Gnome Files, typing "smb://" in "Connect to Server" becomes red

Yesterday, I installed the “minimal version” of Manjaro Gnome that says “Minimal provides a basic desktop environment with no additional software packages pre-installed.”

If I run “Files”, click “Other Locations” and then start to type smb: in “Connect to Server”, the input text becomes red, and “Connect” does not get enabled. Typing other protocols like ftp:// does not show the same symptoms. I have tried manually installing “samba” and the “nautilus sharing” extension, but it did not fix the problem.

I probably need to install something that was not included in the “minimal” version, but I am not sure what. Files version 41.2, Gnome version 41.3. Everything is up to date.

Aren’t those to share from your Gnome to other machines? :slight_smile:
You need smbclient package i guess …

I just checked it ,and smbclient was already installed. Is there anything else that I need to install?

Ok, so what happens if you type the username and ip for the smb you want to connect to?
Example:
smb://user@192.168.1.1:139

Or whatever port you might have enabled (if you have custom settings for your samba server).

Check this

and another helpful one

The ID address had no effect. As I said, Files seemed to think that there is a problem with the smb protocol itself, because as soon as I typed smb:, the text became red.

Anyway, I clicked one of your links and found that it was using “gvfs-smb”. I checked it and it was not installed. I installed it and restarted Files; no change. I rebooted the system, and then smb worked. In short, I think this is all caused by the absence of “gvfs-smb” in the “minimal version”. I wish Files were a little bit smarter and told the user to install it (or automatically install it) instead of only turning the address red, when it could not use smb.

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I had the same issue and this also helped for me. Thanks!

I had the same error on debian and the missing lib was “gvfs-backends”