USB HDDs change device names upon restart

[romile]

Hi,

I've been playing with LinuxMCE for over a week now, and I am generally very impressed. Here is the problem that I am having:

I have 3 external USB HDDs of various capacities holding my media (in linuxMce directory structure). Upon install I am prompted to use the drives. My drives are added to the device tree, and for e.g. they have the following block device names:

/dev/sdb1
/dev/sdc1
/dev/sdd2

LiniuxMce scans my media, I am able to browse, play, etc. All is great, until I restart the core. Upon restart I am again prompted to add the same drives, as they are now present with different device names, for e.g.:

/dev/sdb2
/dev/sdf1
/dev/sdg2

I can delete the old entries for the device tree, but it is just annoying having to rescan the whole collection. I am guessing as kubuntu changes the device names for the USB drives, the mount script (btw. which one is it?) does not identify the disks correctly.

Has anyone had this issue? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[totallymaxed]

Hi,

I've been playing with LinuxMCE for over a week now, and I am generally very impressed. Here is the problem that I am having:

I have 3 external USB HDDs of various capacities holding my media (in linuxMce directory structure). Upon install I am prompted to use the drives. My drives are added to the device tree, and for e.g. they have the following block device names:

/dev/sdb1
/dev/sdc1
/dev/sdd2

LiniuxMce scans my media, I am able to browse, play, etc. All is great, until I restart the core. Upon restart I am again prompted to add the same drives, as they are now present with different device names, for e.g.:

/dev/sdb2
/dev/sdf1
/dev/sdg2

I can delete the old entries for the device tree, but it is just annoying having to rescan the whole collection. I am guessing as kubuntu changes the device names for the USB drives, the mount script (btw. which one is it?) does not identify the disks correctly.

Has anyone had this issue? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Yes this is a known problem I'm afraid. After 0710 release we plan to look at a way to fix the management of USB drives.

Andrew

[Zaerc]

I guess they should be identified by their filesystem-UUID instead of the (temporary) device they are assigned to.

[schaferj]

I believe this problem may be upstream.  I had similar issues with ubuntu.
joseph

[totallymaxed]

I guess they should be identified by their filesystem-UUID instead of the (temporary) device they are assigned to.

Yes i agree thats definitely the way to go. We also need to manage memory card insertion and the auto movement of files from/too all of these devices - none of this can be effectively managed by the user from the Orbiter currently which is where it needs to be accessed from.

When I insert a storage device I want the system to help manage the various activities i might want to carry out ;

- Is this a semi/permanent storage device ie USB hard drive that I want to leave attached and have UpdateMedia scan
- Is this a storage device that I only want to copy media from or too the Core
- Is this an MP3/Video playback device... then manage the copy to/from process appropriate to the media required
- Provide safe removal of storage devices

In my opinion this is a very high priority feature that we need to add

All the best

Andrew

[romile]

Just as I thought. Thanks everyone!

If someone can point me to the right direction,  I wouldn't mind to try and fix this.

[isaidi]

I guess they should be identified by their filesystem-UUID instead of the (temporary) device they are assigned to.

Yes i agree thats definitely the way to go. We also need to manage memory card insertion and the auto movement of files from/too all of these devices - none of this can be effectively managed by the user from the Orbiter currently which is where it needs to be accessed from.

When I insert a storage device I want the system to help manage the various activities i might want to carry out ;

- Is this a semi/permanent storage device ie USB hard drive that I want to leave attached and have UpdateMedia scan
- Is this a storage device that I only want to copy media from or too the Core
- Is this an MP3/Video playback device... then manage the copy to/from process appropriate to the media required
- Provide safe removal of storage devices

In my opinion this is a very high priority feature that we need to add

All the best

Andrew

Agreed, this is a "make or break" feature for me in LinuxMCE.
Hope it gets addressed now that 710 is released..
I travel alot and have multiple USB Drives upto 250gb each.. lots of media on each.. when i return home i like to be able to plugin my drive to watch new media, remove it later.. not mess-up existing collection..
plug-in my mp3 player.. or if a friend comes over with a media on a USB stick that i would like to watch..   
For now, to avoid re-scaning collections, i just ignore the usb device and use Kubuntu to browse and launch media. Copy/update my existing core media manually from USB drive...
or connect USB Media to a laptop and SAMBA to core storage and update files...

[tschak909]

If this issue is biting you in the ass, you can try attaching the disks to a NAS enclosure. It will work better.

-Thom

[Lexje]

Hi Guys,

After a hefty period of 'moving' to our new home, starting to pick-up on LMCE again...
Related to this thread I have a question:

What file types are supported when pluging usb drives in the core or md?
Also further to Andrew's list, I would like to add the possibility to format a disk or partition, after all it might be a new disk or you would want to change fat partitions...

Further to Thom's remark:
Has any work been done to support iscsi? Personally I feel this might be an interesting solution to use NAS (e.g Openfiler)

Thanks for any advice!

Erwin

[tschak909]

No. We haven't added iSCSI initiator support, and it hasn't been discussed. But as always, anyone willing to add it, have at it

-Thom