Cannot mount or Container lost after 1-2 seconds
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1) Windows 7
VeraCrypt Volume created on the external HDD and mounted with password works stable and reliable!
2) UbuntuStudio 20.04
2.1) Try to mount the VeraCrypt Volume on the external HDD with the correct (!) two passwords (container + administrator) and with the standard option 'TrueCrypt Mode' ENABLED
=> VeraCrypt Volume doesn't mount!
2.2) Try to mount the VeraCrypt Volume on the external HDD with the correct (!) two passwords (container + administrator) and with the standard option 'TrueCrypt Mode' DISABLED
=> VeraCrypt Volume mounts, folders and files in the VeraCrypt Volume are displayed in the file manager, but suddenly, after only 1-2 seconds, the mounted VeraCrypt Volume is lost and disappears automatically from the file manager!
Please, help!
Thanks!
3 additional screenshots from UbuntuStudio 20.04 system.
QUOTE:
"2.1) Try to mount the VeraCrypt Volume on the external HDD with the correct (!) two passwords (container + administrator) and with the standard option 'TrueCrypt Mode' ENABLED
=> VeraCrypt Volume doesn't mount!"
This makes perfect sense:
(1) You created the VC-Drive/Container by using VC;
(2) VC an ONLY create VC-Drives -- VC can NEVER create TrueCrypt (TC)-format headers/drives -- VC can only read such "old" TC headers/drives;
(3) 'TrueCrypt Mode" is NOT a "standard option" and should never be used with any drive other than "old" TC-formatted drives.
QED:
"Operation failed due to one or more of the following:
- Incorrect password. (i.e., VC and TC create different keys from same Password)
- Incorrect Volume PIM number.
- Incorrect PRF (hash).
- Not a valid volume."
QUOTE:
"2.2) Try to mount the VeraCrypt Volume on the external HDD with the correct (!) two passwords (container + administrator) and with the standard option 'TrueCrypt Mode' DISABLED
=> VeraCrypt Volume mounts, folders and files in the VeraCrypt Volume are displayed in the file manager,"
YEP! Exactly as to be expected!
QUOTE:
". . . suddenly, after only 1-2 seconds, the mounted VeraCrypt Volume is lost and disappears automatically from the file manager!"
Now that is UNEXPECTED.
Some questions to help clarify . . .
When the drive/files disappear from Ubuntu's File Manager, DOES THAT MOUNTED VOLUME ALSO DISAPPEAR IN VC'S "MOUNTED VOLUMES" DISPLAY WINDOW?
That is, might this be a case of (1) VC dismounting the drive (i.e., that drive no longer appears in VC's "Mounted Volumes" window, /OR/ (2) Ubuntu somehow losing track of that virtual drive (i.e., that drive DOES STILL appear in VC's "Mounted Volumes" window )?
Have to tried a "forced refresh" of the Ubuntu File Manager's list of drives?
More info would be useful?
Maybe we can help,
-- RadMan
Last edit: RadMan 2020-11-18
Thank you very much for your time and help!
Trying to solve the problem, I had a look at 'Settings > Preferences' of VeraCrypt 1.24 Update 7 on both computers.
On the Windows 7 installation all the VC options under 'Mount Options' were DISABLED by default.
On the UbuntuStudio 20.04 installation all the VC options under 'Mount Options' were ENABLED by default, which I have now disabled, too.
Please have a look at the attached
'Screenshot_22_03.png' (enabled by default on the Ubuntu installation) and
'Screenshot_22_04.png' (now disabled on the Ubuntu installation).
But disabling these options didn't solve the problem (as expected).
I added some more screenshots (#22_02 to #22_10) to show you the other preferences set by default by the VC installation on the UbuntuStudio computer.
The time of the 'automated dismounting' (as I call it) now varies between 1 second and 2 minutes.
This problem never happens on the Windows 7 computer.
The default file manager on my UbuntuStudio 20.04 installation is thunar 1.8.14.
