Why is Files App so flakey?!

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

I don’t like to complain, especially on free projects like this. That said, as it’s happened quite a few times now and costs me data/work every time, I thought I’d mention it in case someone has any advice. I don’t think it’s ‘me’, but you never know.

I am running F41WS.

What happens is when I plug in a USB Stick (top quality known good one, I have several and it isn’t specific to one device), I move files over. So today I moved a folder and while that was moving I dragged a few other files, expecting it to ‘queue’ the transfers, and it did, they stack up. But then I tried to rename a file (other times I might do something different, anything really, in Files app, while this queue is working) and suddenly it all freezes. Sometimes I leave it for an hour (which is a pain) and it recovers, but usually it doesn’t it just sits there. I know it’s frozen because there’s no progress on transfer data.

Just now it did this, I opened another Files window (by clicking a dialogue in browser) and poof, black screen, back to login. this logout caused me to lose my progress and even some data in unsaved documents. It happens so suddenly, the system doesn’t have any time to do anything, it just goes blink, black, 3-5 seconds and the login screen comes back.

I am not doing what I think is ‘too much’. I have moved enormous amounts of data in similar ways for many years on Mac, Finder seems extremely stable, at least compared to this. All I was doing today was moving about 300MB of data via a few queued commands, and then it seems to say ‘Nope’, and if i do anything else it can just throw me out sometimes.

I haven’t upgraded to F42 yet but probably safe to go ahead now as I think it’s been a while. I’ll see if it does the same on F42.

thanks

[barryascott]

It’s worth having a look at the system and user journals around the time of the probem to see what has been reported.

Things to look for is oom (out-of-memory killer), any mention of usb.
Given you get dropped back to login I would be very surprise for you not to find logs.

[gnwiii (George N. White III)]

@joeyjonnson

I haven’t upgraded to F42 yet but probably safe to go ahead now

Upgrading avoids the risk that you are chasing a solved issue..

When report issues, you need to make it as easy as possible for someone with similar hardware and software versions to reproduce the issue. This means making sure Fedora and vendor firmware are fully updated. Providing the output from running inxi -Fzxx (in a terminal) will show your hardware details. Please post the output as pre-formatted text (use the </> button from the top line of the text entry panel.

Run journalctl --no-hostname --follow in a terminal while transferring files to see messages could help understand the issue.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

Excellent info thanks.
I’ll upgrade and see if it continues.

In mean time:

System:
  Kernel: 6.15.6-100.fc41.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.3.1
  Desktop: GNOME v: 47.6 tk: GTK v: 3.24.43 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 41 (Workstation Edition)
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude 5420 v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0M51J7 v: A00 serial: <superuser required> part-nu: 0A20
    UEFI: Dell v: 1.46.1 date: 04/23/2025
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 33.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 33.0/63.0 Wh (52.4%)
    volts: 16.0 min: 15.2 model: BYD DELL M033W11 serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1145G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 400 min/max: 400/4400 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400 4: 400
    5: 400 6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 bogomips: 23961
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Dell
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Xe ports: active: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 off: eDP-1
    empty: DP-2,HDMI-A-2,HDMI-A-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a49
  Device-2: Logitech Webcam C270 driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-1.2.4:9 chip-ID: 046d:0825
  Device-3: Sunplus Innovation Integrated_Webcam_HD driver: uvcvideo
    type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-6:3 chip-ID: 1bcf:28cc
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.18 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: DP-1 model: Dell U2715H res: 2560x1440 dpi: 109
    diag: 685mm (27")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 model: BenQ GL2760 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 82
    diag: 686mm (27")
  Monitor-3: eDP-1 model: LG Display 0x068d res: 1920x1080 dpi: 158
    diag: 355mm (14")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.0.7 glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
    device-ID: 8086:9a49 display-ID: :0.0
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Dell
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a0c8
  Device-2: DisplayLink StarTech DK30CH2DPPD driver: cdc_ncm,snd-usb-audio
    type: USB rev: 3.2 speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 2-1.4:4 chip-ID: 17e9:6007
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C270 driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-1.2.4:9 chip-ID: 046d:0825
  API: ALSA v: k6.15.6-100.fc41.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.2.7 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a0f0
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15fb
  IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: enp0s13f0u1u4i5 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: half
    mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-2: uk-coventry state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 882.39 GiB (94.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT1000MX500SSD4 size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 929.91 GiB used: 881.96 GiB (94.8%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/dm-0
    mapped: luks-d3d9bd0d-28cd-40f0-b481-ff10a607ab59
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 369.1 MiB (37.9%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 62.9 MiB (10.5%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-4: /home size: 929.91 GiB used: 881.96 GiB (94.8%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/dm-0 mapped: luks-d3d9bd0d-28cd-40f0-b481-ff10a607ab59
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  Src: /sys System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: 37.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
  Power: 12v: N/A 5v: 5 3.3v: N/A vbat: N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est. available: 30.73 GiB used: 6.59 GiB (21.4%)
  Processes: 488 Power: uptime: 4h 1m wakeups: 1 Init: systemd v: 256
    target: graphical (5) default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 74
    Compilers: gcc: 14.3.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.32 running-in: gnome-terminal
    inxi: 3.3.38

