows of the
same program.
El abr. 26, 2016 13:16, "Mathew Hodson" <email address hidden> escribió:

It seems like this was fixed in Xenial with unity
7.4.0+16.04.20160209.3-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (7.4.0+16.04.20160209.3-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * debian: Recommends session-shortcuts, prodiving easy way to
    shutdown, reboot and logout from dash

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * CMake: use GNUInstallDirs with native multi-arch support
    (LP: #1508635, #1485668)
  * Launcher: add FileManager, Trash and Volume icons integration
    (LP: #1524721, #1161323, #1063838, #1063823)
  * SwitcherModel: avoid to access to invalid selection or to divide by
    zero (LP: #1537524)

  [ handsome_feng ]
  * Extend the lockscreen theme for kylin.

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Tue, 09 Feb 2016 12:21:15
+0000

** Changed in: unity (Ubuntu)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Released

--
You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
duplicate bug report (1173223).
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1170647

Title:
  After minimizing a Nautilus window of another partition or external
  media or Trash folder, clicking on the "Files" icon on the Launcher
  again doesn't restore the minimized window, but opens a new one

Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
  Triaged
Status in Unity:
  In Progress
Status in unity package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in unity source package in Trusty:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  *******
   ISSUE
  *******

  HOW TO REPRODUCE

  1. Connect a removable media to the computer.
  2. On the launcher, click on the "Files" icon.
  3. On the left sidebar, click on the removable media icon or the trash.
  4. Minimize the window.
  5. Click on the "Files" icon.

  EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR

  - The Files window to be maximized.

  REAL BEHAVIOUR

  - A new window is opened.

  RELEVANT DETAILS

  - One way to navigate between windows at this moment is to use the
  "control + tabulation" key combination, or to click again on the
  "Files" icon so windows are exposed.

  Otherwise the minimized window Can be restored by clicking on the
  Volume's launcher icon or scrolling on the Files icon

  **********
   SOLUTION
  **********

  WORK-AROUND

  - On the launcher, left click on the "Files" icon and select the
  "unlock from Launcher" option.

  - Or hover the mouse over the Nautilus icon in the launcher, and roll
  the mouse wheel down/up, it should switch to the Naulitus window
  without open new instance of it.

  FIX

  - The launcher icon for "Files" to be treated the same way as if it
  was unlocked.

  REGRESSION POTENTIAL

  - Clicking on the "Files" icon won't send the user to its home folder,
  but to the latest opened Files window.

  ****************
   TECHNICAL INFO
  ****************

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
  Package: nautilus 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3...

So, what is affected. If we open Home, a pendrive volumen and Trash we have
3 icons for the same program. Files in tip of laincher and the rest at the
end. It's insane.
El abr. 26, 2016 13:41, "Marco Trevisan (Treviño)" <mail@3v1n0.net>
escribió:

> ** No longer affects: unity
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1233147).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1170647
>
> Title:
> After minimizing a Nautilus window of another partition or external
> media or Trash folder, clicking on the "Files" icon on the Launcher
> again doesn't restore the minimized window, but opens a new one
>
> Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
> Triaged
> Status in unity package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Released
> Status in unity source package in Trusty:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> *******
> ISSUE
> *******
>
> HOW TO REPRODUCE
>
> 1. Connect a removable media to the computer.
> 2. On the launcher, click on the "Files" icon.
> 3. On the left sidebar, click on the removable media icon or the trash.
> 4. Minimize the window.
> 5. Click on the "Files" icon.
>
> EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
>
> - The Files window to be maximized.
>
> REAL BEHAVIOUR
>
> - A new window is opened.
>
> RELEVANT DETAILS
>
> - One way to navigate between windows at this moment is to use the
> "control + tabulation" key combination, or to click again on the
> "Files" icon so windows are exposed.
>
> Otherwise the minimized window Can be restored by clicking on the
> Volume's launcher icon or scrolling on the Files icon
>
> **********
> SOLUTION
> **********
>
> WORK-AROUND
>
> - On the launcher, left click on the "Files" icon and select the
> "unlock from Launcher" option.
>
> - Or hover the mouse over the Nautilus icon in the launcher, and roll
> the mouse wheel down/up, it should switch to the Naulitus window
> without open new instance of it.
>
> FIX
>
> - The launcher icon for "Files" to be treated the same way as if it
> was unlocked.
>
> REGRESSION POTENTIAL
>
> - Clicking on the "Files" icon won't send the user to its home folder,
> but to the latest opened Files window.
>
> ****************
> TECHNICAL INFO
> ****************
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
> Package: nautilus 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-18.28-generic 3.8.6
> Uname: Linux 3.8.0-18-generic i686
> ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Fri Apr 19 11:33:13 2013
> EcryptfsInUse: Yes
> GsettingsChanges:
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'814x493+136+38'"
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'sidebar-width' b'182'
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-07-23 (635 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110426)
> MarkForUpload: True
> SourcePackage: nautilus
> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-04-14 (4 days ago)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/1170647/+subscriptions
>

In deed it's got very... interesting:

1) I right click the Home/Files icon on Launcher and click Documents (which is a bookmark for "/home/sadi/Documents" which is simply a symbolic link to folder named Documents on my NTFS partition), and I have the Home (nautilus) icon displayed as active.

