USB Drive "The location could not be displayed"

I am using debian stretch and gnome.

When I plug in a usb external drive with four partitions (including ext4, ntfs, fat32) they are mounted automatically, but when I click on any of them in files or dolphin, this message is received: The location could not be displayed. You do not have the permissions..."

I am able to read these files as root. Even in the command line, however, a normal user can only see: Permission denied.

Trying to mount by label:

# mount Label=<label> /mnt/<mountpoint>

I see "special device <label> does not exist

I am able to mount any of them with a simple "mount /dev/sdcX /mnt/<mountpoint>, and they are accessible. They are not shown automatically on dolphin, although Iall files are visible when I navigate to the mountpoint and click in files or dolphin.

I tried changing permissions of /media. Not solved.

an NTFS partition was not mountable unless dismounted from the automatic mount point; as far as I can see, this is not the case for vfat or ext4 partitions.

I did copy a udev rule for setting permissions---something above my level of understanding, however. If anything, the situation was worse.

It has been very frustrating to google for 2 hours on this probably very simple problem. I think the solution is just to mount them manually. Still, it would be helpful to automount them, or mount via fstab. I have not had success mouting by label, and one does not know in advance whether some usb flash drive might preempt these drive designations.

BTW I am pleased to be running a Debian system again after some years. It took a good deal of work, though, to get it set up on an iMac with a broadcom wifi adaptor!

Alan Davis

[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily

available in books. …The value of a college education is not the

learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.

---Albert Einstein

"Sweet instruments hung up in cases. . . keep their sounds to themselves."

---Shakespeare, _Timon of Athens_