Yes, first, the mounted VC volume disappears from the file manager and a split second afterwards the mounted VC volume has completetly disappeared from the VC window, too. Please have a look at 'Screenshot_22_11.png', which shows the successfully mounted VC volume on the UbuntuStudio computer during these 1 second to 2 minutes until it is lost and the VC window gets empty.
I tried several 'positions' (#1, #2 and #5) to mount the VC volume, but the mounted VC volume will always disappear automatically after 1 second to 2 minutes.
I have not tried a "forced refresh" of the Ubuntu File Manager's list of drives. I haven't done this before and have to google first to give it a try.
While trying to solve the problem with the mounted VC volume on the UbuntuStudio 20.04 installation, I found a (rather strange) WORKAROUND by chance:
Usually, I first open a .jpg image file by double clicking on its file name. The double click will display the image in the default image viewer of UbuntuStudio named 'ristretto v0.10.0'.
As long as this one (first) image file is displayed in 'ristretto' the VC volume doesn't get lost and I can copy, delete, rename etc. files in the mounted VC volume on the UbuntuStudio installation for hours without any problems (after minimizing the 'ristretto' window). But I don't know, if the VC volume is still safely crypted at 100 % with this workaround on the UbuntuStudio installation.
As soon as I close the (last) image file displayed in 'ristretto', the VC volume completely disappears immediately without having clicked on the 'Dismount' button in the VC window at all.
Last edit: geolan 2020-11-18
Hi again:
Yes, it is strange that the default "Mount Options" differ between the Windows and Ubuntu versions. I cannot think of any design/function reason why that should be the case. I am not a member of either the Development Team or the informal Support Team. However, I will post a brief note about his matter as a "Trouble Ticket" that will be reviewed by the Development Team:
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/tickets/402/
You can contribute more information there (Trouble Ticket), as might be needed.
Since the mounted volume is disappearing from VC's display windows of mounted volumes, I would first suspect that this is a VC problem. Suspect that (for some reason) VC is "unmounting" that volume.
There are a number of manual and automatic methods that VC utilizes to unmount volumes WITHOUT the User pressing the "Dismount (All)" button(s). Some of these have to do with assigned "hot keys"; some of these have to do with the OS detecting that another media device has been attached to the system.
Right now, I might suspect that VC is unmounting your volume due to such "functionality". It is possible that some of these "options" (normally OFF) have also been "mistakenly" enabled in the Linux/Ubuntu version of VC. It is also possible that VC is also receiving erroneous messages of some type from the OS, thus causing the dismount.
I would go through all of the VC options and determine if any others that might be miss-set in your version.
I would also stop any accessory applications/programs that might be simultansiously running on your Ubuntu system and see if that might make a different. I would pay particular attention to any third party "Anti-Virus" programs that might be integrated deeply into the OS-kernel.
In this situation, I do not think a "forced refresh" through your "file manager" would make any difference.
QUOTE:
"Workaround . . .
Opening a file keeps the volume mounted . . .
. . . As soon as I close the (last) file . . . , the VC volume completely disappears immediately, without having clicked on the 'Dismount' button in the VC windows at all."
Now, this makes my think it is the operating system itself that is somehow "dismounting" the volume; dismounting it, and then sending a message to VC informing it of that dismount. (E.G., I can't think of any way that the VC-console/driver could know that you have any files open, or when the last file is closed, if the OS was not doing the dismount, then messaging VC!)
Have you tried to mount this portable VC-volume with any other flavors of Linux? Might this be something unique to your particular version of Ubuntu?
You may want to create your own, separate "Trouble Ticket" detailing this unusual "dismounting" behavior:
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/tickets/new/
Frankly, I think this is going to be very hard problem for the developers to track down. Any more testing/information you can provide about on which Linux systems this behavior is observed would be helpful!
