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Re: Files and directories showing in CLI but not in GUI



On 5/13/12, Indulekha <indulekha@theunworthy.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 12:22:04AM +0000, Marc Shapiro wrote:
>> On 5/12/12, Indulekha <indulekha@theunworthy.com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 11:43:43PM +0000, Marc Shapiro wrote:
>> >> 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.
>> >>
>> >
>> > ??
>> > Gnome/KDE/xfce4/wmii/ratpoison...
>> > Nautilus/Dolphin/Thunar/pcmanfm...
>> > ??
>>
>> Sorry, default Debian installation, so Gnome and Nautilus.
>>
>> Also Open Office and Gnome Terminal.
>>
>> Everything also shows up fine from the command line if I switch to vt
>> 1 cd to the directory and then ls.
>
> Something to do with gnome or nautilus then, I'd think...
> Sorry I'm not more helpful, I don't use those.
> You could try creating a new user account and see if it happens
> there too -- then if it doesn't you know there's probably an error
> of some sort in a config file.
> If this was caused by an update, apt-get -f install might work...
>
As I mentioned above and in the listed previous threads, this was a
new install, but the home partition that is acting strangely s from a
previous install.

Marc Shapiro


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