2) I right click the Home/Files icon again and this time click a quicklist item for a subfolder of Documents but this time entered as "/media/sadi/Data/Documents/Archive", and then an icon for the Data partition appears below the "Show Desktop" icon with nautilus window having two tabs -- thanks to a script to prevent opening a new window) and Home icon is no longer displayed as active.

3) I click the Trash icon, and a new nautilus window opens with the Trash icon at the very bottom displayed as active (which is the only good thing in this new design it seems)

4) I right click the Home/Files icon once again and this time click a quicklist item for a subfolder under home folder (e.g. "~/.local/share/applications"); suddenly nautilus surrenders and decides to merge all in one window, with only the Home/Folder icon displayed as active... but wait, the Trash contents is displayed nowhere... So I have to click the Trash icon again, and finally everything (almost) looks more sensible: Trash icon is shown active, and Home/Files icon is shown active, with 3 tabs for 3 folders on 2 partitions (as long as you don't attempt to open a folder on a 3rd partition ;-)

I don't think this issue can be ignored at all although I'm not sure who should solve it: Gnome or Ubuntu developers?

@Adam Niedling - I agree that even though it's slightly less annoying than before, the new 16.04 behavior is still not very good.

Under Ubuntu 15.10 (15.04 too) the bug can be solve changing the mount
setting from Disc Utility app.
El abr. 26, 2016 21:50, "Hitechcomputergeek" <email address hidden>
escribió:

> @Adam Niedling - I agree that even though it's slightly less annoying
> than before, the new 16.04 behavior is still not very good.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1233147).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1170647
>
> Title:
> After minimizing a Nautilus window of another partition or external
> media or Trash folder, clicking on the "Files" icon on the Launcher
> again doesn't restore the minimized window, but opens a new one
>
> Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
> Triaged
> Status in unity package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Released
> Status in unity source package in Trusty:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> *******
> ISSUE
> *******
>
> HOW TO REPRODUCE
>
> 1. Connect a removable media to the computer.
> 2. On the launcher, click on the "Files" icon.
> 3. On the left sidebar, click on the removable media icon or the trash.
> 4. Minimize the window.
> 5. Click on the "Files" icon.
>
> EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
>
> - The Files window to be maximized.
>
> REAL BEHAVIOUR
>
> - A new window is opened.
>
> RELEVANT DETAILS
>
> - One way to navigate between windows at this moment is to use the
> "control + tabulation" key combination, or to click again on the
> "Files" icon so windows are exposed.
>
> Otherwise the minimized window Can be restored by clicking on the
> Volume's launcher icon or scrolling on the Files icon
>
> **********
> SOLUTION
> **********
>
> WORK-AROUND
>
> - On the launcher, left click on the "Files" icon and select the
> "unlock from Launcher" option.
>
> - Or hover the mouse over the Nautilus icon in the launcher, and roll
> the mouse wheel down/up, it should switch to the Naulitus window
> without open new instance of it.
>
> FIX
>
> - The launcher icon for "Files" to be treated the same way as if it
> was unlocked.
>
> REGRESSION POTENTIAL
>
> - Clicking on the "Files" icon won't send the user to its home folder,
> but to the latest opened Files window.
>
> ****************
> TECHNICAL INFO
> ****************
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
> Package: nautilus 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-18.28-generic 3.8.6
> Uname: Linux 3.8.0-18-generic i686
> ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Fri Apr 19 11:33:13 2013
> EcryptfsInUse: Yes
> GsettingsChanges:
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'814x493+136+38'"
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'sidebar-width' b'182'
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-07-23 (635 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110426)
> MarkForUpload: True
> SourcePackage: nautilus
> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-04-14 (4 days ago)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/1170647/+subscriptions
>

If you are unsatisfied, file a new bug as a feature request.

