endless loading in nautilus / some files missing

[a-blender-guy]

!!! THERE MAY BE A SIMPLER WAY TO REPRODUCE... SEE Jeff Dag below... !!!
Binary package hint: nautilus

bug discription:
it often happens after moving some files or folders into another (target-)folder. when the fileoperation is complete sometimes the target-folder does not refresh, so I hit CTRL+R for a refresh. but then nautilus does not get ready with loading this target-folder and does not display every file in the folder. [the loading animation spins around and around and around ...]
Even if I close nautilus and open the folder again it's the same: endless loading an some files are missing.

no filesystem bug:
other filebrowsers work well (i've tested e.g. with konqueror and it shows everything that's in the folder and everything is quite normal)
also in xterm "ls" shows all files and they are normally accessable

my silly solution:
I use e.g. konqueror: I create an empty folder in the for-nautilus-problematic-folder and move the problematic-files (that are not displayed in nautilus) into it. AND then in nautilus everything(!) works fine: no endless loading end the files (that were missing before) are displayed in the "new folder".

info:
-I think it does not matter what filetype the missing files are. (last time it was a single .pdf file, but it's different every other time)
-the folder is on a ntfs partition mounted in my home folder (by UUID through /etc/fstab)

I believe it's a new bug since 9.04 but I don't know.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: nautilus 1:2.26.2-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[a-blender-guy (therealgod)]

Thank You! Sorry, I've tried, but have not found a straight, reproducible way to recreate the bug yet.
Please leave this bug report "incomplete" - I will try to find a reproducion.

But the bug is still there - today it happend again. I just moved some files and folders (by drag&drop) from one nautilus window to another (both paths were on the same ntfs partition) and the target-window did not refresh, so I hit "Refresh" then bug appeard: nautilus got stuck in loading the folder.

And I found something out: after renaming the folder (whose content is endlessly loading) nautilus can display all containing files and folders correctly.
Imho. it seems like a problem with the ntfs-driver.

I will keep an eye on it - I'll be back.

[a-blender-guy (therealgod)]

I just got this but again. BUT this time on my ext3-partition! (i was moving some files on the same ext3 partition)
So now, I really believe it's a nautilus bug.
2 facts:
- happens on different file systems
- happens on different physical harddiscs (I got 2x SATA (500GB+250GB) and 1x IDE (250GB))

Perhaps, the bug happens when creating the thumbnail-previews in nautilus?

[PGScooter (pgscooter)]

I get this problem all of the time, but cannot reproduce it. it seems to result from the same actions a-blender-guy decribed- moving/copying? a folder into the target folder.

[grom (grom358-spamkill)]

I also get this problem on Fedora 11

[grom (grom358-spamkill)]

I found if I move the folder on the command line:
$ mv brokenfolder newfoldername

Then goto it in nautilus it will then display. So then I moved the folder back to its original name, and it was still broken. Its seems like some sort of cache issue.

Disabling thumbnail preview (In Preferences -> Preview -> Show Thumbnails : Never) will also result in the folder loading. So its caused by thumbnail loading.

Alternatively if I delete the ~/.thumbnails directory it loads up but without a thumbnail. Then If I press Reload it goes back to being stuck when loading.

[alphac (11c484)]

I have a weird hobby of collecting wallpapers. It the moment I have well over a thousand of them, but I am starting to get the same problem as others have posted. I didn't seem to get the bug until I updated to ubuntu 9.10, although I am not sure if that is just bad timing or not.

Hopefully this can get fixed soon, it is a really annoying glitch.

[alphac (11c484)]

Restarted computer and it seemed to fix itself. For now anyway.

[Grzegorz Śliwiński (fizyk)]

I've encountered this on 9.04 as well as on 9.10 when I recently switched (clean install, with few config directories moved, but not nautilus) in my video folders. I'm using 64bit version of ubuntu.
it looks like there's some problem with creating miniature, except nautilus doesn't replace file icon with miniature, but creates it's own icon for that file. sadly, if there are other files and directories, I can't see them at all in nautilus if this happens.
Sometimes it helps to get to another folder, sometimes it does not. Not even reboot helps.

[Giulio Malventi (giulio-people)]

I encountered this too in a directory full of pdf files. I renamed the folder from the terminal and then back to the original name and the problem was gone. In case it could be useful, I noticed that the thumbnails had been nevertheless prepared during the issue, because they were immediately displayed after renaming.

[Sifr Moja (simplexion)]

I have this exact same problem. It is only occurring on an NTFS partition.
It is happening with multiple directories. As above I have found many ways around it. It all seems to point to the thumbnails though.
If I rename the directory I am able to open it and display correctly the first time. Once the thumbnails are created and I reopen the directory I either have files that aren't displayed or the directory just continuously tried to load.
Same thing happens if I delete my ~/.thumbnails directory.
The only way to display all the files correctly is to disable thumbnail viewing. Then the directory displays perfectly.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: x86_64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: nautilus 1:2.28.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: nautilus
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64

[Didier L (l-farquaad)]

I am currently experiencing the exact same bug. What is really weird is that the problematic folder is on a removable drive, which I have unplugged several times since it first happened, but the issue is still there: continuous reloading with some files missing.

This all happened after moving files from a FAT32 partition to that folder (on an ext3 partition) with nautilus (by drag&drop from one tab to another), then letting my laptop go into sleep mode. Notice that no thumbnails are displayed.

Wow, I entered in a subfolder then went back and the problem was gone! I cannot reproduce the bug any more using the same window, but if I close it and then open a new window the problem is still there. Also, opening two windows (or tabs) on that folder instantaneously solves the issue in both of them (but during a fraction of a second I can see the bug in the newly opened window). Sometimes when first displaying the problematic folder it just remains blank (no file/folder are displayed).

