USB devices lock up Konqueror for user in 10.1

[cage47]

OK I've read a few posts and it seems that many people are having this same problem But I think I can describe it clearly. I have had Mandrake 10.0 installed on 3 machines. It works fine and I have two usb devices I use on them, a Lexar multi card reader with lexar and sandisk compact flash cards and a HP Photosmart 315 digital camera that also uses the cf cards. I can access both no problem. I plug them in, the icon appears on the desktop and I can read/write files on them as user. I did a test install on two machines of my recently purchased Mandrake 10.1 download official, my backup desktop and the laptop's spare hd. Both same result. I can not access Konqueror. That is the only problem. But it's a show stopper. Let me tell you what DOES work.

 

In Konsole I can manually cd to the /mnt directory and access the devices. They are created fine. And even as user I can access the directories and add/remove files. I have installed usbview and it lists the devices as they are, the camera or the card reader. No problem.

 

The problem is bringing up Konqueror. When you click on the HOME icon or in the menu HOME it will show the taskbar entry with the rotating icon showing Starting Home. But nothing happens. The HD light blinks a few times but nothing like when Konqueror starts normal. And even when I unplug either usb device Konqueror is unusable. However, if I log out of my user and log back in Konqueror is usable again. I can access my home dir. But if I plug in the usb devices, again stuck. And even in Konsole. If I type konqueror it does nothing. No error messages. No nothing. It just sits there with no change and doesn't go to the prompt. I end up having to cancel Konqueror. I just tested again and with konsole open I type konqueror and nothing happens and it just sits there. And then if I unplug the usb device while it's waiting konsole will crash with a signal 9.

 

I HAVE added my user to the usb group. And I notice when I plug in the devices while as user, logging out to clear it is a lot slower than normal. Like it is killing a rogue process.

 

However, none of this is a problem as root. I can access the devices from Konqueror no problem. Even as user, opening a konsole and typing kdesu konqueror brings up Konqueror in root mode. No problem. I know it's just permissions, but where? is it on the device? The process? The program?

 

I know many people want this answer I hope this was a good description.

 

(Oh on my install on the backup desktop I hit the menudrake problem also. Menudrake crashed with a segment fault and a core dump. I just did a fresh reinstall, not an upgrade, and it went fine. First install on the laptop was fine)

[cage47]

One update. I also have Icewm installed. I find that if I log into Icewm, open a terminal and type konqueror it will come up. So it is something in KDE itself. This is a stinker and a show stopper for me. I have grown accustomed to having access to my usb devices without tinkering and without a fix I'm keeping my 10.0 install secure on the main box.

[cage47]

And one more update. I notice that on login, my cpu processes in KDE System Guard is normal. low. But once I plug in the usb device the process goes all the way up to 100%. The user load is over 80%. However, unplugging the device does not bring cpu load down. it remains high.

 

the only clue I can find is when I open konsole and type "kfmclient openProfile filemanagement" (the acutal menu command to open home) I get the response

 

DCOPReply<>: cast to 'QCString' error

[cage47]

OK I've found something. I opened KDE Service manager. One item is the KDED Mount Watcher. I went into the KDE System Guard and killed both instances of KDED. From what I can see it doesn't hurt performance. But when I did that KDE Service manager says "Unable to contact KDED!" However, now when I plug in the usb device I can access HOME. IT CAME UP!! So the problem is the KDED Mount Watcher. I'm going to do some more searching on how to get around this.

[cage47]

OK, I did a search on KDE site and found this on the bug tracker. It is a glitch with Qt. Here is a snip from one of the bug reports. Apparently Cirrus has made fixes to the Debian Woody packages for KDE 3.2.

 

 

------- Additional Comment #8 From Waldo Bastian 2004-02-06 23:00 -------

Created an attachment (id=4548)

0008-loop_of_death.patch

 

Can you check if Qt has 0008-loop_of_death.patch applied?

Attached to the bugreport for your convenience.

 

If not, does applying this patch solve the problem?

 

 

------- Additional Comment #9 From Cirrus 2004-02-07 09:25 -------

Yes the patch does seem to solve the problem. I haven't done extensive testing, but it all runs smooth so far, so I guess its all ok. I've created packages from the original kde ones with the patch. If anyone wants them, just give me a shout.

Cheers for the help.

 

This is in bug 74130. Maybe updated packages for Qt and KDE 3.2 or updating to 3.3 will fix this.

[cage47]

So I took the plunge. But for the first time I didn't do a clean install. There are things in my mandy 10.0 that aren't included in Mandrake 10.1. Gnome-games isn't there. Linneighborhood. many other things. So I actually tried an update of 10.1 on top of my 10.0 install. From what I can see it went flawlessly....well almost. My firefox is having a problem accessing my bank account. I think a reinstall of Java or resetting my .firefox directory is in order. But again I have the usb problem. I was hoping it wouldn't carry over but it did. So now I'm looking at getting the Mandrake security updates. I see there are some new packages of qt3 for bugs. I don't see specifically the bug on usb but from what I can see from the KDE site it has been fixed. So I'm going to try it. If worse comes to worse I'll hose the system and end up just doing a clean install. As long as my home dir is still intact I don't care. But I have questions. I got my mandrake 10.0 cd's from a seller off Ebay. The version I got was the official download but it inlcudes 5 cds. The official cd set only includes 3. Where do these other cd's come from? When I install I commonly get stuff from this 4th cd. Also, is the 4th cd for Mandrake 10.1 download official available anywhere? Aside form The Club? Is it on a public mirror anywhere. An update to kde 3.4 would do away with the usb problem.

[jbuckley2004]

So I took the plunge. But for the first time I didn't do a clean install. ...

 

Cage47 - thanks for the updates. Wish I had an answer here, but I'm replying only to say that my experience almost exactly mirrors yours (but I haven't tried to reinstall 10.0 and update to 10.1). Because, like you, I've been been able to get my files off of the mini-cruzer and reboot to get everything back to normal, I haven't spent too much time on it. This problem is an annoyance, however.

 

I haven't been able to access my floppy, either. At first I was convinced that this was a related problem, probably something with fstab. After fiddling with it, I've gotten nowhere. Is your floppy working properly?

 

Does anything is MandrakeLinuxUpdates do anything for us in this regard?

Thanks

Joe

[nchancock]

This is a known bug. Happened to me too on the initial install. After running the Mandrake Linux Update Utility in the K-menu, all fixed. Did you try that yet?

 

Good luck.

 

Nate

[cage47]

Well I got too fed up. I tried setting up updates but I was having other troubles. One thing that wasn't a problem as far as a glitch. Is that I'm only on a dialup. If I updated it'd take forever. I was hoping that the update would have gotten around the usb glitch. But I was also having network probs. Mostly with my Firefox. I got the rpms from norlug. It works fine in 10.0 but in 10.1 for some reason it kept locking up. Thunderbird was fine. Anyway. I couldn't browse to get info unless I went to Mozilla. But with all the problems I went back and reinstalled 10.0, which was a bugger because my cd3 is buggered. I'm trying to get it redownloaded but I have a 4-cd set and don't think it's the one on the mirrors. That's why I want to know where the 4-cd set comes from and where I can get a copy of cd 3. I'd be satisfied to stay with 10.0 if I can get this cd fixed. I'm satisfied with the performance of my 10.0 install so I guess I'll wait for 2005 le to come out. I'm back in 10.0 now. Almost all back just have to track down a couple rpms I didn't have copies of and reinstall my java runtime.