Ubuntu
nautilus package

I cannot access my files

Asked by Brian Smith

I've been using Ubuntu 10.10 for about two weeks, and really like it. However, something just happened that I do not understand. I was trying to compress some audio files, and send them to a friend. I couldn't find the Archive Manager, so I went to the Ubuntu Software Center and installed 7zip. As I was trying to figure out how to do it, I lost access to everything.

In the upper-left corner of my monitor, there are three options to choose...Applications, Places, and System.
Typically, I would choose Places, and then browse my folders: Home, Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, Downloads. Now, when I select any one of them...nothing happens. If I go to Applications>Accessories>Disk Usage Analyzer, the ring chart tells me that my data is still there. What happened, and how do I gain access to my data again?

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delance
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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#1

Could you type Ctrl+Alt+F1 to open a terminal.
Then run command:
   ls -l
where "-l" is lower case L.

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#2

I can access my data through the Disk Usage Analyzer, but I really liked the convenience of just choosing the Places option.

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#3

Ok. Everything is listed

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#4

Do you have "Home", "Desktop", "Workplace" and "Network" ? Not sure of name as I use French interface.

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#5

These are the results of ls -l (user name deleted)

drwxr-xr-x 2 4096 2011-03-08 11:42 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 8 4096 2011-03-08 11:44 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 16 4096 2011-03-07 13:37 Downloads
-rw-r--r-- 1 179 2011-03-01 17:07 examples.desktop
drwxr-xr-x 67 4096 2011-03-08 11:34 Music
drwx------ 2 4096 2011-02-20 14:55 NGC Games
drwxr-xr-x 3 4096 2011-03-01 18:13 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 4096 2011-03-01 17:24 Public
drwxr-xr-x 2 4096 2011-03-01 17:24 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 3 4096 2011-03-01 19:05 Videos

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delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#6

Your user name should appear in list instead of "4096". Did you remove it yourself ? Did you change something about user identity or mounting of disk ?

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#7

I copied the results from terminal, and pasted them into a message here. I deleted my user name before I posted. I guess I'm a bit paranoid about security. Should I post everything? 4096 actually shows up after my user name in the terminal window.

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Best delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#8

Seeing your user name is normal behaviour, but seeing group number is unusual. By default Ubuntu make a group with same name as user. But as you can list files, you don't have access right issue.
In places I have an entry named "Signets" (bookmark) which give access to a list of bookmark.
Could you open a folder with Nautilus (standard file explorer), see if you see bookmarks in bookmarks menu, and if not see if you can add one.

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#9

Well, I don't know about Signets, but there is a Computer option. In there, I can choose Bookmarks and access my data. I guess that solves the problem, but I am curious why I cannot access my music collection by just selecting Music from the Places option.

Thanks for the help. Although now I must take a few extra steps to access my data, I can still access it.

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Brian Smith (mindfilled75-gmail) said : 		#10

Thanks delance, that solved my question.