Nautilus: Impossible to change case of filename/extension in Windows Share

Bug #195798 reported by Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0)
40
This bug affects 7 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Nautilus
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
gvfs
Unknown
Critical
samba
Fix Released
Medium
gvfs (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs
samba (Debian)
Fix Released
Unknown

Bug Description

Altough Linux is a case-sensitive operating system, I cannot change the case in filename or extension in nautilus when working on a Windows Share. If I try to rename from 123.abc to 123.ABC for example, nautilus will tell me there already is a file with that name.

Obviously, it doesn't matter to Windows the case of the filename/extension. The problem is that sometimes we use Windows shares to store files that will be accessed on Linux or shared between the two operating systems. Then it becomes a problem.

Example situation: You are trying to watch a AVI movie with subtitles using MPlayer. Both files (.avi, .srt) are stored at a Windows share. In order for this to work with MPlayer, both files have to have the exact same name and case. The subtitles file (.srt) has one letter in a wrong case. You try to change it with Nautilus and it won't work. Now the only two solutions are renaming through a terminal or physichal access to the Windows machine.

I have some other problems, regarding external scripts linking PPT and XLS to a database... If someone at the Windows side changes the case of one letter of any of the files, we at the Linux side can't fix it simply using Nautilus. Terminal or physical access is required.

And, anyway, not being able to rename a file at a share cannot be an expected behavior. It makes no sense.

Regards,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for your bug report. That's not a bug though but a limitation of the fat filesystem which are not casesensitive

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

The Windows Share is NTFS, which allows file names and extensions to have cases.
Please see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/100625

Regards,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

File names are case sensitive on NTFS volumes.
New Nautilus cannot handle this correctly.
Not all windows shares are FAT.
Please reproduce / investigate prior to closing the bug report.
Regards,
Effenberg

Changed in nautilus:
status: Invalid → New
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

the bug report descriptions should be short and clear so they can be used to work on bugs, yours lacks details and is not clear. Could you describe steps to trigger the issue? Does gvfs-move has the same issue? Renaming works correctly on a local ntfs drive

Changed in nautilus:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

Hi Sebastien, thank you for your answer. Here are the steps to trigged the issue, as requested:

1) Mount a remote NTFS Windows share (I am using CIFS at /etc/fstab).
2) Create a file named 123.abc in this volume (touch, gedit, whatever).
3) Open Nautilus and select the mounted volume in the left panel.
4) In the right panel, locate the file you have just created in Step 2.
5) Right click over the file and select "rename". Try to rename it to "123.ABC".

Nautilus will tell you there already is a file with that name, which is not true because the mounted volume is not FAT but NTFS (case sensitive).

Alternatively, use Nautilus to access the NTFS share using a "smb://" address and try to perform Steps 4 and 5: It will work.

Regards,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

how do you do the mounting using cifs, that might be a bug there and not a gvfs one, did you try the gvfs-move command?

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

I use the same /etc/fstab since dapper and I never had this problem with Nautilus before, so I guess it isn't related to this. Anyway, here's how it is mounted:

//192.168.1.100/docs /media/windows cifs exec,credentials=/root/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,noauto,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0

No, I did not try gvfs-move. Can you explain me how to test it?

Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

could you open a command line, cd to the directory and use gvfs-move 123.abc 123.ABC

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~$ sudo mount windows
[sudo] password for effenberg:
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~$ cd windows
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$ ls
123
3.srt
4.srt
5.srt
Apresentação_Final.PPT
Apresentação_HHY.pdf
Apresentação_Software.ppt
assinatura.TXT
BD.dbf
BrowseAmp2.exe
Captura_da_tela.png
CHAMADAS.TXT
TIA - Terminal Informativo Acadêmico.pdf
Visual FoxPro Projects
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$ mv 3.srt 3.SRT
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$ ls 3*
3.SRT
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$ gvfs-move 3.SRT 3.srt
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$ ls 3*
3.srt
effenberg@effenberg-mobile:~/windows$

Regards,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

likely a nautilus then, to confirm by somebody using cifs, ntfs3g mounts which are the standard on ubuntu doesn't have the issue

Changed in nautilus:
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

Ok, please tell me if there's any other information I can provide to help.

