Thunar Trash BUGS

[Ady]

LMDE Xfce x32 Trash inconsistent behaviors (BUGS).

Symptom #1:

1.1_ Settings -> Panel -> Items -> Add new item -> Places -> Add -> Close.
1.2_ On the Panel (near the clock) -> Places -> Trash -> ERROR: File doesn't exist.


Symptom #2:

2.1_ Thunar v.1.2.3 (file manager) as normal user -> Right click -> Create document -> empty file.
2.2_ Delete-to-Trash the new document created in previous step.

Observations for Symptom #2

2.3_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as normal user, while in normal user session, uses

/home/normalusername/.local/share/Trash

for the Trash location. This is only compatible with Gnome v.2.22 and newer.


Symptom #3:

3.1_ Thunar v.1.2.3 (file manager) -> Right click -> Open folder as root superuser.
3.2_ Thunar as root superuser -> Create document -> empty file.
3.3_ Delete-to-Trash the new document created in previous step.

Observations for Symptom #3:

3.4_ In Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in normal user session, the only way to see the Trash is to go to

Code: Select all

/home/.Trash-0

.
3.5_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in normal user session, uses

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/home/.Trash-0

for the Trash location. This is compatible with Gnome v.2.20 and older.
3.6_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in normal user session, is not showing the Trash on the left-side panel nor in the "Go" menu, and it doesn't accept manually writing "trash:///".
3.7_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in normal user session, is UNABLE to perform common tasks over the Trash.
3.8_ When using older versions, like for example Thunar v.1.0.2 (Xfce v.4.4 or v.4.6) as root superuser, while in normal user session, is capable of showing the Trash on the left-side panel and in the "Go" menu, and is also capable of performing common tasks over the Trash, like "empty the Trash", or recover files for example.
3.9_ When using older versions, like for example Thunar v.1.0.2 (Xfce v.4.4 or v.4.6) as root superuser, while in normal user session, the location of the Trash is also

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/home/.Trash-0

.


Symptom #4:

4.1_ Menu -> System -> Login Window (preferences) -> Security (tab) -> "Allow local system administrator login" -> Close -> Log out.
4.2_ Login session as root superuser.
4.3_ Menu -> Thunar v.1.2.3 (file manager) as root superuser, while in root superuser session -> Right click -> Create document -> empty file (rename it, so it can be easily identified).
4.4_ Delete-to-Trash the new document created in previous step.

Observations For Symptom #4:

4.5_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in root superuser session, uses
"/root/" as the equivalent to the previous "/home/normalusername/" location.
4.6_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in root superuser session, uses

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/root/.local/share/Trash

for the Trash location. This is only compatible with Gnome v.2.22 and newer.
4.7_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in root superuser session, is capable of performing common tasks over the Trash, since it shows the Trash on the left-side panel and in the "Go" menu.
4.8_ Thunar v.1.2.3 as root superuser, while in root superuser session, will perform any Trash-related task over the

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/root/.local/share/Trash

location, but will NOT recognize the existence of the older location,

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/home/.Trash-0

.
so any task or action performed over Trash will NOT touch

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/home/.Trash-0

.


Symptom #5:

5.1_ Install python either v.2.6.x or v.2.7.x
5.2_ Install python-setuptools.
5.3_ Install latest trash-cli

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# grab the latest sources
wget https://github.com/andreafrancia/trash-cli/tarball/master
 
# unpack and install
tar xfz andreafrancia-trash-cli-xxxxxxxx.tar.gz
cd andreafrancia-trash-cli-xxxxxxxx
sudo python setup.py install

where "xxxxxxxx" in the above code is the appropriate version of trash-cli.
5.4_ Menu -> Accessories -> root (superuser) terminal
5.5_

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trash-list

Observations for Symptom #5:

5.6_ The result of

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trash-list

will list all the contents of both root locations found for the Trash as a root (superuser):

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/root/.local/share/Trash

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/home/.Trash-0

. The rest of the commands available in trash-cli will also affect both locations (for the root superuser).
5.7_ When opening a terminal for a normal user, the commands available in trash-cli will affect that normal user only.


