# KDE, HAL, Pmount, media:/ -- floppy won't display contents

## DaneM

Hello, all.

I have enabled pmount and HAL according to a page on the Gentoo wiki site.  All my drives are detected properly (no fstab entry), except for my floppy drive.  When I put in a floppy in the drive, go to media:/ in konqueror, and click on the floppy icon, it will read from the drive (LED lights up), then it won't display anything.  If I hit the Back button or restart konqueror, the floppy drive icon has disappeared.  I can use the terminal to view and change the files in /media/floppy, and unmount it as necessary.

Another anomaly: Sometimes the floppy drive does not disappear from media:/.  Instead, when I click on it, it will have the same behavior as before, bit will create another floppy directory in /media (floppy-1, floppy-2, etc.), and mount the drive there.  Repeating the process causes yet more directories to be created.

This has been a problem in KDE-3.5.2 and now KDE 3.5.5.

Please help.

Thanks!

--Dane

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## bernard604

I can't get it to work either. The only way I can mount floppies is to use the mtools method.

1) Emerge mtools

2) enter "floppy:/a" into Konqueror.

It may not be elegant, but it works.

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## DaneM

At least I'm not the only one.  :-p  I've made an device icon on the desktop, and that icon is able to mount and unmount things, but for some reason I can't do it through media:/.  Hopefully somebody will come along and enlighten us.   :Smile: 

--Dane

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## gtroland

Intersting -- I'm having a similar problem with my DVD burner.  Udev sees the device just fine.  Hal seems to recognize that media has been put in the device, but KDE sees it as blank until I explicitly mount it.

I don't have a floppy drive, but my flashdrive works perfectly.  Everything sees the flashdrive right away, and I can use it without any problems or further action required.

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## acarstoiu

I can confirm the thing with the floppy drive - it cannot be accessed but through the command line (mount/umount).

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## acarstoiu

To interested parties: kde-base/kdebase-3.5.5-r3 breaks any media:/ access, not just to floppies. Waisted a lot of time to find that out   :Mad: 

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## drizzt

For all who want to know:

It breaks it not REALLY, just doesn't open the correct system-folder...

While debugging i found the following procedure:

1) try to access as usual -> you will see no content

2) open konqueror

3) go to /media/<whatever your device may be>

4) viola your content

conclusion:

(auto-)mounting works; kde doesn't recognize, but device is usable

downside: unmounting of device is much more compilcated

Hopefully this gets fixed soon   :Rolling Eyes: 

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## acarstoiu

KDE 3.5.6 fixes the issues exposed here.

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## drizzt

ack

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## gtroland

 *acarstoiu wrote:*   

> To interested parties: kde-base/kdebase-3.5.5-r3 breaks any media:/ access, not just to floppies. Waisted a lot of time to find that out  

 I think you may be mistaken about that.  The problem recently dissappeared for me after an update that brought in hal-0.5.7.1-r3 and dbus-1.0.2.  I'm pretty sure that's where the fix was, but I'm not sure which one (or both) needed to be updated.

Anyway, kdemediamanager now handles my DVD burner correctly with KDE 3.5.5-r3 -- BTW, the only problem I was having was with DVD+RW media.  The burner handled DVD-ROM and CD+RW media just fine, even before the fix.

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## acarstoiu

Well, no. The fix was made in KDE. This is what genlop shows to me (excerpts):

```
Mon Jan 22 14:59:37 2007 >>> sys-apps/hal-0.5.7.1-r3

Fri Feb  2 10:58:50 2007 >>> sys-apps/hal-0.5.7.1-r4

Fri Dec 15 02:15:57 2006 >>> sys-apps/dbus-1.0.2
```

So I have been running those versions you mention since quite some time.

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## gtroland

 *acarstoiu wrote:*   

> Well, no. The fix was made in KDE. This is what genlop shows to me (excerpts):
> 
> ```
> Mon Jan 22 14:59:37 2007 >>> sys-apps/hal-0.5.7.1-r3
> 
> ...

 Well then, we still have to figure out why it started working for me after I updated hal and Dbus without updating my KDE.  It is possible that none of KDE, hal or Dbus is responsible for the problem or the fix.

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## acarstoiu

Are we talking about the floppy drive here   :Question:   'Cause that's the subject   :Wink: 

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## gtroland

 *acarstoiu wrote:*   

> Are we talking about the floppy drive here    'Cause that's the subject  

 You said:  *Quote:*   

> kde-base/kdebase-3.5.5-r3 breaks any media:/ access, not just to floppies. 

 I was just reporting that my experience was differant.

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