# USB does not mount [solved]

## Gustav IV

Hi everyone!

I am trying to get a usb stick to mount on my system but nothing gets recognized.

When I try to launch the Removable Drives and Media configuration tool from System-> Preferences, I am meet with a no entry symbol and the following message in a window:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Volume management not supported
> 
> The "hald" service is required but not currently running. Enable the service and rerun this application, or contact your system administrator.
> ...

 

The kernel I am using is Linux-2.6.19-gentoo-r5, so that shouldn't be a problem. But the "hald" part is a bit odd. I don't at all recall any work with while trying installing Gentoo or building and installing the kernel. 

But when I do launch the hal daemon... I get a menu window for Removable Drivers but can't perform any configurations.

Why isn't hal started by the rc file?

How do I get hal to start at boot?

Does the kernel need tweeking?

Do I need to edit my fstab configuration file?

Does my user profile need to have plugdev and usb set in its groups?

Many questions I know, but I can't seem to get ahead of the game here. 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

----------

## coolsnowmen

heh, I had to try and answer you purely because I visited Kobenhaven this summer.

you should definitly check the rc for hald starting.

```
rc-update -s
```

 should tell you what it should be doing.

```
rc-status
```

 should tell you what rc thinks is running

```
rc-update add hald default
```

 should add hald to the rc

if you were trying to run hald by hand, then make sure all hal process are dead before testing, because they don't appreciate multiple instances running.

If you have problems, re-emerge hal/dbus and restart them and revdep-rebuild -p before looking farther.

EDIT:

 *Quote:*   

> Does my user profile need to have plugdev and usb set in its groups? 

 

definitly plugdev....

----------

## Gustav IV

Howdy! 

Thanks for the advice, coolsnowmen... (i hope you had a good time in København while you were here. The Roskilde Festival  was a washout, though).

I updated the rc file so that hald should start at boot, I plugged in the USB stick and was met with a "cannot mount volume" warning, the Computer folder has it in it, but a quick check for hald reveals:

```
medion ~ # rc-status

Runlevel: default

 dbus                                                                    [ started  ]

 hald                                                                    [ stopped  ]

```

Its odd that it is stopped. So to kick it off the can again:

```

medion ~ # /etc/init.d/hald start

 * Starting Hardware Abstraction Layer daemon ...                              [ ok ]

```

and yet...

```

medion ~ # rc-status

Runlevel: default

 dbus                                                                    [ started  ]

 hald                                                                    [ stopped  ]

```

What's going wrong here?

----------

## coolsnowmen

emerge -1 hal dbus again....

revdep-rebuild -p to check

then

if hald is truly not running, (check with ps to make sure), and then run from command line to see why it is crashing...

edited: the package is hal, not hald, even though the executable is hald

----------

## a7med76

have you tried to emerge hal

----------

## Gustav IV

I emerged hal and dbus and then ran revdep-rebuild, and finally updated the affected conf files. Rebooted, but still there is no mounting to the usb stick! (Hmmm....)

this is what /proc/bus/usb/devices tells me:

```
T:  Bus=04 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2

B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0

D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1

P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 ohci_hcd

S:  Product=OHCI Host Controller

S:  SerialNumber=0000:00:03.2

C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA

I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub

E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   2 Ivl=255ms

T:  Bus=03 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2

B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0

D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1

P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 ohci_hcd

S:  Product=OHCI Host Controller

S:  SerialNumber=0000:00:03.1

C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA

I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub

E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   2 Ivl=255ms

T:  Bus=02 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=12  MxCh= 2

B:  Alloc=  0/900 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0

D:  Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1

P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 ohci_hcd

S:  Product=OHCI Host Controller

S:  SerialNumber=0000:00:03.0

C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA

I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub

E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   2 Ivl=255ms

T:  Bus=02 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=12  MxCh= 0

D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1

P:  Vendor=0204 ProdID=6025 Rev= 1.00

C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=80 MxPwr=100mA

I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage

E:  Ad=01(O) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms

E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=02(Bulk) MxPS=  64 Ivl=0ms

T:  Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#=  1 Spd=480 MxCh= 6

B:  Alloc=  0/800 us ( 0%), #Int=  0, #Iso=  0

D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  1

P:  Vendor=0000 ProdID=0000 Rev= 2.06

S:  Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 ehci_hcd

S:  Product=EHCI Host Controller

S:  SerialNumber=0000:00:03.3

C:* #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=  0mA

I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub  ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub

E:  Ad=81(I) Atr=03(Int.) MxPS=   2 Ivl=256ms

```

Any other suggestions to get usb working?

