Solved Nemo File Manager and Cinnamon – Renaming Folders and Files Problem

[JohnJ]

Greetings all,

I am unable to rename folders or files using Nemo on Cinnamon Desktop on TWO of my THREE Linux Mint 22.3 rigs.

My setups are as follows:

Desktop PC - Linux Mint 22.3 sole installation on SSD and two 2TB HDDs for my data. Able to rename any folder or file.
Laptop - Linux Mint 22.3 sole installation on M2 nvme and one 2TB SSD for my data. Unable to rename any folder or file.
SparePC - Linux Mint 22.3 sole installation on SSD and two 2TB HDDs for my data. Unable to rename any folder or file.
Very basic desktop themes are identical, zero extra app or desktop addons. All my installations are minimalist without any fancy addons. I always run lean and mean rigs.

I regularly transfer folders and files between all three via removable SSDs. So being unable to rename Folders and Files on only two of my rigs is not a HDD/SSD problem
All of my rigs have identical Linux Mint 22.3 and Nemo installs (including all Nemo File Management Preferences) and all are constantly and currently fully updated.

In Nemo Preferences/Behaviour for Laptop and SparePC I tried the “Click on a file’s name twice to rename it” tick box but this made no difference. On Files and Folders, I tried slow click, faster click, tongue on the left, tongue on the right, still no good. The Folder and File right click still shows “rename’ as greyed out.

Any thoughts? This one has me stumped.

Cheers John
EDIT All the Folders and Files in my home directories on all three systems ARE able to be renamed but on the two as mentioned above none of the Folders or Files are able to be renamed.

 

[Condobloke]

Are laptop & spare pc drives

HDD/SSD

are they formatted the same?....eg all ext4 ?

I am grasping at straws here

 

[JohnJ]

Are laptop & spare pc drives

are they formatted the same?....eg all ext4 ?

I am grasping at straws here

All formatted as NTFS because I need to to and fro some windows data backups. I know, I know...I could have done this with ext4s but kept to NTFS.
Yep I am in straw as well.

 

[JohnJ]

All formatted as NTFS because I need to to and fro some windows data backups. I know, I know...I could have done this with ext4s but kept to NTFS.
Yep I am in straw as well.

Okaay... I found my straw! And it's a strange one.
I was about to install Dolphin or Nautilus when I went looking through my straw pile one last time.
The fix:
I went to Disk then to the HDD partitions where I could not rename Folders or Files, selected Additional partition options via the little gear thingy and clicked on Repair Filesystem then followed the couple of prompts until file system repaired came up. I closed Disk.
I went back to Nemo and now can rename all Folders and Files.
Strange indeed!!

I have come a similar fix before when using Foxclone. In that case, no matter what I did, Foxclone refused to allow me to back up an image and repeatedly informed me that my source was 'Locked'.

In both cases re Foxclone and No-Can-Do Folder or File renaming just 'Check the filesystem' in Disk will not tell me what if anything is wrong with the file system. So I now always go direct to 'Repair Filesystem' and let the repair process fix the problem.
Also in both cases there was no problem using Nemo for anything else to search for, open, close, delete, etc Folders and Files only the renaming and unlocking for Foxclone was the issue.

Whew
Cheers