Very Slow to Show Properties of a File (window dims out)

[Lonnie Lee Best]

When I right lick on a file, in Nautilus, and then click properties, I'm experiencing a great deal of lag before the properties are displayed.

It doesn't matter if the file is small or large; it takes about 10 seconds before the properties are displayed, and the Nautilus window becomes dim during the wait.

I've noticed this behavior since upgrading from Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10, and have never experienced it prior (using the exact same hardware).

dbench says my solid state hard drive's speed is over 400 MB/sec

sudo apt-get install dbench ; dbench 4

   4 16672 426.89 MB/sec warmup 1 sec latency 14.404 ms
   4 35634 418.37 MB/sec warmup 2 sec latency 11.449 ms
   4 54492 412.88 MB/sec warmup 3 sec latency 9.392 ms
   4 72852 409.45 MB/sec warmup 4 sec latency 11.530 ms
   4 91399 406.85 MB/sec warmup 5 sec latency 11.072 ms
   4 110254 407.92 MB/sec warmup 6 sec latency 12.197 ms

My hard drive is very capable of pulling a file's properties quickly, so I'm reporting this as a bug in Nautilus (where I'm experiencing this issue).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: nautilus 1:3.8.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-13.20-generic 3.11.6
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-13-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Nov 12 09:33:50 2013
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'800x550+2258+294'"
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'maximized' b'true'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-07 (36 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to saucy on 2013-10-18 (25 days ago)
---
ApportVersion: 2.13.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
GsettingsChanges: org.gnome.nautilus.list-view default-column-order ['name', 'size', 'type', 'date_modified', 'owner', 'group', 'permissions', 'mime_type', 'where']
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-07 (99 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
Package: nautilus 1:3.8.2-0ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-2.17-generic 3.13.0-rc7
Tags: trusty
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-2-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-01-08 (5 days ago)
UserGroups:

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Can some please confirm this bug? It is not likely that I'm the only one experiencing this.

Additionally, I'd like to note that this is not only occurring when checking the properties of a file; it also happens when you right-click on a folder and select "Properties" as well.

The Nautilus window grays out, and it take as many as 15 seconds until it recovers and displays the Properties dialog-window.

[Rob Hargrave (rob-harg)]

The same is happening on my computer, running Ubuntu 13.10 - I previously used 12.10 and the bug was not present then.
Its serious for me, especially now I have to right click the space between icons and select properties to see how much hard drive space I have remaining, older nautilus versions had the view option to show remaining space which is sadly now missing.
The properties window on my computer can take between 20 seconds and 15 minutes to appear, nautilus is greyed out during this time and any file copying in the background grinds to a halt. My computer isn't particularly slow either (2.66ghz dual core). File system is EXT4.
If there are any further tests to be done let me know and I'll try them out. The bug is repeatable on my machine.
Rob

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

Rob, at the top of this bug report, you should select the "This bug effects me" flag, so that the heat will reflect that fact.

[Swarnendu Biswas (swarna-cse)]

Hi Lonnie and Rob,

I am also facing the same issue. Interestingly, this issue is not reproducible with other file managers such as nemo. The lag for me is even more, of the order of a couple of minutes.

On a separate note, I have found that nautilus freezes randomly and crashes, it takes time to recover.

I am using Ubuntu 13.10, and Gnome 3.10.x.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I just want to report that his remains an issue for me. Is there anything I can do to help this bug along?

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I upgraded to 14.04 alpha, and this had no effect on fixing the problem.

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

apport information

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

apport information

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

You can consider this a work-around, but it is more than that to me.

Due to this bug not being resolved, I'm no longer using Nautilus

I'm now using thunar, which is not only faster for viewing the properties of a file or folder, it is also faster than Nautilus on every single task you'd do in Nautilus. I'm especially impressed with how fast it views network folders compared to Nautilus.

sudo apt-get install thunar

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is that still an issue in newer versions?