Copy files from GoPro over USB on Linux

Another solution is to skip using usb altogether and downloading the files using the integrated wifi hotspot and http server. This is the way I do it because is faster then using mtp.

1. To avoid making the unit shutdown itself after few seconds open the gopro app and go to the camera menu and then browse the files
2. open http://10.5.5.9:8080/videos/DCIM/ in the browser to check for the directory of interest (like 100GOPRO/)
3. retrieve them with wget -r or curl

I know this answer is not directly answering the question but offer an alternate solution that is not depending on external library

I could avoid it by changing the setting in Nautilus. The issue is setting the parameter Show Thumbnails to "Never" before connecting the camera in the Preview Tab.

I hope that this can help you.