Files and directories showing in CLI but not in GUI
I had some problems with one of my drives last week (see "System no
longer boots" and "How to remove a PV from an LVM VG?"
Now my problem is different, and stranger.
I thought that I was going to need to get filesystem recovery software
to retrieve at least some of my data. Meanwhile, I obtained a spare
80 GB HD and a live DVD ROM which contained Debian Squeeze. I could
boot to the live system and I did an install onto the 80 GB drive. I
rebooted into the new system and it seemed OK. I installed R-Linux to
try and recover my files, but it did not see my old drive (from which
I had done the pvmove). It was getting late and I did not want to
leave the system up untill I knew that everything was working
reasonably. So I powered down.
The next day I was unable to boot into the new system without being
dropped into a maintenance shell. Aaaargh! So I booted into the live
system, again. I looked for my missing files and directories again.
Why would I expect to see them? I don't know. Desperation, perhaps.
The file browser did not show them. Then I tried something different.
I opened a terminal, did a 'cd' to my old home directory which I had
mounted at /mnt and did an 'ls'. Lo! And Behold! The missing
directories were there. I did a 'cd' into my main documents
directory, followed by 'ls' and my files were all there. They show up
from the command line, but not from the GUI!
Now I really started to wonder. I opened OpenOfficeCalc aqnd tried to
browse to the directory and file that I had just seen. Nothing. The
directory did not show up. Then I clicked on the icon to 'Type a File
Name' and entered the name of the missing directory, followed my a
slash. All the files showed up! I selected one of the large .ods
files that I use a lot. A message came up, saying:
Document file 'xxxxx.xxx' is locked for editing by:
xxx ( 06.05.2012 15:49)
Open the document read-only or open a copy of the document for editing.
The x's above were the file name that I was trying to open and my
login on the old system. If I select Open Read-Only the file opens
right up. Other files open without the warning. I probably had that
particular file open when the system went wonky (it is almost always
open) and that is the reason for the warning dialog.
So my question is: Why do some of my files and directories show in GUI
apps, but not all of them, while all of them seem to show up just fine
from the command line?
Does anyone have any ideas on this? If all of my files are actually
on the disk, in good order, why can I only see them from the command
line? Is there something that I can do to make all of the files and
directories visible in GUI apps, as well? This would make my life a
whole lot easier.
Thanks for any help.
Marc Shapiro
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