Home folder won't open

Question

I have Ubuntu 12.04 (dual boot with Windows 7 if that matters). When I click on the icon of the Home folder in that column that pop-up when one hovers at the left of the screen, the icon flashes (like it's about to open), but nothing really happens for the user.

However, if I then try to open a folder in my Desktop, I can't, because my clicks are actually hit the home folder that's it's supposed to open, but I can not see.

This is the icon:

PS - There are more problems in my system, but I think that it would be nice to focus on one.

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samaras@samaras-A15:~$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for samaras: 
/dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="F48672A6867268CE" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="D2CE74FDCE74DAE5" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="10db8315-0db7-4c88-b72f-e8835cb7ba0e" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="454c5d6c-f4c5-4649-9570-888986e54221" TYPE="swap" 

samaras@samaras-A15:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=10db8315-0db7-4c88-b72f-e8835cb7ba0e /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=454c5d6c-f4c5-4649-9570-888986e54221 none            swap    sw              0       0

samaras@samaras-A15:~$ mount
/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)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/samaras/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=samaras)

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EDIT.2

ls /home/samaras listed my desktop items. Also, I found out that if I click on the Home folder icon, after 5-10 minutes, it will actually open. I tried to close it, but I had to force quit.

gparted output:

Solution

Here's my analysis and suggestions based on what's going on.

1. It looks like you have two Windows partitions-a recovery partition, and main one. Both are on /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2. They are NTFS.
2. You have two Linux partitions-swap and ext4. This is also normal.
3. The only difference between your fstab and mine is the presence of /proc/.

I have not seen /proc/ mounted like this-normally, it is a system directory. This is a remnant of old Linux systems, as far as I can tell. (See this post)

Apparently, you can access your home folder as root. Does ls /home/samaras/ work, and return anything of interest? If so, I would try using another file manager as @muru suggested. I would also run gparted and see if there are any anomolies.

Finally, here's another suggestion. Type the following commands:

sudo cp /etc/fstab /home/samaras/fstabold
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Remove the line saying, "proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0", and reboot. This may fix the problem. (I'm thinking this is causing an issue with mounting on boot, because your other post mentioned it)

For comparison, here is my fstab:

UUID=8a7f7d0a-1e4f-47a7-ba64-624050258367 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=7d3b3839-c037-44fb-90ea-a2f34017373a none         swap    sw              0       0

Comments

[waterlubber]

Could you type nautilus in Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and try to navigate to your home folder. Do you see any errors? Can you post a screenshot of the offending icon?

[gsamaras]

@waterlubber edited. I typed nautilus one and nothing happened. I typed nautilus for a second time and it hangs up. After some efforts, it tries to open Home folder, which gets dark (like it's frozen). Force it to quit.

[waterlubber]

Okay. It seems like an issue with mounting and the like. Can you post the results of sudo blkid, cat /etc/fstab and also mount? Also, try running gksudo nautilus after a reboot. I've had similar issues.

[muru]

If you install another file manager (say Nemo: sudo apt-get install nemo), does it suffer the same problem as well?

[gsamaras]

@waterlubber you are my only hope. If a solution comes out of this, I will upvote all yours answers. :P I edited the post. gksudo nautilus went as expected, i.e. it worked.

[gsamaras]

@muru I haven't tried it. If you see the linked question I have in the post, you see that the problem lies somewhere else too, thus mounting should be the case, I think. If waterlubber doesn't have something, I will install Nemo.