Well, me and another users like me are unsatisfied. And I've files this bug
a few years ago and now the bug as become a feature. And 3 icons for the
same program it's a pretty extrange "feature".
El abr. 29, 2016 13:36, "Rodrigo" <email address hidden> escribió:

> If you are unsatisfied, file a new bug as a feature request.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1173223).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1170647
>
> Title:
> After minimizing a Nautilus window of another partition or external
> media or Trash folder, clicking on the "Files" icon on the Launcher
> again doesn't restore the minimized window, but opens a new one
>
> Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
> Triaged
> Status in unity package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Released
> Status in unity source package in Trusty:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> *******
> ISSUE
> *******
>
> HOW TO REPRODUCE
>
> 1. Connect a removable media to the computer.
> 2. On the launcher, click on the "Files" icon.
> 3. On the left sidebar, click on the removable media icon or the trash.
> 4. Minimize the window.
> 5. Click on the "Files" icon.
>
> EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR
>
> - The Files window to be maximized.
>
> REAL BEHAVIOUR
>
> - A new window is opened.
>
> RELEVANT DETAILS
>
> - One way to navigate between windows at this moment is to use the
> "control + tabulation" key combination, or to click again on the
> "Files" icon so windows are exposed.
>
> Otherwise the minimized window Can be restored by clicking on the
> Volume's launcher icon or scrolling on the Files icon
>
> **********
> SOLUTION
> **********
>
> WORK-AROUND
>
> - On the launcher, left click on the "Files" icon and select the
> "unlock from Launcher" option.
>
> - Or hover the mouse over the Nautilus icon in the launcher, and roll
> the mouse wheel down/up, it should switch to the Naulitus window
> without open new instance of it.
>
> FIX
>
> - The launcher icon for "Files" to be treated the same way as if it
> was unlocked.
>
> REGRESSION POTENTIAL
>
> - Clicking on the "Files" icon won't send the user to its home folder,
> but to the latest opened Files window.
>
> ****************
> TECHNICAL INFO
> ****************
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
> Package: nautilus 1:3.6.3-0ubuntu16
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-18.28-generic 3.8.6
> Uname: Linux 3.8.0-18-generic i686
> ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Fri Apr 19 11:33:13 2013
> EcryptfsInUse: Yes
> GsettingsChanges:
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'814x493+136+38'"
> b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'sidebar-width' b'182'
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-07-23 (635 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110426)
> MarkForUpload: True
> SourcePackage: nautilus
> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to raring on 2013-04-14 (4 days ago)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/1170647/+subscriptions
>

martincasc: could you just stop including the whole bug report in every single one of your posts? Just look at how ugly you're making this page: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1170647

@Rodrigo, I don't think that whatever was done truly fixes the bug. This was a very bad GUI interface issue to begin with, i.e. users have expected behavior A, got behavior B instead, there was not an actual crash involved. What the users expected in this case was for the Trash, Files, and Media icons to lead to an already-opened window of Nautilus / file browser, opening a new tab when necessary. Instead of implementing behavior A, the fix came up with behavior C, which is somewhere in-between behaviors A and B, but it doesn't resolve the original issue, i.e. a separate window is still opened in many cases.

I propose to keep this bug open and revert the status to in-progress for unity, until the *desired* behavior is fully implemented. I think it would be very bad if unity developers don't take into account the wishes of the community in this case. If the unity team doesn't think this should be the default behavior, then they should provide an option to easily switch from what they think the behavior should be to this one, and let people know, and only then mark this as resolved/fixed.

All, please let us know if you think what I'm proposing is reasonable.

I think the new behavior to treat the Trash different from any other nautilus window(s) does make sense.

In addition, treating each removable media likewise (with appropriate "removable media icon" displayed on the Launcher" might also make sense (unless opened from within an existing window).

However, opening a new window for any folder in any part of the fixed disk(s) although there's already a window open (although minimized) is too much IMHO, and I'm in favor of regarding this behavior as a bug.

Well, treating the trash different from any other nautilus windows could
make sense, but not in the rest of cases. Open your home folder, mount your
NTFS partition (a lot of users like me does) and mount your pendrive unit
and you'll have 3 icons for the same windows.-
This behavior IMHO it's too far from been user friendly, to far for be
coherent.

​​

Let's see if we can reach a consensus.

***Desired default behavior:***

Files icon -> switches to existing window if one is open
Trash -> opens new window
Removable media (flash drives, cameras, etc.) -> opens new window
Hard drive partitions -> opens new tab in existing window

***+ Options in the settings:***
-What does the files icon do: maximize existing window if possible | open a new tab with home folder in existing window | opens a new window with home folder
-What does the trash icon do: open trash in new tab of existing window | open trash in new window
-What do removable media icons do: open media in new tab of existing window | open media in new window
-What do hard drive partition icons do: open partition in new tab of existing window | open partition in new window

If anyone disagrees that this would be a true fix for this 'bug', please let us know!

I only know that I don't want the nautilus icons jump all around the place depending on the currently selected partition. I made a video about this too!

