Score:1

How to hide "Root File System" in Nautilus side panel?

sc flag

Since I moved to Ubuntu 20.04, in Nautilus left side panel, from time to time (not always), has appeared a link to the "Root File System" (in French : "Racine du système de fichiers"). It was not there before (in Ububtu 18.04 or previous). It is useless to me and at the same time, it seems to prevent any USB drive to be mounted automatically.... I have no idea why.... When I see the link to the "Root File System" in the left side panel, I have to use the application "Disks" to mount the USB drive.... What can I do? Thank you for your help! Here is a screenshot : Here is a screenshot

And there are the results of the mount command (as requested by vanadium):

~$ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=1985524k,nr_inodes=496381,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=402980k,mode=755)
/dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup/unified type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
none on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/rdma type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,rdma)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=28,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=14049)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /run/snapd/ns type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=402980k,mode=755)
nsfs on /run/snapd/ns/canonical-livepatch.mnt type nsfs (rw)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=402976k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)

HELP!

OK..... after a few trials (advised by vanadium), I found out that the folder /media/my_login is in fact necessary for mounting a Hard Disk..... and a USB Drive.

I tried to change the mounting points of my External Drives to /media/my_login/name_of_external_drive

In fact, it did not work...!

I went back to the previous mounting points... and tried to reproduce the problem, keeping notes of all my boots and the presence or not of the problem.

And then I discovered that if I shut off the computer with a USB Drive plugged in, the next boot there will be no "Root File System" (in French : "Racine du système de fichiers") in Nautilus left side panel.

I can swap USB Drives or Hard Drives. It works. The essential element is a USB Drive being plugged in when I shut off my computer.

This is a track I would like to follow.

I could of course keep a USB Drive always plugged in.

But anyway it does not work!

I have not found out why, but sometimes the "Root File System"in Nautilus left side panel comes back.... I cannot find any pattern....

HELP! HELP! HELP! HELP!

vanadium avatar
cn flag
Please add a screenshot or explain otherwise: this is atypical behavior we cannot reproduce. Except for removable drives, these links in the left pane normally do not come and go.
jeanjean84 avatar
sc flag
Screenshot added! As for the volatility.... I agree! I have never seen that before in more than 15 years of Ubuntu!
vanadium avatar
cn flag
Examine the output of `mount`: that entry should be listed there as something mounted under `/media/<your login>
jeanjean84 avatar
sc flag
mount results: nothing under /media/<my login>.... And if I look into /media folder.... there is a folder <my login> but it is empty.....
vanadium avatar
cn flag
Better include the output of `mount` in your question - you can leave out the entries created by snap applications.
jeanjean84 avatar
sc flag
is it ok like that, vanadium?
vanadium avatar
cn flag
I can't see anything suspect there. Is this entry visible in the Disks utility when it appears?
jeanjean84 avatar
sc flag
Yes it is the Hard Disk..... When the entry is visible in Nautilus, it leads to the root system... and of course cannot be unmounted (forbidden operation)... Should I try to delete, as root, the empty folder /media/<my login>?
vanadium avatar
cn flag
Very strange. As a work around, you could try adding the option `x-gvfs-hide` to the line of your root drive in /etc/fstab. However, that would not solve the issue of not being able to mount an USB drive. Perhaps also test in a temporary new account whether it happens there to rule out that it is a user configuration issue.
jeanjean84 avatar
sc flag
vanadium : same kind of issue with a temporary account.....
Score:0
sc flag

I posted my question on the French Forum https://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=22509314

I was advised to show the result of ls -la ~

There are the results:

