Is it visible in the sidebar? Is it automounted? Do you get a password prompt when inserting it?

No it is not visible in the sidebar. I get a password prompt when connecting the disk, however it seems to fail to mount it without giving any reason (maybe I just mistype the passphrase, although that would be surprising as I tried it a lot of times). But even if it is not mounted because of a wrong passphrase, at least nautilus should display it in computer:/// so that I can retry mounting it later on (which was the case in Nautilus 2.20 AFAIK).

This works fine in Fedora for me and I specifically tested it when fixing bug 516037. I wonder if it's a Mandriva bug. I don't have any LUKS volumes right now but I'll test when I get home.

It seems to have random behaviour:

This morning I had the disk connected, but the LUKS fs was not mounted because I clicked Cancel. It was visible in computer:/// and I could mount it by double clicking it.

After unmounting and disconnecting the disk, and reconnecting it again, I got the password prompt. I entered the password, but it was not mounted (I am not sure if this is because of a bug, or because I typed a wrong password: there was no feedback about what went wrong!). I looked in computer:///, I now I did not see the file system at all, so there's no way to mount it anymore.

Just reproduced with nautilus 2.22.1:
- The removable disk is connected to the machine.
- I log in in GNOME. I do not get a passphrase prompt, which is probably normal as the disk was already connected
- I see the encrypted partition in GNOME's Places menu, under Removable Media
- I click the encrypted file system, and enter the passphrase
- The passphrase dialog disappears, no error is shown. I am pretty sure the passphrase was entered correctly
- The encrypted file system is not shown at all anymore under Removable Media. With the mount command, I see the file system has not been mounted.

I also really wonder if this is not a distro bug because it is also here working like a charm.

Is there a way I could debug the automounting? The partition is recognized, I get the dialog asking for the passphrase, but it silently fails and from that moment it is not shown anymore in computer:/// and gnome-panel's Removable Media menu. Even when logging out and logging in again, it does not come back at all anymore. It could be helpful to know in where exactly it fails in the automounting I guess?

lshal -m output when connecting the device

[frederik@anastacia ~]$ lshal -m

Start monitoring devicelist:
-------------------------------------------------
20:32:23.121: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431 added
20:32:23.317: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_if0 added
20:32:23.431: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_usbraw added
20:32:28.185: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_if0_scsi_host added
20:32:28.224: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_if0_scsi_host_scsi_device_lun0 added
20:32:36.114: usb_device_4fc_c15_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_if0_scsi_host_scsi_device_lun0_scsi_generic added
20:32:36.228: storage_serial_SAMSUNG_HD501LJ_SAMSUNG_HDS0MUJ1SP400431_0_0 added
20:32:36.354: volume_part1_size_1024 added
20:32:36.483: volume_uuid_09c05580_5226_4e5b_a24d_73e89af73962 added
20:32:36.627: volume_uuid_e0b2524a_5d57_42d4_86ed_b499047e8a63 added
20:32:36.685: volume_uuid_4B312AF24E6E915F added
20:32:36.745: volume_uuid_c7c12f86_74a7_4224_b9c5_fdeb6fa0742a added
20:32:36.806: volume_uuid_d86c482b_3a71_4506_8aae_77f6aa78fc8d added
20:32:36.991: volume_uuid_e0b2524a_5d57_42d4_86ed_b499047e8a63 property volume.mount_point = '/media/iso'
20:32:36.995: volume_uuid_e0b2524a_5d57_42d4_86ed_b499047e8a63 property volume.is_mounted = true
20:32:37.266: volume_uuid_4B312AF24E6E915F property volume.mount_point = '/media/Music'
20:32:37.270: volume_uuid_4B312AF24E6E915F property volume.is_mounted = true
20:32:37.407: volume_uuid_c7c12f86_74a7_4224_b9c5_fdeb6fa0742a property volume.mount_point = '/media/Mandriva'
20:32:37.411: volume_uuid_c7c12f86_74a7_4224_b9c5_fdeb6fa0742a property volume.is_mounted = true
20:32:37.470: volume_uuid_d86c482b_3a71_4506_8aae_77f6aa78fc8d property volume.mount_point = '/media/VMWare'
20:32:37.474: volume_uuid_d86c482b_3a71_4506_8aae_77f6aa78fc8d property volume.is_mounted = true
20:33:05.298: volume_part_1_size_64000 added
20:33:05.505: volume_part_1_size_64000 removed
20:33:05.570: volume_part_1_size_0 added
20:33:05.666: volume_uuid_09c05580_5226_4e5b_a24d_73e89af73962 property info.callouts.remove = {'hal-luks-remove'} (new)

The last 4 events, starting from 20:33:05.298, happen right after I entered the passphrase. I'm sure the passwphrase is correct, because when it's incorrect, the passphrase dialog just pops up gain, which was not the case here. Notice that all normal partitions are mounted, while the LUKS is not.

Could this mean it is failing in hal?

This seems to be the same problem that exists in Ubuntu for quite a long time:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-mount/+bug/217749

The final conclusion there is a timing problem of udev events. On one of my machines running "udevadm monitor" in a root console makes the problem disappear.

Could you please test this again. At the moment I cannot find the bug number anymore, but there have been several fixes to LUKS handling. Thanks.

This is an old bug without response and I can't reproduce. If you still see it with current gvfs versions, please reopen with reproduction details.