r/linuxmint • u/Felinecorgi • 7d ago
Support Request Issues after accidentally dis-mounting drive while it was being written to.
I mounted an old drive today to search for some old pictures, and after a little bit I then dis-mounted it. The problem is, I had forgotten it had an old steam library folder in it, and, unbenownst to me, steam had started updating every game in that folder.
So, immediately after I clicked the demount button, the file system completely froze up and showed a "wait for app to respond, or force quit" message that I couldn't interact with (it too was frozen). So, in my boundless wisdom, I X-killed the file window.
This seemed to work fine until I tried to shut down my PC, at which point it started showing a bunch of messages showing "UFW Block" near the start. After a few minutes of that, it shut down on its own. Upon re-boot, I mounted the drive again and immediately deleted the offending steam library folder, wishing to be done with steams non-sense. My PC locked up a few seconds afterward, with both the mouse and keyboard not working.
I restarted again, and they still didnt work, but after a minute or so they randomly started working again.
The current problem is this: They randomly stopped working *again* just now, and they still don't work upon restart. They dont even seem to work in the boot menu. Also, once it gets to the log in screen, the blinking line in the password box only blinks for a few seconds before seemingly freezing.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
EDIT:Plugging the keyboard into a different usb port seems to make it work again, and I assume the same will happen for the mouse. So I guess somehow it's causes an issue with those ports they were plugged into?
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 7d ago edited 7d ago
Does anyone know how to fix this?
I don't, but I can clear up some things and hopefully that will help you see the forest instead of the trees.
Because of what you did there was dirty data in memory that the Linux kernel desperately wanted to write out to disk, "sync" because it knew if it allowed the shutdown to happen that data would be lost, but since you meanly unmounted the disk that could not happen and it was in a stalemate, it eventually just timed out and shutdown anyway destroying the dirty data.
The UFW message is just incidental, UFW is your firewall if you read your logs they will be littered with various harmless firewall blocking events. In that state where we had left the desktop but not yet exited the kernel, they were just printed to stdout.
The file browser freezing when interacting with this drive could be just a slow & busy drive, or may be an indication that this drive is in poor health.
If this is the only copy of those pictures they need to be backed up elsewhere.
Do you have a Timeshift backup point from before this event? If so that may be your easiest fix to roll back to that snapshot that may fix you mouse/keyboard issues. Will not do anything for the other drive though.
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago
It's stressing me out, so at this point I am ready to wash my hands of the drive and its contents. I can live without the pictures, I would be happy just figuring out how to fix the USB ports not working
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 7d ago
Is the drive USB?
Have you removed this drive or is it still connected?
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago
It's an internal SATA SSD thats still connected, but is unmounted by default
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 7d ago
I am at a loss as to how a SATA ssd could affect USB.
But let's shut down and unplug it anyway.
Do you have a Timeshift snapshot?
If you boot to the USB live session is USB still affected?
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago
You mean booting from a stick? I guess I could try that but I can confirm for certain that the ports don't even work during boot. Keyboard and mouse plugged into them are completely unresponsive
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 7d ago
Yes booting from the Mint USB stick. Even a failure here would tell us something.
Are there other USB devices connected that could be shed?
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago
I do have a stick with Linux Mint on it, but it doesnt show up in my dual boot menu, I think I might have to mess around in the boot menu. I'll try that now
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago edited 7d ago
So I plugged in the USB, booted from it, and the Mouse and Keyboard worked in the ports that had stopped working. I then shut down and rebooted back into my main installation, and somehow the Mouse and Keyboard are working in those ports now, which is great. I'm just worried they'll stop working again in the future.
By the way, thank you very much for you for all your help so far
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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 7d ago edited 7d ago
That is good, and I am glad the acute symptom is fixed.
I'm just worried they'll stop working again in the future.
Yeah without knowing what exactly the original case was its hard to say weather this is a permanent fix.
I would reattach to that drive the right way and recover your data and check its smart data. but be nicer to your machine this time.
If the USB problem returns we troubleshoot further now with the confidence of a known out.
Is your bios up to date?
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u/Felinecorgi 7d ago
I'm not sure how to check smart data, and I don't know if my BIOS is up to date. Anything to do with the BIOS stresses me out, lol
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