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

It happened again. This time I wonder if it fried my USB drive, is there any way to confirm? Here’s what happened:

Moving some video files from a Desktop folder to a folder on USB drive (Sandisk Extreme 64GB). As usual it started out fine, then went very slow/stopped. I waited, then it presumably crashed as my machine went blank and came up with login screen. I was logged out (losing a lot of image editing i was doing in a browser-based image editor!)
Unlike before, it wouldn’t let me login. I entered correct password and it just sat there, i gave it 10 minutes then had to force shutdown using power button.
Rebooted ok.

I logged in again, the drive shows in sidebar in Files but I can’t access it. I just get this:

Tried ejecting, removing, using different USB slot on laptop, logging out and in, rebooting… every time i get that same error.
Any tips on determining if the USB is fried?
thanks

[gnwiii (George N. White III)]

@joeyjonnson

Any tips on determining if the USB is fried?

There are other possibilities:

• counterfeit USB drive with much smaller capacity than the label claims
• corrupt filesystem due a crash unrelated to the USB
• many USB drives are very slow. File manager reports that all the data have been “copied” doesn’t mean the buffer have been emptied. If the system needs RAM for other tasks, the OOM killer may have taken action.

Please make an effort to collect data using journalctl to examine earlier boots where the problem occurred.

You can check the “health” of the USB drive with sudo smartctl -x /dev/sdb. You can also run tests with smartctl. This only check the hardware, so does not examine, much less repair, damaged filesystems. USB drives have a limited lifetime. The smartctl output should include details of how much data have been written to the drive. Vendor specs usually include some expected endurance data. There should also be a count of “unsafe” shutdowns, which can be a system crash or a drive being removed before buffers are emptied, etc.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

Thanks.
I am certain it’s not a counterfeit USB drive. I am fussy about the ones I use, and only generally use Sandisk Extreme for the speed mainly but also I find them very robust.

@gnwiii

Please make an effort to collect data using journalctl to examine earlier boots where the problem occurred.

I can enter the command, but beyond that have no clue. I can’t ‘read’ it, I do’nt even know what to do next as the cursor hasn’t come back, it seems to go on forever!

If I can grab it all I am happy to paste in here but I learned many moons ago that pasting random (unreadable for me) text from my system to public forums is far from wise usually! If there are no major privacy concerns I am happy to paste it here.

