KDE problem mounting Sandisk USB

Thank you for taking the time to file a bug report.

You mentioned that the device is /dev/sda1, but that is likely a partition in the disk. Could you please provide the output of following command:

# lsblk /dev/sda

smartd/smartmontools sometimes can have problem with USB devices, but we would need more logs from you in order to try to determine what's going on. I think you can access its logs by using "journalctl -u smartmontools".

Could you also please provide the output of:

# smartctl -a /dev/sda

Last but not least, would you be able to schedule a test with smartctl on your device? I don't know if it will work or not (due to it being a USB disk), but it's worth a try. I think you can do it by running:

# smartctl -t short /dev/sda

After that, please post the logs:

# smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

Since there is not enough information in your report to begin triage or to
differentiate between a local configuration problem and a bug in Ubuntu, I
am marking this bug as "Incomplete". We would be grateful if you would:
provide a more complete description of the problem, explain why you
believe this is a bug in Ubuntu rather than a problem specific to your
system, and then change the bug status back to "New".

For local configuration issues, you can find assistance here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community

You will find attached the log of the requested commands.

If the USB device's failure was so imminent, why is it working fine daily with rsync on Ubuntu 20.04 since it was purchased a few weeks ago?

Thanks for providing the additional logs. As Sergio said, SMART is often unreliable on USB drives. What can happen, in very general terms, is that a proper SATA ssd is attached to a SATA-to-USB adapter. The adapter is not fully transparent to the SMART data, or it provides incomplete data, which may be enough for the vendor's "health monitor app", but isn't fully standards compliant, and so it can appear as failing.

I did a quick Google search for "sandisk usb Perc_Avail_Resrvd_Space" apparently that's a common issue for Sandisk USB drives. You may need to disable SMART monitoring for yours. If in doubt, do an extra backup :-)

I doubt there's a bug in Ubuntu here, but if you believe otherwise please comment back with your rationale and we'll look at this again. I'm leaving this report marked Incomplete for the moment.

During the course of further Kubuntu 21.10 testing today to answer Sandisk support questions, the following new behaviours appeared:

- the Sandisk Extreme Pro 256 GB USB stick no longer triggers the error popup window
- the mount popup window no longer appears
- the dolphin file manager does display the flash drive and its contents

This test was repeated with 2 other flash drives with the following results:
- the mount popup window no longer appears
- the dolphin file manager does display the flash drive and its contents

These tests were then repeated on all 7 other (total 8) USB type A ports with identical results.

Bugs or features of KDE?

Sandisk claims that both drives are defective.

Hello and thanks for following up.

What do you mean exactly by "Sandisk claims that both drives are defective"? Did their tech support analyze your drives? Or did you check them against a list of defective S/N? Or is that the result of a "drive health check" app from Sandisk? In this case, running on which platform?

Anyway, if the drives are truly defective, do we agree there is no bug here, and the popup was actually correct?

>What do you mean exactly by "Sandisk claims that both drives are defective"

Based on my answers to a battery of their questions, Sandisk concluded both flash drives are defective and have agreed to replace them.

>if the drives are truly defective, do we agree there is no bug here, and the popup was actually correct

The popup was actually correct.

Comment#5 still indicates the presence of other bugs.

I'm happy to hear that you've got the defective drives replaced. The other two issues you mentioned do not seems related to the smartmontools package, so I'm marking this bug report as Invalid, as it wasn't a bug in the first place. I suggest you to file separate bugs against the relevant KDE packages if you think you spotted problems there.

I am sorry for somehow hinting you at dismissing an hardware failure warning in comment #4. What I wrote there _does_ match my experience with USB drives, but I should have added a warning about smartmontools possibly being right, so extra care was required with your data.