Cannot change ownership on some USB sticks?

[computerguy]

@Lake_Lucian:
It is NOT that Ubuntu is unfriendly, specifically;
It -is- that ALL Linux distros are festooned with all sorts of 'security' things which can be 'root only' - hidden well - or very arcane, like what it takes to allow access to an Android device connected via USB.

My personal POV on this is that there is such a thing as being...
TOO SECURE !!!

Contrasted to that - as a devout, daily user of Ubuntu Mate - its wonderful stability & reliability (NO BSODs or random data losses - EVER) make it worth learning some things (like gaining root access as needed).

I'm a former windows tech - spent 20+ years struggling with all sorts of BS mostly in the service of users who ONLY 'knew' that forcing a reboot was their cure-all (that pretty much NEVER worked !!) and when that failed they thought doing a total OS re-install was OK even though they did not know how to back up their needed data & then would be FURIOUS over their own actions causing total losses.

A bit like this info actually:

IT Professionals Shared Their Funniest Stories On The Job — And I Suddenly...

At least when it comes to Ubuntu - a willing learner has many choices of communities in which to ask for info and help, and that alone makes it WAAAY better than windows - not even to mention all the horrible changes that M$ has made with which to afflict their users after they 'killed off' XP !!!

Best Wishes.

[arQon]

@gordon

I'm getting deja vu from this comment! Remember this comment from May?

heh - indeed so.

I'll note that my reply at the time also remains as true as it was then:

As opposed to under ~/.cache, where it belongs, which is why I can never find the damn thing!

Now we just need OP to see if it helps. My guess is not, but it has to be worth a shot.

[arQon]

@computerguy

My personal POV on this is that there is such a thing as being...
TOO SECURE !!!

I don't think that's actually your POV at all. What you're really objecting to is "security theater", i.e. using the label of security as a pretense to avoid addressing bugs or bad design and decisions. (Wayland is the current poster child for this, but plenty of other pieces are in the same boat, including ssh).

Authorization

[Sam_Vanderleyden]

Wow, This is enormous.
I'm blown away by the contradiction between the simplicity, though genuinely relevant and basic (in all honesty) of the issue of the TS and the impressive storm of answers and deep diving to be able to solve this.
It is indeed mind baffling and unacceptable that changing group ownership on external drives with the easiest of commands (chown -R :mycustomgroup /media/user/mydrive) cannot be done.
I came to understand the underlying problem of the nature filesystem at hand , but come on, really?
I really stand behind the remarks and comments of 'computerguy' who spend really so much of his time to spit this out.
But looking it from a overview perspective, to me it signify's something really week in the vision about automounting drives and auto-settings of owners. I mean ... nope , not good.
Do we, do you, really expect every "normal" user (noobs)... to start editing the fstab file before even mounting drives??? Does anyone here pretends in a retrogade-elitist mood of linux-the-old-says and still dareqs to make comments like "yeah, but you should know this things before even attempting to run linux OS (any)... No that's not the way.
To put it this way: people should have to know about fstab in order to be able to make usb drives accessible to other users. If that still is the way, than the bar is to high and it still a burden on the success and popularity of linux OS' .

[computerguy]

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT reply by Sam_Vanderleyden - thanks so much !!!

And...still a very nasty sticking point which AFAIK, remains UNSOLVED.

In fact, I've just posted this thread which is very related:

Endless USB PITAs - which should NOT even exist at all!

I've posted about such 'paper cuts' before, over a period of several years - and nothing about this has really gotten any better from what I can see. Conundrum: I'm here alone - using MY own PC - and I plug in USB device 'x'... Does it read & appear ?!? To get the answer - roll some yes/no dice !! (And watch the contradictions appear.) Desire: Same situation - same action... Device is read and appears - PERIOD. Best/worst example: A genuine gripe as well here=> I have a truly beloved …

Too many little niggly & truly stupid little 'paper cuts' that have been mostly ignored with workarounds that AREN'T functional or within reach of most users.

Because of these sorts of things I haven't posted here in a while - when I did it brought me some small satisfactions now & then, but I have found it to be easier to just use U/M & not ask for help because there's still LOTS of stuff for which no solution exists...OR:

Merely doing a general/open DDG search will reveal goodness or a total lack thereof - in which case it is time to just=>
Give that query up rather than banging one's head against it.

And SPECIFICALLY regarding this EXACT topic:
If/when I get TOTALLY stumped by not being able to read/write my own USB media after a couple of tries with or without using root access - I change the venue, which REALLY annoys me - and give in to firing up that OTHER OS - which I would totally prefer NOT TO NEED anymore for anything, EVER.