Ubuntu – How To Safely Remove Hardware From USB Ports

A possible solution - Blacklisting USB related kernel modules in a trial and error procedure revealed that the ehci-pci kernel module was the cause of the problem.

For a temporary solution, simply remove the kernel module:

sudo rmmod ehci_pci

For a permanent solution, either blacklist the module via kernel boot arguments, e.g.

modprobe.blacklist=ehci_pci

nb. Blacklisting ehci_pci will also prevent kernel module ehci-hcd from getting loaded.

The ehci* kernel modules are the kernel’s USB 2 drivers.

Luckily, the USB 3 kernel modules xhci* support USB 2 devices as well and you will experience no performance loss with these

The problem of LED blinking after Eject is selected in Nautilus, is very close to this Launchpad Bug Report from 2013:

• Safely remove does not work (LED is on) on USB 3.0 flash

That bug report only has five subscribers and has been closed as a duplicate of this Bug Report from 2011:

• Automatic remount of safely removed USB 3.0 drive

The latter bug report has 155 subscribers and:

• October 2017 fix has been triaged for Trusty (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS)
• October 2017 fix has been released for Xenial (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS)
• October 2017 fix has been released for Yakkety (Ubuntu 16.10)

Scouring through the first bug report (the one closed as a duplicate) you see the author of udisks mentioning how patches need to be made. Two users who applied the patch reported no success however.

I think in the bug report they missed some of the important aspects of one user's output. Here is the equivalent output from my system (that works):

$ gvfs-mount -li

Drive(3): 3SYSTEM USB Flash Disk
  Type: GProxyDrive (GProxyVolumeMonitorUDisks2)
  ids:
   unix-device: '/dev/sdb'
  themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
  symbolic themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-symbolic]  [drive-removable-symbolic]  [drive-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
  is_media_removable=1
  has_media=1
  is_media_check_automatic=1
  can_poll_for_media=0
  can_eject=1
  can_start=0
  can_stop=0
  start_stop_type=shutdown
  sort_key=01hotplug/1546789639130384

  Volume(0): LIVE_USB
    Type: GProxyVolume (GProxyVolumeMonitorUDisks2)
    ids:
     class: 'device'
     unix-device: '/dev/sdb1'
     uuid: '641A-A7DB'
     label: 'LIVE_USB'
    themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
    symbolic themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-symbolic]  [drive-removable-symbolic]  [drive-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
    can_mount=1
    can_eject=1
    should_automount=1
    sort_key=gvfs.time_detected_usec.1546789639358749
    Mount(0): LIVE_USB -> file:///media/rick/LIVE_USB
      Type: GProxyMount (GProxyVolumeMonitorUDisks2)
      default_location=file:///media/rick/LIVE_USB
      themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
      symbolic themed icons:  [drive-removable-media-usb-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-symbolic]  [drive-removable-symbolic]  [drive-symbolic]  [drive-removable-media-usb]  [drive-removable-media]  [drive-removable]  [drive]
      can_unmount=1
      can_eject=1
      is_shadowed=0
      sort_key=gvfs.time_detected_usec.1546789639395990

• The variable is_media_removable is set to 1 on my system but on the bug reporters system is is set to 0. I think this should have been addressed.
• The bug reporter has can_eject=0 but my system has can_eject=1

Check your own gvfs-mount -li output to mine. Also consider subscribing to the bug reports above and/or posting there.