It's enough to have in /etc/fstab entries like this (usually used to make "mounting by hand" easier): /sev/sdb1 /mnt/usb auto users,noauto,gid=100,umask=002,showexec 0 0 /sev/sdb2 /mnt/mp3player auto users,noauto,gid=100,umask=002,showexec 0 0 ...to practically block "thunar-volman" automount functionality completely. Having such entries in /etc/fstab makes t-v complaining, during pendrive insertion: thunar-volman: Unsupported USB device type. thunar-volman: Unsupported USB device type. thunar-volman: Unknown block device type. With lines of such type in /etc/fstab t-v actually isn't able to automount the pendrives (maybe once in hundred attempts?). Of course it's enough to comment out these lines to make it back working. IMHO there shouldn't be any such interference between t-v and /etc/fstab contents.
I got the same symptom as original poster. I usually have an fstab entry for my USB flash drive, as it needs some unusual mount options and custom mount point. And same as original poster, I added "users" mount option to let desktop environment mount it. This arrangement went well with GNOME2 volume manager. But when I switched to Xfce desktop, despite a correct configuration on `thunar-volman-settings`, my USB flash drive didn't get mounted when plugged. I have to manually run `mount /mnt/flash` in xfrun4 to mount it. If I commented out the entry of my flash drive from /etc/fstab, unplug the drive and plug in again, it got mounted by thunar-volman. But unlike the original poster, it is a big deal for me because without those special mount options, all filename became gibberish. This also applies to "user" mount option. I think "owner" and "group" option are affected too, but didn't have a chance to test on them yet. Side note: in my case, the fstab entry in question is /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flash vfat rw,sync,users,noauto,iocharset=tis-620,shortname=winnt,fmask=111,dmask=000 0 0 Thunar-volman: 0.6.1 (Debian package version 0.6.1-1) Xfce: 4.8 (Debian package version 4.8.0.3) Thunar: 1.2.3 (Debian package version 1.2.3-4+b1) System: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 "Wheezy" i386
If I plugged in the drive (with an entry in /etc/fstab) and try to add it manually to thunar-volman, using `thunar-volman -a /sys/dev/block/XXX:YYY` $ thunar-volman -a /sys/dev/block/8:17 thunar-volman: Could not detect the volume corresponding to the device. And nothing get mounted. But when I removed the corresponding entry in /etc/fstab then use the exact command above again without unplugging the drive, it got mounted instantly. Thunar-volman: 0.6.1 (Debian package version 0.6.1-1) Xfce: 4.8 (Debian package version 4.8.0.3) Thunar: 1.2.3 (Debian package version 1.2.3-4+b1) System: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 "Wheezy" i386
Closing old bugreports