-- RadMan
Last edit: RadMan 2020-11-18
Hi RadMan,
I'm a 'starter' with Linux and was already very happy to succeed in installing VC manually following these two instructions ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLpzHqSXMMw
https://curius.de/blog/13-betriebssysteme/desktop/open-source/408-veracrypt-fuer-linux-installieren
... and wrote a little install tutorial as user 'Gole' on the blog page above.
My (old) computer has a PNY Nvidia Quadro 2000 graphic card and UbuntuStudio was the only Linux system that had the Nvidia Quadro driver already integrated and displays the desktop correctly. I tried Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Linux Mint, but didn't know how to install the Nvidia Quadro driver correctly, which seems not to be included in these system packages. Hence, I'm not able to try VC with other Linux systems.
Looking at my screenshots, I now get the impression too, that the VC installation process deliberately enables ALL (!) the options in EVERY (!) tab under 'Settings > Preferences'. At least with my way of installing VC under UbuntuStudio 20.04.
For example, please, have a look at 'Screenshot_22_09.png' and verify, if the following default setting is correct and makes sense:
'Close token session (log out) after a volume is successfully mounted'
Maybe, this setting (default ENABLED) is related to the problem (I didn't enable this setting!)?
'Token' sounds 'dangerous' to me, so, until now, I leave it enabled as it was after the installation.
On the other computer with the Windows 7 installation ...
'Close token session (log out) after a volume is successfully mounted'
... is DISABLED (I verified it just now).
The Workaround as desribed above works fine for me, and I don't want to fall in trouble by disabling this setting in VC on my UbuntuStudio installation - not knowing, what I'm really doing/provoking with this setting.
Yesterday, I got a bigger (kernel) update for UbuntuStudio 20.04 automatically installed and today the mounted VC volume displays noticeable longer in the file manager (1-2 minutes, instead of only 1-2 seconds). Strange.
Just a coincidence or system related, as you mentioned?
BIG THANKS for your commitment and help!
Last edit: geolan 2020-11-18
A second user posted the same issue here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/976ee54d61/
Last edit: geolan 2020-12-29
A third user posted the same issue here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/veracrypt/discussion/technical/thread/18438996a2/
Yes that happens on ubuntu 20.04
And yes I always open terminal to the path of vc volume before it dismounts to (force) keep it mounted. this started (immediately) when I updated to ubuntu 20.04 based distro from 18.04 based one.
Thank you very much for your message!
I will open a 'Trouble ticket' now. For that, please, try to answer the following 8 questions to provide the developer team with max. detailed information.
1) Storage hardware of your VC volumes (HDD, SSD or USB flash drive)?
2) Hardware with your VC volumes attached internally (SATA III) or externally (USB 3.0, eSATA ...)?
3) Size of your VC volumes?
4) File system of your VC volumes?
5) Hidden or not hidden VC volumes?
6) Which VC versions do you have currently installed on your computer?
7) After successfully mounting your VC volume, how long (how many seconds/minutes) does it take until your VC volume gets mistakenly dismounted and disappears completely?
8) Did you observe the same behavior like other users, where all the settings under preferences were selected all of a sudden respectively were suddenly messed up at one go?
Thanks for your help!
Last edit: geolan 2020-12-29
1) Internal SATA III hdd 100% working no bad sectors...(OS drive, OS encrypted with LUKS)
2) Internal SATA III hdd 100% working no bad sectors...(OS drive, OS encrypted with LUKS)
3) Multiple containers from 1mb to few gb
4) most containers have ext4 filesystem some have fat some have even no fs at all
5) All containers are "normal", no hidden volumes
6) 1.24 Update 7
7) randomly few seconds after all processes that give "target is busy" (keeps the mountpoint busy) are closed
8) I am unaware of any settings always used the defaults
Hi there
Maybe I can resolve the riddle.