Thanks,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

that's not likely something that's going to be fixed for hardy, there is not a lot of people using cifs around, you should consider giving a try to ntfs3g rather

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

I will try ntfs3g later today, however, I already found other people on the net trying to use remote volumes with ntfs3g and it seems it is designed for local *partitions", not remote volumes.

Also, you have already seen that I can go through console to the cifs mounted volume and rename the files as I want to. It won't work on Nautilus only as we have already made clear above. Why are we still taking about cifs, ntfs3g, etc?

Thanks,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

Yep, just tested it and it really is not meant for remote volumes.
From a developer at ntfs-3g forum:
"You can't use NTFS-3G to mount remote volumes. But CIFS is fine."

Regards,
Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

right, you are using non local shares, did you try browsing it using smb under nautilus?

Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

Yes, as I posted above on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/195798/comments/5

"Alternatively, use Nautilus to access the NTFS share using a "smb://" address and try to perform Steps 4 and 5: It will work."

Effenberg

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

nobody else seems to be annoyed by the issue and the ubuntu team doesn't have the ressources to work on that right now, since you have a cifs configuration triggering the bug could you open the bug on bugzilla.gnome.org?

Changed in nautilus:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Alvaro Leal (Effenberg0x0) (effenberg0x0) wrote :

Hello Sebastien,
we have actually managed to bypass this problem in our PCs through a change in our business process. All files are low-case in outr network now. Upper or "mixed"-case in no longer allowed, so theres no need to rename files to change the case anymore. Also, the Windows shares were replaced by a Linux storage system, so no machine uses CIFS anymore.

The bug is still there thou: I have recently installed a new XP machine in my home network and seen the bug again.
However, it is not important anymore for the company, as I told you above. I won't have the resources to track this bug report furthermore, so just close it here. As you said it, nobody else seems to care about this.

Thanks

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

changing to new for now until somebody having the issue sends the bug to bugzilla.gnome.org

Changed in nautilus:
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

any news about it? did anybody sent it upstream? leaving this as incomplete until that.

Changed in nautilus:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

could somebody having the issue send that to bugzilla.gnome.org?

Revision history for this message
Jonne (jonathan-vanherpe) wrote :

I just want to add that I too encounter this bug on CIFS shares, which is mildly annoying. It seems like Konqueror encounters the same problem, it gives you the option to overwrite, but that doesn't do anything (I'd test other file managers, but I don't have them installed, but could somebody test Thunar or other file managers?). The CIFS shares aren't running on Windows (one is on OS X, another one is embedded Linux).

So I suspect this is a bug in CIFS or whatever's between CIFS and the file managers (unless both file managers implemented the same bug).

Changed in nautilus:
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Wladston Viana (wladston) wrote :

I'm having the same issue.

Nautilus just can't handle cifs upper/lower case on hardy anymore. I'm using ubuntu with samba/cifs since 2006 and never had the issue.

When I try to rename files, merge folders, if there is a case mismath, it won't move the files, saying errors as strange as "the file xYz can't be found"

Revision history for this message
dave b. (d+b) wrote :

I have filed a bug at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564563 I have not included all the details, just what i found to be of the most importance. (deletion of files without warning).

Changed in nautilus:
status: New → Triaged
Changed in nautilus:
status: Unknown → New
Changed in samba:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
Changed in samba:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Reassigning to match the upstream product.

affects: nautilus (Ubuntu) → gvfs (Ubuntu)
Changed in nautilus:
importance: Unknown → Undecided
status: New → Invalid
Changed in gvfs:
importance: Unknown → Critical
status: Unknown → New
Changed in samba:
importance: Unknown → Medium
Changed in gvfs:
status: New → Unknown
Revision history for this message
Dave (awwyes) wrote :

I am running into something similar. I changing case in a filename doesn't accept changes.

ie: renaming "text.txt" to "Test.txt" doesn't work. The only thing I can do is rename "text.txt" to "test2.txt" then rename "test2.txt" to "Test.txt"

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