[ubuntu-uk] Home folder keeps disappearing

[David King]

I have not specifically run a file system check on the home partition, 
but I assume that Ubuntu has done so when booting up when it says it is 
checking the drives. It must do each partition after so many mounts, right?

sudo mount (edited to remove irrelevant partitions, i.e. some things not 
related to system or home, i.e. we're only interested in sda):

    davoura at avourastudio12:/media$ sudo mount
    [sudo] password for davoura:
    /dev/sda5 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
    proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
    sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
    none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
    none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
    none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
    udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
    devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
    tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
    none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
    none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
    /dev/sda1 on /media/mint13 type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
    binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc
    (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
    gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/davoura/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon
    (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=davoura)
    gvfs-fuse-daemon on /root/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon
    (rw,nosuid,nodev)


sudo fdisk -l


    davoura at avourastudio12:/media$ sudo fdisk -l

    Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x000773a6

        Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sda1   *        2048    61442047    30720000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda2        61442048   976773119   457665536    5  Extended
    /dev/sda5        61444096   122884095    30720000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda6       122886144   184326143    30720000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda7       184328192   333832191    74752000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda8       333834240   491530239    78848000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda9       491532288   516108287    12288000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda10      516110336   540686335    12288000   83  Linux
    /dev/sda11      540688384   968499199   213905408   83  Linux
    /dev/sda12      968501248   976773119     4135936   82  Linux swap /
    Solaris




/home is mounted on /sda7
it has 12.37 GiB free, and it's 71.29 GiB in size (according to gparted)

(I have not included output for other drives)

I should also add that a lot of things in /home/davoura are symlinks to 
stuff in another user folder, as I also have an older Ubuntu 
installation which I no longer use (10.10 on sda6), and use some of the 
settings from that for Ubuntu Studio 12.04 through symlinks, and the 
same thing for my Linux Mint installation (on sda1). I have never had 
this problem in Linux Mint nor the older Ubuntu.

I have backups of various files, I had a backup of /home from a few 
months ago, but have now made a new backup of the latest files.

There is nothing in /home/lost+found (checked with sudo ls lost+found)


David K



On 31/05/13 21:05, Alan Jenkins wrote:
> So all of /home is on a partition but just your home folder is gone? 
> Have you ran a file system check on that partition? Do you have 
> backups? Have you checked lost+found on that partition for files?
>
> Also just so we have a better idea of the environment could you please 
> give us the output of these two commands?
>
> sudo mount
>
> sudo fdisk -l
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alan Jenkins
>
> On 31 May 2013, at 21:00, David King <linuxman at avoura.com 
> <mailto:linuxman at avoura.com>> wrote:
>
>> Nothing is encrypted. I should point out that /home is a separate 
>> partition to root, but on the same hard drive. Most of my data is on 
>> other hard drives.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On 31/05/13 17:42, Alan Jenkins wrote:
>>> Hey David,
>>>
>>> Do you have encrypted home folders enabled? If so it could just be
>>> failing to mount your home using encfs for some reason.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 31 May 2013, at 17:19, David King<linuxman at avoura.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Sometimes my home folder is missing. When I boot up and get to the login screen, I enter my password to login and it does not load the desktop, but goes straight back to the login screen. And just now my home folder literally just disappeared. I can see other user folders in  /home but not for my current user, although I am still logged in.
>>>>
>>>> I am using Ubuntu Studio 12.04 XFCE and it is up to date, the last updates were applied this morning, although the problem has persisted for a while now. Although today is the first time I have lost my home partition while logged in.
>>>>
>>>> This is a real nuisance. I can see home folders in the same partition for other users (from other distros I have installed on the same PC) but not my own.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas why it keeps getting hidden and how to prevent it getting hidden?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> David K
>>>> --
>>>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>>>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>>
>> -- 
>> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com <mailto:ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>
>

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