----------

## Gustav IV

Any takers on this one?

----------

## coolsnowmen

 *Quote:*   

> Any takers on this one?

 

 *coolsnowmen wrote:*   

> ...
> 
> if hald is truly not running, (check with ps to make sure), and then run from command line to see why it is crashing...
> 
> ...

 

did you do this?

----------

## Gustav IV

Hi coolsnowmen

I followed your advice and re-emerged hal and dbus, then I set them to default start at boot. So, hal is running, and so is dbus. Here is some out-put:

```
gustav@medion ~ $ rc-status

Runlevel: default

 dbus                                                             [ started  ]

 hald                                                               [ started  ]

 hdparm                                                             [ started  ]

 iptables                                                           [ started  ]

 local                                                              [ started  ]

 net.eth0                                                           [ started  ]

 net.eth1                                                           [ started  ]

 netmount                                                           [ started  ]

 syslog-ng                                                          [ started  ]

 vixie-cron                                                         [ started  ]

 xdm                                                                [ started  ]

gustav@medion ~ $
```

I should mention here that I hand-built (configured) the kernel I am running. But I never used the USB ports for anything until now, so the USB status of the previous kernels I used is unknown.

----------

## coolsnowmen

Reading through the thread it looks like something broke hal, but between recompiling hal/dbus or perhaps something you did with your kernel it now works.  It shouldn't "just break",

but hal depends on manything to work properly.  In the future I would still follow the same steps in any order

1) reemerge the most likely packages, in this case dbus/hal

2) revdep-rebuild will catch oh-so-many things

while 1/2 are running--> 3) check permissions you should be in plugdev in this case

*note that permissions are not always immediate when you are in an environment, best to log out&in of kde or gnome

4) if you have no other guesses, (how tos to check?) run in debug mode, in this case, if hald was not running, I would run from command line with what ever flags give more output ( mostly -v sometimes -debug or something like that)...and it might give you a clue to what broke

I'm glad it works now, please append "[solved]" to subject of thread

----------

## Gustav IV

Hey coolsnowmen

Somethings gone crazy with my system now: When ever I try to close a window with the X icon the windows freeze, the mouse pointer still can move across the screen, and the geyes will follow it until the next click, were the also finally freeze up.

Is this related anything I've trouble shooted to get USB running, because this behavior has never occurred before? (I haven't done anything outside that I mentioned in the thread.)

I've just rebooted this machine at least 9 times now since last writing.

----------

## coolsnowmen

 *Gustav IV wrote:*   

> Is this related anything I've trouble shooted to get USB running, because this behavior has never occurred before?

 

probably not, but if you were curious, simply stop hal, log out, restart xdm and see if you still have the problem. (your usb things won't work automatically anymore) but it will test if this is related to automount now working.

do you still have the problem with hal stopped ? 

  if yes, then it is a problem from the gtk/qt->X[video driver]->Desktop manager

  if no, then perhaps there is something fishy...

What WindowManager do you use eg: kde/gnome/e16...?

----------

## Gustav IV

Unfortunately the problems perish when the hal daemon is stopped.

When it is started, the problems continue to exit. Using any of the three icons in the window's right-hand side will persistently cause the windows contents to blank out and the desktop freezes up. So the hal daemon is causing some kind of interference with the gnome window manager, xdm. 

A couple of other related oddities: After stopping hald, as well as xdm, running rc-status reports that hald is stopped, but that xdm is in the process of stopping. xdm cannot start from the command-line because of this: bash reports back that xdm is in the process of stopping. BUT the command startx will kick it off. After logging in again, the xdm is still in the process of stopping?!:

```
gustav@medion ~ $ rc-status

Runlevel: default

 dbus                                                               [ started  ]

 hald                                                               [ stopped  ]

 .......

 xdm                                                                [ stopping ]

```

How long does it take for it to finally stop, and why can I operate the gnome desktop?

The other oddity, and perhaps it has nothing to do with this, but when trying to add a bookmark in Firefox will cause the program to crash. If I use a keyboard short-cut, the add bookmark window will open, but will have nothing in it.

Trying to use any of the three controls will cause a program crash, and possibly the system too. Let me just check this now...

----------

## Gustav IV

Apparently the problems DO persist, when hal is down. It just takes a few minutes for it the problems to turn up.

 *Quote:*   

> then it is a problem from the gtk/qt->X[video driver]->Desktop manager 

 

What now?

This post is now started as a new thread under the Desktop Environments forum.  (just to keep things on the straight and narrow)

its title is: Gnome locks up on exiting windows or programs

Any help would be appreciated.

----------

