FreeCAD does not "see" partitions on a secondary harddisk

[MostUnlikely]

Hi,

Maybe this is an OS specific issue. In the past I have been running an earlier version of FreeCAD on Xubuntu 18.04 32 bit. Not very serious though. My OS and software are installed on an SSD, and all of my work is stored on a separate 1T hard drive with 2 partitions. My earlier FreeCAD stuff is also stored in one of those partitions. I am used to navigating to those locations through: \mnt\partition_name. Recently I installed Xubuntu 20.04.1 64 bit and FreeCAD 0.18. The problem I am facing now, is that FreeCAD does not seem to "see" any of the "folders" in the \mnt\ folder (at least not in the GUI). The two partitions are auto mounted at start-up and with all other software I have tried so far, I can navigate through \mnt\partition_name to open or save files, but not with FreeCAD. I have tried to create the "DontUseNativeDialog" boolean and set it to true, but that did not help. I have also set the dialoge to "All Files" and checked the "Show hidden files" check box. Now I am out of ideas. I hope somebody has a clue what causes this strange behaviour.

OS: Ubuntu Core 16
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.16093 +53 (Git)
Build type: Unknown
Branch: 0.18.4
Hash: 980bf9060e28555fecd9e3462f68ca74007b70f8
Python version: 3.5.2
Qt version: 5.5.1
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.4.0
Locale: English/UnitedStates (en_US)

[jmaustpc]

Ubuntu Core 16

Isn't that a ultra secure version of Linux from Ubuntu for IOT devices?

If so it is likely a security setting/issue etc. It's possible that it's a permissions issue, perhaps you need to be root or be a member of a group with extended permissions to access Mounted devices.

[MostUnlikely]

Hi jmaustpc,

Thanks for your swift answer. Xubuntu is a normal Ubuntu distribution with the Xfce desktop. It is supposed to be a bit on the lean side and because of that I am able to run it also on an old desktop PC. The permissions on the partitions are that Owner, Group and Others "Can View & Modify Content." It looks like this is not the problem, though it may be something more obscure. The Owner of the partitions is root and FreeCAD is launched as user_name, but this is the same for any LibreOffice app, that does not have the restriction.

[jmaustpc]

Xubuntu is a normal Ubuntu distribution with the Xfce desktop

Yeah, I am well aware of that, but you said you had been previously on Xubuntu, not that you are now

OS: Ubuntu Core 16

I searched that on Google and it said it was a high security IOT specialised distro.

Hence my question.

[Elyas]

You should probably take a closer look at AppArmor.

[MostUnlikely]

Hi jmaustpc and Elyas,

Thanks for pointing in the direction of security and permissions. I was not aware there is something like AppArmor to make these matters even more complicated. I have looked closer at AppArmor, but I don't see anything that looks like a profile for FreeCAD. The closest was "fcitx," but that may be an app for supporting input of Chinese characters. So far no luck in fixing this issue.

[jmaustpc]

Try FreeCAD 0.19 from the "daily PPA". FreeCAD 0.18.4 is now quite dated anyway, so most of us have long since moved onto the dev branch since it has over 6 thousand bug fix and new feature updates beyond 0.18

[MostUnlikely]

Hi jmaustpc,

Thanks for your last suggestion. In 0.19 it works like sunshine. The file open and save GUI has a completely new look and feel and I could easily open my old FreeCAD drawings.

I think this issue is resolved.

[Kunda1]

Please prepend [FIXED] to the title if this thread. Thx