USB flashdrive not displaying on the desktop when inserted

Hardware
1

Greetings everyone,

I need your help. 1. I have installed XFCE4 desktop environment on a lubuntu 18.04LTS OS as I still have i386 32bit machine. I have noticed that when I insert a USB flash drive formatted as fat32 it no longer shows up on my desktop when inserted;likewise it does not disappear when removed. 2. the latest version of OpenOffice Suite does no longer save on any of my USB flash drives, a window appears telling me writting error yet there is space left on the drive. It does however saves it in my document file on my computer. What seems the trouble and how can I fix this issue. There is alsoa backend problem when trying to delete the USB drives shown on the devices panel. A prompt answer is appreciated.

Regards
Ludwig

2

First can you make sure, your pendrives do work well in an other machine?
What I suspect here is a HW problem, either with the pendrives, or the USB ports of the machine (or the machine itself).
You will need a surely good working pendrive, and write a live system onto it. If you can boot that, the ports are probably OK.
Test please the system RAM, just to be sure.
Also inspect storage SMART data, dying HDD can cause weird problems.
If this is a desktop, further HW checks can be done (may be necessary).
If everything is fine, a recent kernel update (for example), could be the culprit too.

3

Greetings Mr. Kovacs

Thank you in responding to my query. The answer to your questions:

  1. The pendrives work well on other machines. I also have a Dell laptop.
    I also have partitioned Windows XP Pro on the same hard drive Pendrives and ports work well on this OS.
  2. What do you mean by HW?
  3. How to test RAM.
  4. What is a storage SMART data. I am sorry I am a novice learning as I move on.
  5. I suspect that it might be a recent Kernel update. Although I am not sure.

Also, I am having difficulty saving documents on my pendrive. “Error writing” using Open Office Calc. This does not occur when using the same software on Windows XP pro. Also, I am not sure whether it has to do with the folder Mount or Media that I am not able to save my document on my pendrive. It remains in the mount folder.
Please let me know. Thanks, much appreciated.

Ludwig

4

Hello Ludwig,

Let’s tackle one problem at a time.

When you insert the USB in Lubuntu 18.04, it is not shown on the desktop.

Is it also not shown in the file explorer?

Can you see it in a disk utility like Disks or Gparted?

5

Hello Abhishek,
Thank you to responding at my question.

They are visible in files, disks Gparted. I am able access my files through files and Dolphin.

Regards
Ludwig