[gentoo-user] gio/pcmanfm sftp:// "operation not supported"

[Grant Edwards]

Does anybody have any idea how to get pcmanfm to work with sftp?

I've found plenty of sources claiming it should work but all I ever
get when I try to open "sftp://<host>/" is "operation not supported"
[same result for both pcmanfm and pcmanfm-qt].

Google led me to several pages where the problem was not having gvfs
installed. I do have gvfs installed, but I suspect it's broken. I get
the impression that

$ gio list sftp://<host>/<path>

is supposed to work, but that too says "Operation not supported".

I've run strace -f on the above command, and none of the traced system
calls return ENOTSUP or EOPNOTSUPP

The same sftp:// URL works fine in filezilla, so I know the remote
server is OK.

The loan of a clue would be appreciated.

--
Grant

[Matt Connell]

Post by Grant Edwards
Google led me to several pages where the problem was not having gvfs
installed. I do have gvfs installed, but I suspect it's broken. I get
the impression that
    $ gio list sftp://<host>/<path>
is supposed to work, but that too says "Operation not supported".

I don't use pcmanfm, but I do have gvfs installed. Trying to "gio list
sftp://host" returns "The specified location is not mounted", so at
least my behavior is different.  

(Disclaimer, I may not know what I am doing with gio/gvfs; it is pulled
in by thunar and evince on my system.)

I have gvfs built with the following use flags enabled: cdda, elogind,
gnome-keyring, policykit, udev, udisks

Not sure if any of this is helpful to you or not, but maybe it will
provide a clue.

[Grant Edwards]

Post by Matt Connell

Post by Grant Edwards
Google led me to several pages where the problem was not having gvfs
installed. I do have gvfs installed, but I suspect it's broken. I get
the impression that
    $ gio list sftp://<host>/<path>
is supposed to work, but that too says "Operation not supported".

Apparently, that error is cause by lack of a DBUS session. I just
happened to stumble across a posting somewhere by somebody who had the
same problem. How they figured out that was the problem remains a
mystery.

[Is there a GNOME development group dedicated to making error messages
as meaningless as possible? If yes, then they're doing a stellar job.]

Post by Matt Connell
I don't use pcmanfm, but I do have gvfs installed. Trying to "gio list
sftp://host" returns "The specified location is not mounted", so at
least my behavior is different.

After launching a dbus session with

$ dbus-launch bash

And then running 'gio list' in the bash instance that is created above,
I get the "location is not mounted error"

A subsequent gio mount command then succeeds

$ gio mount sftp://<host>/<path>

After which the "gio list" command works as expected.

When I run pcmanfm-qt from that same bash instance, sftp URLs work.

GNOME: making life overly complicated since 1999!

--
Grant

[Matt Connell]

Post by Grant Edwards
Apparently, that error is cause by lack of a DBUS session. I just
happened to stumble across a posting somewhere by somebody who had the
same problem. How they figured out that was the problem remains a
mystery.

It is likely that nobody else noticed this because dbus has moved into
that "it is assumed to be there" tier of daemons these days. Like most
GNOME components, the GNOME developers are assuming all of GNOME is
available all of the time.

[Grant Edwards]

Post by Matt Connell

Post by Grant Edwards
Apparently, that error is cause by lack of a DBUS session. I just
happened to stumble across a posting somewhere by somebody who had the
same problem. How they figured out that was the problem remains a
mystery.

It is likely that nobody else noticed this because dbus has moved into
that "it is assumed to be there" tier of daemons these days.

The problem wasn't that the daemon was missing. There is a DBUS
daemon, and other things that use DBUS (e.g. notifications) work fine.

What was apparently missing was a "session"

$ set | grep dbus

$ dbus-launch bash

$ set | grep DBUS
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-45cBmpKpTX,guid=b783eda6500beba7132e450b63596c64

Post by Matt Connell
Like most GNOME components, the GNOME developers are assuming all of
GNOME is available all of the time.

Yep.

--
Grant

[Grant Edwards]

Post by Grant Edwards
The problem wasn't that the daemon was missing. There is a DBUS
daemon, and other things that use DBUS (e.g. notifications) work fine.
What was apparently missing was a "session"
$ set | grep dbus

(same result with "grep DBUS")

Post by Grant Edwards
$ dbus-launch bash
$ set | grep DBUS
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-45cBmpKpTX,guid=b783eda6500beba7132e450b63596c64

Where is one supposed to strat a DBUS session? Should ssh logins have
one? Should each X session have one? Should each console login have
one? Should every bash instance have one?