I had the same issue and found out that a full (system) partition (i.e. no space left on device) was causing all the fuzz. Specifically the full partition caused the ~/.config/VeraCrypt/Configuration.xml to be messed up and VeryCrypt to display all those weird settings described by @geolan above ... especially the unexpected 'TrueCrypt Mode' ENABLED.
Hence, I
1) cleaned up my full hard disk and made space,
2) removed the faulty ~/.config/VeraCrypt/Configuration.xml (BACKUP?!) - while VeryCrypt is not running, and
3) started VeryCrypt fresh with default settings.
Since then everything runs smoothly with no weird dismounts.
Btw. the full system partition was caused by a blowing up of /var/log/journal/ (1.5G in my case) ... so maybe in 20.04 something was modified, and no one thought of leaving users some space. Found a solution for the latter here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1238214/big-var-log-journal
Cheers
Last edit: mousset 2021-01-06
Hi mousset,
Thank you very much for your detailed information!
Indeed, on my Samsung SSD 830 with 128 GB the UbuntuStudio 20.04 is installed in one partition with 128 GB (usually 50-75% used).
In retrospect (novembre (?) 2020), I once got a message 'No free disk space left'.
Thus, indeed, it might be possible, that my VC issues are related to the message 'No free disk space left' as described by 'mousset'.
I will integrate this possibility in the upcoming 'Trouble Ticket' this weekend.
Well, it is not really worth a ticket if the no space topic turns out to be the sole reason for the described problem and I wouldn't really bother the developers too much about that. I guess they have better things to do than care about users (us ;-) ) not making sure their system is having enough space. 🤷
Well, I have a different opinion on this, especially since I did NOT have a system partition that was full at any time. So the reason behind my problem must be something else. I remember that I had to switch off the power for my system several times, since Ubuntu crashed on me repeatedly, but the drive was never full.
But even IF this were the case, I still think that Veracrypt should be able to recover from this broken situation and not use a faulty configuration file forever. Furthermore - I even tried to uninstall and PURGE Veracrypt (i.e. remove the application + all configuration files), but after reinstalling, Veracrypt still knew my last settings, which is bad in my opinion. I did't know where to look for these configuration files, so I was basically helpless.
So, to sum things up, I still request something to be fixed in the application here.
Hey there,
Started having this "after 1-2 seconds dismount issue" after leaving Linux download using Transmission to a non encrypted partition through the night and set for a shutdown by a terminal command, I came to find the next day that VeraCrypt is in the mentioned state above, I am almost sure I dismounted all the partitions before the shutdown were due to happen, VeraCrypt and all partitions work and mount normally after installing a whole new Linux OS but happened again when let download through the night using Transmission.
I think the obstacle happens either in the OS, VC Configuration or the relationship between them, nothing is damaged in any of the partitions, never needed to disable True Crypt mode before anyway, uninstalling VC using purge command and removing it's config files through autoremove command doesn't change a thing and neither attempting to erase /var logs.
One thing I noticed using the workaround solution is that when trying to mount a second encrypted partition.. there comes a new error while the partition is mounting which was
This is some mysterious bug O.o ?
Good luck
Hey.
I have the same issue on ubuntu. Created a new volume and after correct dismounting i can see the mounted file in an new File-Exploter-Window. After 1 or 2 seconds the volume was dismounted.
I found out, if i disable the setting "Systemintegration" | Dateiverwaltung | Explorer Fenster für erfolgreich eingehängtes Volumen öffen" (in english: disable the setting "open successful mounted volumen in new filewindow), it runs correct.
Last edit: Axel 2022-02-23
Hi Axel,
Thank you very much for your posting.
With my (unchanged) current system I tested disabling the setting 'Open Explorer window for successfully mounted volume' in 'Settings -> Preferences -> System Integration' of VC. I tested it several times and each time the successfully mounted volume gets automatically dismounted after exactly 60 seconds without touching any 'Dismounting' buttons in VC at all.
Unfortunately, disabling this setting did not work for me. I still need to proceed the workaround described above.