This is on Ubuntu 9.10 on x86_64.

[Didier L (l-farquaad)]

Notice that the "subfolder trick" seems to solve the bug permanently (for all nautilus windows, until the window in which the trick was done (!) gets closed) while the "two window trick" solves only the bug temporarily (for example, if you close one and then in the other navigate to another folder and back, the issue is there again).

For the folder displayed blank case, this may also happen for non-first displays, but I cannot reproduce it systematically.

By the way, I noticed that nautilus had quick self-check tests, here is what it gives:
$ nautilus --check

(nautilus:12446): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
running nautilus_self_check_file_utilities
running nautilus_self_check_file_operations
running nautilus_self_check_directory
running nautilus_self_check_file
running nautilus_self_check_icon_container
running nautilus_self_check_file_utilities
running nautilus_self_check_file_operations
running nautilus_self_check_directory
running nautilus_self_check_file
running nautilus_self_check_icon_container

[louisantoine (louisantoinem)]

I have this bug everytime I move video files from a folder to another.

I *never* got this bug before so I think it appeared in 9.10.

My workaround for the time: nautilus --quit and open the folder again !

[Danny Wood (danwood76)]

I also get this.
It happens after moving files for me but not always.

As louisantoine has said completely closing nautilus (I use killall nautilus) and restarting it fixes the issue but it is very annoying if you have several folders open.

This is also Ubuntu 9.10 x64

[Ymmot (mail-tommymueller)]

Same problem here, especially in my ~/Videos folder.

[Uwe (gandalf.the.grey)]

Same problem on two computers with 32 and 64 bit version of Ubuntu 9.10.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Same problem here, never happened prior to Karmic but now it's very common in Nautilus - any time I move a file that is represented by a thumbnail from one folder to another, Nautilus can't show the entire contents of the destination folder - sometimes Nautilus won't show anything, other times it shows everything but the file just moved. Any file that uses a thumbnail seems to be able to set this off - not just videos, but PDFs, and document files if an OpenOffice thumbnailer extension is installed. Closing and restarting Nautilus doesn't seem enough to reliably fix it.

[Alastair Carey (alastair-carey)]

Possibly a duplicate of #454297?

[Richard Petrovic (richard-petrovic)]

Same Problem here... after moving files in Nautilus, folder becomes unresponsive and does not show thumbnails anymore. After reloading folder keeps reloading forever. Closing and restarting Nautilus does not help, only restarting X helps ..

[johanvdk (johanvdkhove)]

Same problem but I lost in this proces very important files . Is there still a way to retrive them?
Thanks.

[Danny Wood (danwood76)]

You have to kill nautilus all together.
If the process is still running (it renders the desktop folders too) the bug remains so I assume it has something to do with nautilus caching.

Run system monitor and kill the nautilus processes to repair the issue temporarily.

[Danny Wood (danwood76)]

Ok so I looked at 454297 and it is a dupe so marking as such!

[Andreas Allacher (ghost-zero5)]

Yeah, I also experience this. I guess it is somehow related to the preview function for files like images and Videos, as I mostly get it with them.

[Andreas Allacher (ghost-zero5)]

Change to previous comment:
"mostly" --> "up to now I only"

[Jeff Dag (jeff-dagenais)]

I don't this this is a dup of #454297, here's how I can repeatedly reproduce it:

open a nautilus window in "list view", create a folder (don't even bother changing it's name), enter the directory and create a other folder, but name it starting with a dot ("." so hidden folder). Go back up to the parent of "untitled folder" you created and hit the little triangle to view it's content, it says "loading..." endlessly.

For the record, i have the left pane displaying "Places". And this scenario is just so you can create it with dummy folders, but I observed this behaviour because of a svn checkout I have on my HD... one of our dirs is empty, but on my HD it contains a dir called ".svn" as do all the checked out dirs, but since this one doesn't have any elements other than this ".svn" it made the "Loading..." problem.

Enjoy! (and please fix ;) )

[Dan Andreșan (danyer)]

I was able to reproduce it based on Jeff's description above.

Even more, when I was creating the folder starting with dot, after finishing typing (.something) I pressed on Enter. The folder disappeared (ok) BUT another one appeared in Nautilus called "untitled folder". It appears only at that instance and it disappears afterward, it is not created on disk (I checked), the correct .something is created on disk.

Karmic 32-bit fully updated as per today.

$ apt-cache policy nautilus
nautilus:
  Installed: 1:2.28.1-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 1:2.28.1-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 1:2.28.1-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:2.28.1-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages

[a-blender-guy (therealgod)]

I tryed to reproduce it based on Jeff's description (just like Dan did) and discovered 2 things:

1.) unlike Dan: I did not had the "endless loading" bug anymore
2.) but same like Dan: there was no hidden folder created on disk (checked, too)

Furthermore I did not even had this bug in normal workflow since a long time. Gone with the wind?

[Nautilus 2.28.1][Ubuntu 9.10 32bit][Linux version 2.6.31-20-generic]

[donal (donalbuckley)]

I am still getting it intermittently. Seems to now rely on large files being moved into the target folder.
Switching off Nautilus Preview is the still the easiest fix.

[Paul Tagliamonte (paultag)]

Linked up to upstream -- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=623885

[bosson (bosson)]

I see this behaviour when I:

cd
mkdir bar
cd bar
mkdir .foo

When I then try to flipp-open the bar folder open from my home-dir in nautilus.
It just starts that "Loding..." message that never ends.

rmdir .foo

... turns the "Loading..." into "(Empty)".
So I figure it has something to do with "hidden"-filters in this case.

/jonas