I was copying the contents of a flash drive to a folder. In the middle of it I got an error message:

'Error splicing file: input/output error'

and then it said 'do you want to skip or retry?' And the "all" button was there too. Anyway, I skipped. When I checked the folder, all my data seemed to be there.

Do you think it was?

I mean, what are the implications of the error message and of my "skipping" it?

Next up, when I looked at the contents of my flash drive all the folders and files have a lock icon on them. I can open the files but I can't edit them. And no, the lock switch on my flash drive is not pressed.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Just run the copy again with something like rsync to be sure. It'll only copy the changes.

What file system is on your flash drive? Run mount command to see if it was re-mounted read only after the error. That will explain the locks.

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Thanks designator. I don't have rsync so I couldln't do that, but here's the deal: when I took the flash drive off and put it back on the lock icons were gone.

I checked the run mount command and it's "read & write." (see 013 screenshot)But the flash drive is very old (It's only 125MB) and very loaded. see screenshot So I'm wondering if it's just dying of old age and overburdening. They're theories anyway.

A little more info. see screenshot 014. I replicated the copying. I noticed the copying stopped on a certain file (the one whose icon is blacked out in the screen shot--and it's yellow highlighted). That's where I got the output/input error. I tried 'retry' and still got the error. Then I picked 'skip' and the copying continued uninterrupted.

What happened was (see arrow) that file was already in that folder. So it was sensing it as a duplicate. Why it chose that particular file (because all those 'flash fiction tab photos' are in the folder) folder I don't know.

The results of the skipping was that the file has 0 kb. But it's still in the folder so no big deal.

Why the lock icon thing happened is still a mystery to me.

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Since the flash drive is so old, it is possible it has bad sectors or similar corruption issues. Easiest way to check is to move the data off the drive and format it using the slow method. It overwrites the whole disk with zeroes and will immediately tell you if there are sectors of the drive that are bad.

I get the move the data off the drive part, but the formatting using the slow method I don't know.

I'm sure Ubuntu includes a utility to format disks. Just search for format or something similar. Try right clicking on the drive - the option to format may be there. When you run it, there is usually a box for quick format. Make sure it's unchecked. File system will most likely be FAT or FAT32.

If not, I can also give you commands to run on the terminal, but you need to understand them well since formatting erases data and you want to be absolutely sure that you're running them on correct disk.

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Thanks designator. I need to do a little research into that but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Actually I did it once before so I'll just have to re-learn it. Appreciate all your help.