Inode problem (I think)
 

Hi

I'm running FC13, and suddenly, when I try to connect a camera for picture download, the desktop icon that would otherwise open the camera's memory directory opens a network directory instead. Seems the inode is munged and misdirecting.

If I go

cd .gvfs
ls -i

I get

2 gphoto2 mount on usb%3A002,005

an inode of 2???

gphoto2 is broken too, but I'm not as worried about that.

Any ideas? Thank you!

YUM has a reinstall option, so you could try to reinstall the application.

But an inode problem may indicate a hard disk problem, and a fsck may be in order. (CAUTION: Running fsck on a partition containing a Logical Volume will destroy the logical group containing the logical volume.)

Alternatively, you're looking a the GNOME Virtual File System (.gvfs) ls output, so the values you see for the inode may be "virtually" correct.

Finally, if you installed F13 from the live CD, or if you can download and burn the live CD, try booting from it and seeing if the camera's data can be read. Perhaps all that's happening is that your camera has failed, and can't be accessed, so the "icon" is asking you to tell "it" where it's supposed to find the images to read.

Thanks PT. Have reinstalled gvfs (and gphoto), but the behavior persists. The camera(s) is(are) OK because it happens with any camera, the camera info is read correctly, and the cameras work fine on other machines.

The history on the problem is that I clicked and dragged the contents of a camera onto my desktop, then copied that folder to my network server. Now, the camera desktop icon launches Nautilus in the usual way, but Nautilus looks at the network server, it doesn't look at the contents of the camera. To me, that means that somehow the wrong inode has been picked up and associated with the camera icon. And that's my knowledge barrier - don't know enough to know where to look next.

Can you post the contents of the ....desktop file used to create the icon? (Look in the Desktop directory for the file.) Perhaps a simple edit of the file will fix your problem.

What kind of edit? Sorry, you'll have to explain again. :(

As for contents, it just lists what's on my server. In graphics mode, if i right click the camera icon and click "properties", gvfs freaks out and pretty much locks my machine for a few minutes.

You need to open a terminal and enter a few commands. Here's an example:(I don't actually display icons on my desktop, so my "Desktop" directory is quite sparse.)

Thanks Peter

I just get:
$ ls Desktop
<snip>
canon contents

$ cat Desktop/canon\ contents/
cat: Desktop/canon contents/: Is a directory

Try, first, a ls -l Directory to see if Canon\ contents is a link or an actual directory. Then do a ls "Directory/Canon contents" to see what's in it. (Or if it just pops the same file manager you see when you click on the folder icon.)

Is the icon on which you're "clicking" labeled "Canon contents?" Is that icon always present on your desktop, or just when you have the camera connected.

What I'm thinking is that somehow you created a link from your Desktop directory to the network folder where you saved your backup, and that link is now sitting on your desktop. (The copy you used may have done that automatically if you did it using a GUI file manager.) If that's the case, all you'll need to do is change the link to point to (I guess) /media/Canon\ contents instead of wherever it's now pointing. (To change a link, first remove it with a rm "Desktop/Canon contents"command, and then recreate it with a ln -s "/media/Canon contents" "Desktop/Canon contents" command.)

Here's an example output of my home directory, with the links highlighted in red:

Yup, "canon contents" is a directory.

$ ls -l
e.g.
-rw-rw-r--. 1 x x 148945 Jun 24 15:31 campy_shifters.jpeg
drwxrwxr-x. 3 x x 4096 Jun 23 08:43 canon contents
etc

ls -l canon\ contents/
total 4
drwxrwxr-x. 2 x x 4096 Jun 23 08:43 100CANON

and from there, the contents of 100CANNON is the contents of the camera. BUT, going through the gui and nautilus, "canon contents" is my nfs server's output. (Utterly weird, but at least I can access it - I thought I'd be stuck with removing the camera's media and using a card reader - thank you!)

The desktop icon is generated automatically on connection and disappears when the camera is disconnected or unmounted via the right-click option.

So it now seems that it is probably something in the nautilus settings. I don't use nautilus as a file manager, so can't suggest much. There might be something in the hidden .nautilus directory, but perhaps it's as simple as something in the nautilus settings tab.

There's nothing I see there that makes a difference. But I did discover a stupid mistake - the desktop icon is not a directory - I have a number of things on my desktop, including something called "canon contents", and I mistook that for the icon when I did "ls -l". In fact, that command reveals nothing no desktop icon as a directory, so I have no idea where it's generating that thing from.

Regarding Nautilus, I went into the .nautilus directory and cleared everything out. It makes no difference.

:(

As I said, I seldom use Nautilus, but I just opened my copy and noticed left-hand panel has several different display options available from the pull-down selection list at the top of that panel. If you switch to the "Places" display option, do you have a "Canon contents" place defined below the separator? If so, click on it and see if that "place" is defined as the network location. If it is, try removing that "place" definition by right-clicking on it and selecting "remove."

I'm shooting in the dark here, and don't think I can offer much more.

Good luck.