Problem with .gvfs or .gvfs* in Fedora 11 [Solved]

Steven F. LeBrun steven at lebruns.com
Mon Aug 3 12:09:12 UTC 2009


On 08/03/2009 04:15 AM, Ron Yorston wrote:
> "Steven F. LeBrun" wrote:
>    
>> First, Emacs froze when I tried to list my home directory, then "ls -a"
>> froze from command line.  Through trial and error, it appears that there
>> is a file, directory, or special file in my home directory that begins
>> with ".gvfs".  Any attempts to list the contents of the directory that
>> should include .gvfs* fails and locks up the program that issued the
>> command; emacs, ls -a in bash shell, etc.  The close icon in the upper
>> right hand corner of the frame will cause a pop-dialog to appear that
>> allows the program to be "force quit".
>>
>> Any ideas on how to resolve this problem?  Can I safely do a "rm -rf
>> .gvfs*" or will that delete files that my system needs?
>>
>> The command "ls -ad .gvfs*" also locks up which leads me to suspect that
>> .gvfs is a special file, such as a device, instead of a directory.
>>      
>
> It should just be a directory, but it's used as a mount point by
> gvfs-fuse-daemon so it has special magic properties.  Several people
> have complained about it, the most common problem being that backup
> tasks run by root can see that the directory exists but when they
> try to access it the get permission denied.  This confuses them and
> may cause the backup to fail.
>
> The .gvfs directory isn't essential to the functioning of GNOME.
> GNOME applications that use gvfs do so through an API, not the
> directory.  It's provided as a 'convenience' for non-GNOME applications.
>
> It's possible to prevent gvfs-fuse-daemon from running and thus
> taking over ~/.gvfs.  This is only partially documented and it took
> me a while to work out how to do it in a way that won't be broken
> by future updates.
>
> Create the file /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/00-gvfs-disable-fuse.sh
> with the follwing contents:
>
>     GVFS_DISABLE_FUSE=1
>     export GVFS_DISABLE_FUSE
>
> Log out and log in again.  ~/.gvfs should then be an ordinary directory.
>
> Ron
>
>    

Thanks, adding the 00-gvfs-disable-fuse.sh script worked.  It allowed me 
to delete my ~/.gvfs directory.  After deleting the file, I removed the 
script and rebooted and a new .gvfs was created without breaking "ls -a".


-- 
   Steven F. LeBrun

Quote: /"The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there 
are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy 
stories tell children that dragons can be killed."/
      -- G.K. Chesterton

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