Linux Mint 17 KDE
Linux 3.16.0-031600-generic
KDE SC Version : 4.13.2

Hi

I have 6 external USB drives all selected to automount on start up. No issues with any of this.

But the only issue I do have is when accessing Dolphin, it hangs as it awaits the USB drive/s to wake up. This can be quite annoying as the majority of the time I just need to access my home folder.

Is there any way I can access Dolphin without waiting for all my external drives to wake up

I messed about with kernels hoping that would fix it, but still seems the same.

Thanks for any feedback.

is this a problem common to all Linux file managers?

are all the drives auto mounted under your ~/home?

No, I only noticed it with KDE Distros.

Well on live CDs it does not seem to lock the same, but nothing is really setup then, but once it was all setup I just started noticing it, you click the file manager, it pops up, but then it hangs until you hear the drive spin up.

No they are mounted under /Media/Username/

Do you see the same problem if you do not open Dolphin, but a KDE application like KWrite, and then open the "Open file" dialog?

The best way to find out which code is responsible for a hang of the application is to get a backtrace while it's hanging with gdb. See https://community.kde.org/Dolphin/FAQ/Freeze for further information.

I assume some link or the disk representation in the places/devices column stats the device (content)

In that case this isn't just an annoyance, but actually a problem since that means to spin up the drive (what it will not do for an unlimited amount) and another tiemout to spin it down (sucking battery on mobile devices)

-> I would assume that this does not happen if the places/devices panel is hidden?

Coming from Windows this is the normal behaviour of Windows Explorer as well. As such, it's always been annoying, but I haven't given it much extra thought so far.

It would be nice to make Dolphin operate without having to spin up disks which aren't going to be accessed, or if the disks are to be accessed, it would be cool if Dolphin doesn't need to hang while waiting for the disks.

I've seen this behaviour before - it is probably caused by the free space indicators used in the Places sidebar.
If Dolphin has an option to disable these, then that should block the behaviour from continuing (I think this feature was removed from other parts of KDE for this very reason).

bcooksley wrote:I've seen this behaviour before - it is probably caused by the free space indicators used in the Places sidebar.

Dolphin does not have the free space indicators in the Places Panel anymore (since KDE SC 4.9 IIRC). The file dialog still has them though.

As I said in viewtopic.php?f=224&t=122622&p=323545#p318493 the best (and the only reliable) way to find out what causes the hang is to get a backtrace with gdb.

freininghaus wrote:Do you see the same problem if you do not open Dolphin, but a KDE application like KWrite, and then open the "Open file" dialog?

The best way to find out which code is responsible for a hang of the application is to get a backtrace while it's hanging with gdb. See https://community.kde.org/Dolphin/FAQ/Freeze for further information.

I do indeed also see the hang with the Open file dialog (from FF confirmed, but also others)
I'm not 100% sure of this but since I have dolphin open most of the time, if the HDD has gone to sleep, dolphin will wake it for copy and maybe even move operations within my SSD... Will make sure to confirm this if I can.

hang of the application is to get a backtrace while it's hanging with gdb

1. It only hangs for a few seconds.
2. How can I provide the backtrage with gdb? How do I even use a debugger? Do you mean I should look at Dolphin (c++?) code and debug it?

Thanks.