org.freedesktop.Dbus error while trying to erase USB key with Startup disk creator

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

I noticed what appears to be symptoms of https://bugs.launchpad.net/udisks/+bug/689593 when this happened. This bug might depend on that...

In my case this error appears only when I try to erase USB HDD (80 GB) with Startup Disk Creator (in Ubuntu 12.10).
When I try to erase USB Flash sticks (1 GB or 2 GB) with Startup Disk Creator (in Ubuntu 12.10) it's OK, no errors.

Oh, and shortly after the first error, a second error pops up, even if you already closed the startup disk creator:
"Sorry, the program "udisks-daemon" closed unexpectedly

Your computer does not have enough free memory to automatically analyze the problem and send a report to the developers."

See attached screenshot.

I'm having the exact same problems. Seems that all 8GB of my RAM was gobbled during the bug reporting so was unable to send it.

Feels like the same problem:
When trying to erase an USB-stick with usb-creator-kde the following happens:

udisks-helper-m 95% CPU
udisks-daemon 85% CPU

And the message: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. shows up in a pop-up window.

Killing the daemons, removing and inserting the USB-stick, followed by manually erasing the contents makes it possible to then create the bootable usb-drive with the usb-creator-kde tool.

I ran into this issue as well but through a specific route: I just tried to select the image while it was trying to erase the disk. That somehow canceled the erasing, according to startup-disk-creator, but left it in the inconsistent state described here.

I realize that the program let's me try to select an iso while it is in the middle of erasing is probably a different bug, but fixing this should take care of that indirectly.

I stumbled upon this bug when erasing USB-key with Startup Disk Creator, and found out following:

These commands consume 100% CPU:
/usr/lib/udisks/udisks-daemon
udisks-helper-modify-partition /dev/sdb 1048576 7962886144 0x0c boot

When stracing processes of those commands, both are stuck printing couple of strings over and over again:
"Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!\nnew_size=7962886144 but resulting size, 7961022464, smaller than requested\n"

I'll be happy to provide more information if needed.

If I don't enter my password after clicking on Erase I get the following error message:
org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.dbus.exceptions.DBusException: com.ubuntu.USBCreator.Error.NotAuthorized

After that the Erase button remains disabled and the little circular thing keeps going around.
top does not show any udisk activity.

Maybe this should be reported as a different bug.

I've tried with three different USB sticks, couple of different partition tables and several partition sizes. No luck, every time outcome is non-working boot media.

still broken

Duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udisks/+bug/694060

A workaround for this bug:

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=1
$ sudo blockdev --rereadpt /dev/sdb

After zeroing out the first megabyte erasing of the usb disk works.

It is related to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/458334

I just tried to erase an USB stick with Ubuntu 14.04 and it was working fine. Can anyone confirm?

Still present in 13.10, workaround quoted by @deric works.

<whine>
How on earth is it that something as simple as creating a damn USB disk can be made so grossly absurdly difficult? "Affects 66 people"? FOR REAL?? And the quoted bug affects 83 people?

These are people trying to install Ubuntu! And they are people which actually manages to complain here? How many are really affected by this, possibly giving up?
</whine>

I was able to get around this problem by executing usb-creator-gtk using the following command:

sudo usb-creator-gtk --allow-system-internal

Be careful that you choose the correct device to erase, but this should be a viable workaround until a fix is found.

Endre Stølsvik (stolsvik) : So true

This is my error 2014-11-05

org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.AttributeError: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/service.py", line 707, in _message_cb
    retval = candidate_method(self, *args, **keywords)
  File "/usr/share/usb-creator/usb-creator-helper", line 218, in Format
    parent_dev = _get_parent_object(udisks, device)
  File "/usr/share/usb-creator/usb-creator-helper", line 49, in _get_parent_object
    parent = partition.get_cached_property('Table').get_string()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'get_cached_property'

It would be cool if an operating system could create a bootable usb-stick 2014