I ran the smartctl command, don’t see anything related to ‘unsafe shutdowns’. The drive still won’t become accessible even though it detects me plugging it in.

smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.15.7-200.fc42.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     SanDisk based SSDs
Device Model:     SanDisk pSSD
Serial Number:    0cdc492f4
LU WWN Device Id: 5 001b44 0c4cdf492
Firmware Version: 3
User Capacity:    62,742,792,192 bytes [62.7 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Form Factor:      1.8 inches
TRIM Command:     Available, deterministic, zeroed
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.5/5706
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 2d
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Jul 29 19:26:21 2025 BST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
AAM feature is:   Unavailable
APM feature is:   Disabled
Rd look-ahead is: Disabled
Write cache is:   Disabled
DSN feature is:   Unavailable
ATA Security is:  Disabled, NOT FROZEN [SEC1]

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)	Offline data collection activity
					was never started.
					Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)	The previous self-test routine completed
					without error or no self-test has ever 
					been run.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection: 		(  120) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x51) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					No Auto Offline data collection support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					No Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					No Conveyance Self-test supported.
					Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)	Saves SMART data before entering
					power-saving mode.
					Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)	Error logging supported.
					General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time: 	 (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (  11) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   -O----   100   100   000    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O----   100   100   000    -    9634
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O----   100   100   000    -    3471
171 Program_Fail_Count      -O----   100   100   000    -    0
172 Erase_Fail_Count        -O----   100   100   000    -    0
173 Avg_Write/Erase_Count   -O----   100   100   000    -    26
174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  -O----   100   100   000    -    2735
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O----   100   100   000    -    0
230 Perc_Write/Erase_Count  -O----   100   100   000    -    86
232 Perc_Avail_Resrvd_Space PO----   100   100   005    -    0
234 Perc_Write/Erase_Ct_BC  -O----   100   100   000    -    10
241 Total_LBAs_Written      -O----   100   100   000    -    1712062196
242 Total_LBAs_Read         -O----   100   100   000    -    2446634167
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

General Purpose Log Directory Version 1
SMART           Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
Address    Access  R/W   Size  Description
0x00       GPL,SL  R/O      1  Log Directory
0x01       GPL,SL  R/O      1  Summary SMART error log
0x03       GPL,SL  R/O     16  Ext. Comprehensive SMART error log
0x04       GPL,SL  R/O      8  Device Statistics log
0x06       GPL,SL  R/O      1  SMART self-test log
0x09       GPL,SL  R/W      1  Selective self-test log
0x10       GPL,SL  R/O      1  NCQ Command Error log
0x11       GPL,SL  R/O      1  SATA Phy Event Counters log
0x30       GPL,SL  R/O      9  IDENTIFY DEVICE data log
0x80-0x9f  GPL,SL  R/W     16  Host vendor specific log
0xa1       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xa2       GPL,SL  VS       2  Device vendor specific log
0xa3       GPL,SL  VS       1  Device vendor specific log
0xa7       GPL,SL  VS     255  Device vendor specific log

Warning! SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Structure error: invalid SMART checksum.
SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log Version: 1 (16 sectors)
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log (GP Log 0x07) not supported

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Commands not supported

Device Statistics (GP Log 0x04)
Page  Offset Size        Value Flags Description
0x05  =====  =               =  ===  == Temperature Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x05  0x008  1              50  ---  Current Temperature
0x05  0x010  1               -  ---  Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x018  1               -  ---  Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x020  1              76  ---  Highest Temperature
0x05  0x028  1              30  ---  Lowest Temperature
0x05  0x030  1              55  ---  Highest Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x038  1              55  ---  Lowest Average Short Term Temperature
0x05  0x040  1               -  ---  Highest Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x048  1               -  ---  Lowest Average Long Term Temperature
0x05  0x050  4               0  ---  Time in Over-Temperature
0x05  0x058  1              95  ---  Specified Maximum Operating Temperature
0x05  0x060  4               0  ---  Time in Under-Temperature
0x05  0x068  1               0  ---  Specified Minimum Operating Temperature
0x07  =====  =               =  ===  == Solid State Device Statistics (rev 1) ==
0x07  0x008  1               0  N--  Percentage Used Endurance Indicator
                                |||_ C monitored condition met
                                ||__ D supports DSN
                                |___ N normalized value

Pending Defects log (GP Log 0x0c) not supported

SATA Phy Event Counters (GP Log 0x11)
ID      Size     Value  Description
0x0003  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host data FIS
0x0004  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS
0x0006  2            0  R_ERR response for device-to-host non-data FIS
0x0007  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS
0x0009  2            0  Transition from drive PhyRdy to drive PhyNRdy
0x000a  2            0  Device-to-host register FISes sent due to a COMRESET
0x000f  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device data FIS, CRC
0x0012  2            0  R_ERR response for host-to-device non-data FIS, CRC
0x0001  2            0  Command failed due to ICRC error

[vekruse (Villy Kruse)]

The output of the command lsblk -f /dev/sdb would be useful.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sdb                                                                         
└─sdb1
     ntfs         64    02A043945A374684                                    

Which reminds me, is there some secret trick to being able to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V in Terminal?!

