GNOME Software is slow to start up on first launch

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄]

On an up to date Ubuntu Artful system with nothing running, GNOME Software takes between 15 and 20 seconds to be usable. This feels incredibly slow.

I timed it on my laptop and recorded it here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxvn_RyJ46o

I had nothing else running. Laptop is an i7 with 8GB RAM and SSD for storage. I would expect G-S to launch a lot quicker on this setup. Especially given launch speed was one of the reasons users were given as to why we switched away from the previous Ubuntu Software Center to G-S in the first place.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-software 3.24.3-0ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.12.0-11.12-generic 4.12.5
Uname: Linux 4.12.0-11-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.6-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Aug 23 10:53:50 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-08-02 (20 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170712)
InstalledPlugins:
 gnome-software-plugin-flatpak N/A
 gnome-software-plugin-limba N/A
 gnome-software-plugin-snap 3.24.3-0ubuntu7
SourcePackage: gnome-software
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[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.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Unsure why it's being slow for you but it's not as slow here on a 6 years old i5 with rotational disk, maybe apt was updating in background at the time or something?

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I've noticed when running with --verbose that one of the things that is slow on startup is the fwupd module. I haven't yet investigated why that is slow. Also the appstream data takes quite some time to parse.

It seems it has got slower than when we started.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

Should say:
"It seems it has got slower than when we first switched to using it"

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

Is there any way to get timestamps printed in the --verbose log? I have a perception that some parts are slow but it would be good to have timestamps to verify the anecdotal evidence.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I don't think there's any other options to control the logging.