    ~$ ls -la ~
    total 5964
    drwxr-xr-x 66 moi moi    4096 oct.  26 21:11  .
    drwxr-xr-x  3 root      root         4096 nov.  25 22:44  ..
    drwxr-xr-x  3 moi moi    4096 nov.   3  2019  .AbiSuite
    drwxrwxr-x  4 moi moi    4096 août  16  2020  .audacity-data
    drwxr-xr-x  4 moi moi    4096 sept. 27 20:12  .avidemux6
    -rw-------  1 moi moi   30765 oct.  25 16:37  .bash_history
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi     220 août  19  2018  .bash_logout
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi    3771 août  19  2018  .bashrc
    drwxrwxr-x 31 moi moi    4096 août   8 00:03 'Bibliothèque calibre'
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 nov.  21 17:48  Bureau
    drwx------ 55 moi moi    4096 sept. 27 20:20  .cache
    drwxr-xr-x  3 moi moi    4096 juil. 19  2019  .cert
    drwx------  4 moi moi    4096 janv. 17  2020  .coffre
    drwx------  2 moi moi    4096 sept.  8  2018  coffre_open
    drwx------ 58 moi moi    4096 nov.  10 15:07  .config
    drwx------  2 moi moi    4096 sept.  9  2018  .cups
    drwx------  3 root      root         4096 avril  5  2020  .dbus
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 oct.  18  2018  .devilspie
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 déc.  24  2020  .dillo
    drwxr-xr-x 61 moi moi   12288 nov.  22 12:10  Documents
    drwxr-xr-x  3 moi moi    4096 mars  15  2019  dvbern-tax
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 mars  13  2021  .dvdrip
    drwxrwxr-x  2 moi moi    4096 juil. 20 16:25  dvdrip-data
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi   29803 mars  13  2021  .dvdriprc
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi    8980 août  19  2018  examples.desktop
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 mars  19  2020  .fltk
    drwx------  4 moi moi    4096 nov.  25 22:45  .gconf
    drwxr-xr-x 24 moi moi    4096 août   2 18:57  .gimp-2.8
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi 2560256 mai   24  2021  .gjotsfile
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi 2559556 mai   23  2021  .gjotsfile~
    drwxrwxr-x  3 moi moi    4096 nov.  22 12:09  Gjotsfiles
    -rw-r-----  1 moi moi       0 nov.  25 22:45  .gksu.lock
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  .gnome
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 juin   2 15:42  .gnome2
    drwx------  2 moi moi    4096 avril 16  2019  .gnome2_private
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 févr. 17  2020  .gnome-commander
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 oct.  26 15:43  .gnupg
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 oct.  30  2018  .gphoto
    drwx------  2 root      root         4096 avril  5  2020  .gvfs
    drwx------  2 moi moi    4096 août   3 17:18  .gvpngate
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 nov.  13 12:12  .hplip
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi      39 avril  3  2020  .httrack.ini
    -rw-------  1 moi moi  233936 août   6 09:22  .ICEauthority
    drwxr-xr-x  7 moi moi   20480 oct.  22 16:58  Images
    drwxrwxr-x  5 moi moi    4096 sept. 21  2018  .java
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  .local
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi      83 août  15 17:54  .~lock.gjotsfile.odt#
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  Modèles
    drwxrwxr-x  3 moi moi    4096 oct.   5  2018  .mono
    drwx------  5 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  .mozilla
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 mai    5  2020  Musique
    drwxr-xr-x 13 moi moi    4096 nov.   8  2020  n1backup
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 août   6 22:13  .nv
    drwxrwxr-x  3 moi moi    4096 sept.  7  2019  .openjfx
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 sept. 21  2018  .oracle_jre_usage
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  .pki
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi     807 août  19  2018  .profile
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  Public
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 juil. 24  2016  .qalculate
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi     716 nov.  16  2018  .recently-used
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 juin   7  2020  .recoll
    -rw-rw-r--  1 moi moi  276634 août  31 22:16  .sambox.cache
    drwx------  3 moi moi    4096 oct.  29  2011  .sane
    drwxrwxr-x  3 moi moi    4096 oct.  22 18:31  .shutter
    drwx------  9 moi moi    4096 août   6 23:36  snap
    drwx------  2 moi moi    4096 nov.  25  2018  .ssh
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi       0 sept.  8  2018  .sudo_as_admin_successful
    drwxr-xr-x  3 moi moi    4096 mars  15  2019  .swt
    drwxr-xr-x 16 moi moi   36864 nov.  15 13:22  Téléchargements
    -rw-r--r--  1 root      root          820 avril 10  2021  testdisk.log
    drwx------  4 moi moi    4096 mai    1  2019  .thumbnails
    drwxrwxr-x  5 moi moi    4096 oct.  31 15:14  .thunderbird
    drwxrwxrwx  3 moi moi   20480 août   6 16:31  .unison
    drwxr-xr-x 13 moi moi    4096 nov.   6  2019 'USB backup'
    drwxr-xr-x  6 moi moi    4096 avril 14  2019  VaudTax2018
    drwxr-xr-x  6 moi moi    4096 mars  14  2020  VaudTax2019
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 août  19  2018  Vidéos
    drwxr-xr-x  7 moi moi    4096 juil. 20 19:10  VPN
    drwxr-xr-x 36 moi moi    4096 avril  3  2020  websites
    -rw-r--r--  1 moi moi     195 oct.  19 12:30  .wget-hsts
    drwxr-xr-x  4 moi moi    4096 janv. 15  2021  .wine
    drwxrwxr-x  2 moi moi    4096 août  16  2020  .winff
    drwxr-xr-x  2 moi moi    4096 juil. 20 11:48  .xine

These two following lines were apparently incorrect:

    drwx------  3 root      root         4096 avril  5  2020  .dbus
    drwx------  2 root      root         4096 avril  5  2020  .gvfs

Therefore I was then advised to do:

    sudo find ~ -xdev \( ! -user $USER -o ! -group $USER \) -exec chown -ch $USER:$USER "{}" \;

That corrected the file permissions in my /home folder

I was then able to delete the useless ~/testdisk.log

Now everything seems to be fine (fingers crossed)!

Well... NO! problem is back... The link to the "Root File System" (in French : "Racine du système de fichiers") is back in Nautilus left side panel... and USB drives do not mount automatically...

Well! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022! With a sudden inspiration, on the 1st January, I tried to use a session "Ubuntu on wayland" (that I did not notice before...) and since:

the link to the "Root File System" (in French : "Racine du système de fichiers") is GONE from the Nautilus left side panel... and USB drives DO mount automatically!

Hurrah!

mangohost

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