General observations:

6.1_ Booting the system with some LIVE CD (for recovery, for example) and deleting files as root might move the files to any of the possible locations mentioned in this report, depending on the LIVE distro.
6.2_ LMDE Xfce x32 is capable of referencing any valid location for the Trash if the feature is implemented correctly, as demonstrated by the use of trash-cli.
6.3_ Different versions of Thunar use different Trash locations.
6.4_ Older versions of Thunar are capable of handling the Trash as root superuser while being in a normal user session, but Thunar v.1.2.3 is not.
6.5_ Thunar behaves inconsistently regarding the root superuser.
6.6_ Several reports (web search and in LMDE forum) about deleting
_ from FAT or NTFS; or,
_ from external media; or,
_ from shared locations,
mention that the files are not seem to be moved to the Trash, but that the available free size is not bigger than before the deletion. The inconsistent behavior reported here might explain many of those cases.
6.7_ This type of inconsistent behavior has been already reported a long time ago, like for example at https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2728 among others, but NOTHING was done to resolve it .
6.8_ When Thunar states that it follows freedesktop.org specifications, it should try its best to (consistently) support the freedesktop.org trash specs too.
6.9_ From all the symptoms and observations, it is clear to me that Thunar needs to support both paths (Gnome 2.20- and Gnome 2.22+) when using "trash:///", and of course it needs to improve a lot to reduce inconsistency and regressions.

So now I ask here, to the LMDE Team; is there any chance all this can be reported upstream too? Any chance of seeing effective improvements in LMDE about this Trash problem in the near future? Or LMDE Xfce users will need to keep waiting 3 years more (as it has been happening in older bug reports for Xfce and Thunar)?

[altair4]

As someone who has submitted a number of bug reports myself I would like to offer my perspective on your report:

Mint bug reports are not handled within the forum but through launchpad just like Ubuntu: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint

There's really 2 different categories of bugs:

** Bugs in the things that Mint does: Bugs say in a Mint created utility or one of it's customizations will be handled by the Mint team and you will get a fairly fast response all things considered.

** Bugs in things Mint "inherits" from the source: I have submitted bug reports in both Samba and the Debian installer and those are passed either to Ubuntu or Debian as they are beyond the responsibility of the Mint development team.

Take the issue you are having with Thunar. If Mint were to take on such an undertaking it would have to effectively fork Thunar by making changes to the source and maintaining it for the foreseeable future. I really don't think they have the resources to do that.

Anyway, I'm not a moderator or in any way affiliated with the Mint team so they may have a more official response.

[Ady]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not expecting any fork, nor that LMDE Team will resolve this by themselves, but I would expect for them to be in contact with the Xfce Team in a more effective way than a simple user.

Since the Launchpad bug report site is not really working, not for Mint, not for LMDE and surely not for Xfce, my reasoning was the following:

Bug reported in the forum by a simple user -> LMDE Team would be able to reproduce the problem -> LMDE Team would be able to file a bug report (link to this topic) with Xfce Thunar Team -> having a specific report, coming from a distro Team, would give a more realistic goal to the original devs (Thunar Team) to effectively solve the problem.

If I report this with the Thunar Team, it would just be another report, of the too many already filed and not even acknowledge at all (not in Mint nor in Xfce; I checked). This specific problem was already reported and/or posted more than once by other users, in several distros and in Xfce, but not in a clear (reproducible) way. The several bug reports about this are not being acknowledged at all (as many others).

If LMDE Team is interested in communicating this reproducible bug report to (upstream) Thunar Team, we all be gaining eventually (maybe for Xfce 4.12 ). After all, it is in the interest of all users and all distros using Xfce.

If any member of LMDE / Xfce / Thunar Teams would need or want more info, I am willing to contribute (as final user with tests, for example).