Agree.
Actually Nemo works better, coherente and more consistent.
I'm not saying you have to install it, I'm saying that after install it you
will have only one icon on the launcher, except if you open another windows.
That's the correct and normal behavior, IMHO.

Adam, that's because you blacklisted that device icon from staying pinned to the launcher.

But as it was an un-pinned app, once you open it it has to stay to the launcher. The same behavior would apply to an app that you open and close.
I don't think that grouping it with nautilus is the right solution in that case... It would probably easy to do it (patches with optional settings welcome, and I can help you guys to go through the codebase), but I don't see this as being coherent.

As general consideration, I think the simple association is:

The fact that nautilus can have a tabbed view makes things harder. I actually supported tabs in my initial implementation, but there was the problem where a window was matched by multiple icons, and I think this was wrong (what to do if you had multiple locations opened, from the same devices, spread around multiple windows and tabs, when activating the "app/device" window spread/scale?).
So the thing was just simplify it by considering only the main (active) view of a nautilus window.

The fact that there are multiple launcher icons for different device locations, it's just as it has to be. We didn't want to patch nautilus aggressively in order to be more "locked" in this scenario, thus there could be some odd behaviors, but I think all this allows to manage things quite well for the average user.

Marco: Yes, if I pin it to the launcher then it won't dissapear. But. The behaviour remains the same, the focus will still jump back and forth between the top Nautilus icon and the lower HDD icon. And if the focus is on the Nautilus icon and if I click on the HDD icon then a new window will open.
This isn't good anyhow.

So, what's the new behavior? I too find the current 16.04 behavior (of having new icons for mounted NTFS drives) quite unintuitive.

Hi.

I'm using 14.04 and i really don't like the way that the files work when the trash or an external drive are open.

This is how i think it should work:

No applications open.

You press the trash or an external drive icon and it should open a files window and light up the files and trash/external drive icon.

If you press the files icon or thrash/external it should focus the files window and not open a new files window. If you want a new files window you should press the middle button or press the mouse right button and choose new window.

If you press the trash button and then an external drive button, It should open a new tab on the files with the external drive contents.

If you press the trash button and then press the middle click button on the external drive it should open a new files window with the external drive contents.

What is the best way to propose this solution to the developers?

Thanks and sorry for my English.

I also think the current behaviour with external drives and NFS shares is not natural and unintuitive. I do not think the window's icon should change depending on what location is being browsed in the window.

When using tabs, it really is annoying because depending on which tab was focused when you left the window, the location of the icon in the sidebar changes. This implies almost systematically a loss of time when I want to go back to that window later on.

When I open a mounted drive, it is opened in Nautilus, is it not? So then why would it not show that window under the Nautilus icon? That's the mental association I make, anyway: if it's a folder, it's under the Nautilus icon. Now, I have to stop and remember in what device the folder in question is, so that I can determine which icon I should click to bring that window to front.

If there is an option to make it group all Nautilus windows under the Nautilus icon, I'd very much like to know how to enable it. If there isn't one, I for one think there should be.

Regarding tabs, I'd rather have different windows (grouped under the Nautilus icon), instead of multiple tabs in the same window. That way I can go to the Nautilus window with the folder I want from Alt-Tab or the Nautilus icon, instead of having to switch to Nautilus and then to the tab I want. I have been using Ubuntu for years, and I could count in the fingers of one hand how many times I actually opened a new tab in an existing Nautilus window.

Then again, I have no problem with tabs on my web browser (more often than not I have a single browser window with several tabs), so maybe it's just a matter of getting used to using tabs instead of separate windows.

Still, having all Nautilus windows under a single icon on Unity (even if as an option that is disabled by default) is a must, IMO.

This is now affecting me on 16.04 =.=

I'm having this bug again.

I've opened a new report for this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1629651

Please click "This bug affects me" if that's the case, so that the Ubuntu developers see it.

I just wanted to say that anyone who still has this bug (like me), the workaround by Sadi Yumuşak (sa-yu) worked. (Thank you!)

Here's it

1. cp "/usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop" ~/.local/share/applications/files.desktop
2. Create ~/.config/autostart/fsck-nautilus.desktop containing (or create it via Ubuntu's autostart configurator):

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=sh -c "~/fsck-nautilus.sh"
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=Nautilus fix
Name=Nautilus fix
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=

3. chmod +x ~/.config/autostart/fsck-nautilus.desktop
4. Check in Ubuntu autostart that it's enabled.
5. Create "~/fsck_nautilus.sh" containing:

sleep 10
nautilus -q
sleep 5
nautilus -q

gtk-launch files.desktop

Man, I hate you can't edit. At 5. the file should have been called "~/fsck-nautilus.sh"