Very odd problem... can't navigate to second hard drive in makemkv

[orson]

Hi, first time posting. I hope somebody can help me. I have a Ubuntu 19.10 box that is my HTPC. The OS runs off a modest SSD while my .mkv files for Kodi run on an 8TB conventional disk. I had to reinstall the OS and make makemkv and now I can't navigate to the 8TB disc from the makemkv to write files.

I have tried various mount points and permissions levels and makemkv just browse to the drive. Other GNOME apps can navigate to the drive just fine. Of course, this is problem as my SSD really doesn’t have room for the output files especially from higher density blur ray's in my collection.

I can detail more information if would help. Thanks!

Peace,

Orson

[Woodstock]

Are you trying to get to the output by clicking on each directory in turn? Can you enter the full path and open it?

I've had issues in the past where the mount point itself had "wrong" ownership, so it was invisible/unreachable, but directories under it were just fine. In cases like that, having the default destination in Preferences->Video set to a directory further down would work.

[orson]

Thanks, I will give that a try...

[figrin_dan]

I have the same issue. This has been puzzling more for a very long time.
In the end I looked at the screen.conf file and there is a destination path entry. I changed this to my HDD and now I can see it with MakeMKV.
I hope this helps. If anyone sees a problem with it, please let me know.
Cheers

[orson]

So I tired from the GUI and the config file with this:

/Data/media_server/kodi/staging/Not Ready/

Makemkv thinks it doesn't exist.

The drive's (Data) owner and permissions are as follows:

drwxrwxrwx 10 theadmin theadmin 4096 Dec 3 22:08 Data

The directory I am trying to reach is

drwxrwxrwx 24 theadmin theadmin 4096 Dec 3 15:55 'Not Ready'

[Woodstock]

Hopefully a silly question, but...

What happens if you change the directory's name from "Not Ready" to "Not_Ready", i.e., remove the space?

Spaces in file names can cause some strange things in any operating system. If you're at a bash prompt, you need to use a backslash to escape the space, because putting the path in quotes doesn't always work.

[orson]

Thanks, in looking at the ls-l's output I saw that too... I'll give it a try...

[orson]

So I am still stuck...

I think it's 19.10 thing... I updated and now both mkv and VLC player can't get there. I also installed on separate system and got similar results. Trying a 18.x install on my test system to see if its' different.

[Woodstock]

Now you're making it sound like a typical Win10 update... "Improve security" by breaking everything.

[orson]

So 18 works better I think but now makemkv won't see optical drives... ugg

[orson]

So I got it fixed... turns out I has installed makemkv from the Snappy package... Snappy forces it's' own kind of ACL like system wants you to keep all your activities to your home directory. I have installed it a different way and now it works great! The moral of the story is that Snappy isn't the best for this application. Thanks for your help!