Latest gvfs-update in hardy-proposed causes huge IO-lags

[Øyvind Stegard]

Binary package hint: gvfs

This update:

gvfs (0.2.4-0ubuntu2) hardy-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/80_samba_browsing_authentification.patch:
     - gnome bugzilla change to allow shares when authentification is required,
       the code try anonymous connections before asking for a password though
       so it doesn't solve the case where anonymous and login are authorized
       but give access to different ressources, see comments on
       http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=524485 for references
       (lp: #207072)

causes huge problems for me. The gnome-panel takes close to a minute to appear after login, the save file download dialog in Firefox takes ~30 seconds to appear, and there are lags/hangs in general. I had to revert the the previous version of gvfs in hardy-updates, which fixes all these problems.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, that's really weird because the update only change the smb code which is not used until you access a the network or do some mounting, could you describe what you do to trigger the issue?

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

I didn't to anything special to trigger it. But I have my laptop at work, and there's a machine here with the same hostname as my server at home. The server at home has Samba running, but I suspect the one here at work does not, and maybe there's some hang because gvfs tries to contact it, authorize or whatever behind the scenes, but obviously does not get a reply. I'm at work, currently, so cannot spend more time on this now, but can help in debugging later.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

you will need to provide extra informations since you seem to be the only one to get the issue so far, are you sure that's a gvfs issue? what gvfs processes are running? does any of those is using ressources?

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

Of course, I will try to help in figuring this one out.

Here's some info about my setup:
I've got a bookmarked Samba-share in Nautilus like this:

smb://gandalf/
This share requires password-authentication.

The hostname resolves to 192.168.1.2 (the local IP-adress of the Samba-server on my LAN).

The problem occurs because of a difference in behaviour between this new gvfs-release and the previous: now it immediately connects to the share (I've checked with netstat) upon login, even though I don't actively click the bookmark in Nautilus. When gvfs or Nautilus tries to do this at work (when I log in), it hangs, and causes other desktop components to hang as well, such as the panel, file open dialogs, etc. There's no Samba-server with IP 192.168.1.2 at work.

So, should it be trying to connect/authenticate to Samba-shares that are bookmarked in Nautilus but not opened by the user ? This is doomed to cause problems for roaming users with laptops, like myself, that use different servers, depending on location.

[Øyvind Stegard (oyvindstegard)]

If I remove the Samba-share bookmark in Nautilus, it stops trying to connect immediately upon login to Gnome desktop. That would resolve my problem with hangs at work, but it does mean that I can no longer bookmark unavailable SMB-servers in Nautilus without problems.

[murphy.md (murphy-md)]

I also get this bug in the latest GVFS update when bookmarking a samba share in Nautilus. The problem occurs whenever I try to open a Nautilus-related program, such as the start menu in the panel, or Nautilus itself.

[murphy.md (murphy-md)]

I can also confirm that the fix is to remove the bookmarks from Nautilus.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

see the recent comments on bug #209520 about the issue