Thanks

[barryascott]

@joeyjonnson

Which reminds me, is there some secret trick to being able to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V in Terminal?!

Use Shift-Ctrl-C and Shift-Ctrl-V.

As Ctrl-C is bound to SIGINT and Ctrl-V to quote next character it’s not typical use them in a terminal.

But it can be done if you do custom bash and terminal setup.

[gnwiii (George N. White III)]

@joeyjonnson

I ran the smartctl command, don’t see anything related to ‘unsafe shutdowns’.

174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  -O----   100   100   000    -    2735

 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O----   100   100   000    -    3471

Note the “pre-fail” (P) warning:

232 Perc_Avail_Resrvd_Space PO----   100   100   005    -    0

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

Thanks, but do you have a translation please

[whiplatus (Whistling Platypus)]

@joeyjonnson

Thanks, but do you have a translation please

The USB stick is doing fine from a hardware point of view. All SMART values are at 100. There is no pre-fail warning.

The NTFS file system may be corrupted though, possibly causing the “Unknown error when mounting”. If you have important data on the stick, I’d suggest to check the file system on a Windows PC. Otherwise use the Disk app to reformat the stick.

@joeyjonnson

Finder seems extremely stable, at least compared to this

I have learned to drop to the terminal for handling important files, I’m afraid…

[gnwiii (George N. White III)]

Unexpected power loss can be due to removing a USB drive while data is being transferred or a system crash. Either way, filesystem corruption is possible. Windows offers “Safely remove” for USB devices. I use Gnome DIsks “power off” button with USB devices.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

A brief update - this Fedora machine will NOT mount the USB. several reboots/updates later, still when i connect it and try to access in Files app it says can’t mount just like I reported before.
But I just wondered what would happen if I stick it into my Mac. Perfectly fine, accessible as normal. So what’s Fedora’s problem with it?! Data doesn’t seem corrupted (all files open as normal).
I am currently trying the only idea I have, to copy it all out to a folder on Mac, then bring stick to Fedora and format at it again, then take back to mac and move files back to it, then see if it’s accessible back on here (Fedora)!
Wondering if anyone can make sense of it?

[lozenge (Laurie)]

@joeyjonnson

copy it all out to a folder on Mac, then bring stick to Fedora and format at it again, then take back to mac and move files back to it, then see if it’s accessible back on here

That sounds plausible.

If problems persist you might eliminate the USB altogether and transfer the files over the network. If you don’t have a suitable share set up either rsync or tar over ssh or if that’s difficult for whatever reason, then something like wormhole-willam or similar.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

USB seems totally fine now. I reformatted it in Fedora, put files back on, they are accessible now on Fedora. Weird.

Wormhole - I actually use that to get files from Android to Fedora. Never thought of using it for machine to machine, duh!
Is wormhole william different to ‘normal Wormhole’?!
Thanks

[lozenge (Laurie)]

Glad you got it sorted

wormhole-william is compatible with the standard python wormhole, but written in Golang, so there’s just a single binary to run - just download / unpack, chmod +x and start using it.

[joeyjonnson (Joey Dell D5420 F42WSGnome)]

Not a clue what any of that meant But thanks, wormhole phone to PC is an extremely handy tool

[lozenge (Laurie)]

LOL okay
We agree that wormhole often comes in handy for various file transfers - whether across the room, or across the planet.
Wormhole-william may be easier to install on some platforms / OS’s, and there are also GUIs based on it which might be handy for friends that don’t like the command line interface.