Nautilus search is slow and jumbles keyboard input on 22.10

[Ryan Beisner]

Since my upgrade to 22.10, I've found the search box in Nautilus (files) essentially unusable. It is notably sluggish to launch and browse in general. But most detrimental to the usability is this:

The characters do not appear in real time as I type. When they do appear, they are sometimes jumbled or in reverse (consistently reproducible). As I type in the file search box, the circular cursor spins intermittently, then the UI catches up and it's not what I typed.

For example, I just typed "umbrella" into the search box, and Nautilus searched for:
"umballer"

Off-the-cuff test #2, searched for "Ubuntu" and I ended up with "Ubunut" ... you can't make this up. :-)

Test #3, typed Launchpad, ended up with a search for "Laudaphcn".

Keyboard input everywhere else on the system is otherwise normal and snappy. No pun intended, really.

FWIW Nautilus files preferences are as default (Search in subfolders, Show thumbnails, File count == This computer only).

----

$ apt-cache policy nautilus
nautilus:
  Installed: 1:43.0-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1:43.0-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 1:43.0-1ubuntu1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu kinetic/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ uname -r
5.19.0-23-generic

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 22.10
Release: 22.10

$ snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
bare 1.0 5 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core 16-2.57.2 13886 latest/stable canonical✓ core
core18 20221027 2620 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core20 20221027 1695 latest/stable canonical✓ base
gnome-3-34-1804 0+git.3556cb3 77 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
gnome-3-38-2004 0+git.6f39565 119 latest/stable canonical✓ -
google-cloud-sdk 409.0.0 298 latest/stable google-cloud-sdk✓ classic
gtk-common-themes 0.1-81-g442e511 1535 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
snap-store 41.3-64-g512c0ff 599 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.57.4 17336 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd
snapd-desktop-integration 0.1 14 latest/stable/… canonical✓ -

Side question: Since this system has transitioned across several upgrades from 20.04 to 22.10, do I really need all of these core* and gnome* snaps?

[Federico Poloni (fph)]

I cannot reproduce the jumbled characters, but I can confirm that the Nautilus search has become orders of magnitude slower after the upgrade to 22.10 on my computer, too. Is there an open bug for this performance regression?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Coeur Noir (coeur-noir)]

Hi,

I can't confirm the jumbling characters but I also have the feeling search is much slower in 22.10 than in 22.04.

But maybe things get faster in places where some searches have already been done.

And slower in places where you've never searched anything.

[J Chapman (justinlindsaychapman)]

Same here Acer Aspire black edition running 22.10, the search facility in nautilus is extremely slow particularly when you enter the second symbol/letter of the search string.
sometime it works as it should but most of the time it just sits and spins for a few minutes.
Any ideas what we can do to get it working?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could someone report it upstream on https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues ?

[Joe Baker (joebaker)]

Also affecting me.
Odd keyboard studdering of characters (intermittant).
Also way too slow at displaying contents of folders. I'm looking for a replacement.

[Ryan Beisner (1chb1n)]

@seb128 FYI: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/2877

[Ryan Beisner (1chb1n)]

And:
https://github.com/ibus/ibus/issues/2486
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/5347

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

The IBus maintainer Takao Fujiwara has submitted a pull request which is intended to address this issue. I applied the pull request and uploaded IBus (for 23.04 and 23.10) to this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/ibus

Can users who are affected by the issue please install ibus from my PPA and let us know — either here or at the upstream issue https://github.com/ibus/ibus/issues/2486 — if it improves things.

[Federico Poloni (fph)]

FWIW I installed the new version and I confirm that Nautilus search seems snappier. Thanks to you and to the maintainer for your work!

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

My first upload to the PPA proved to not be complete. Corrected now. (Wait for the builds to finish and the packages to be published before updating).

[Federico Poloni (fph)]

On 04/07/23 08:23, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> My first upload to the PPA proved to not be complete. Corrected now.
> (Wait for the builds to finish and the packages to be published before
> updating).

I have installed the new proposed version, but I have a regression with
deadkeys: pressing altgr+', then e used to insert the letter é, now it
doesn't anymore.
My keyboard layout is us_intl_altgr.

Thanks for your work!

   Federico

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Federico: Thanks for testing and reporting that observation!

I can't reproduce it (on mantic), though. Dead keys work as expected for me, also with the keyboard layout you mentioned.

Are you sure that the issue is related to the proposed ibus version? Does the issue go away if you downgrade to the released version? Are you testing on lunar or mantic?

[Federico Poloni (fph)]

On 05/07/23 16:46, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> @Federico: Thanks for testing and reporting that observation!
>
> I can't reproduce it (on mantic), though. Dead keys work as expected for
> me, also with the keyboard layout you mentioned.
>
> Are you sure that the issue is related to the proposed ibus version?
> Does the issue go away if you downgrade to the released version? Are you
> testing on lunar or mantic?

I downgraded and the issue went away so yes, I assume it's related. I'm
on Lunar, apologies if that's the wrong version to test.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Nah, it's fine to test on lunar. I do it on mantic since I don't have a lunar installation easily available.

Previously, when I couldn't reproduce, I tested in a Wayland session. Now I have tried "Ubuntu on Xorg", and there I see bad things when using gnome-terminal or gedit, i.e. gtk3 applications. When trying to use a dead key followed by a character, it all disappears. And it's not only dead keys: The same happens when trying to input a character using Ctrl+Shift+U or when trying to use some advanced input method, e.g. ibus-libpinyin.

Are you able to confirm that the issue is limited to gtk3 applications in X sessions?

I reported the observation on the upstream issue:
https://github.com/ibus/ibus/issues/2486#issuecomment-1625042967

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Federico: The x11 issue you spotted has now been fixed through updated patches, and the PPA has been updated with the latest patch versions.

[Federico Poloni (fph)]

On 09/07/23 15:30, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> @Federico: The x11 issue you spotted has now been fixed through updated
> patches, and the PPA has been updated with the latest patch versions.

Hello! I am sorry for not answering earlier, but life got in the way. I
confirm that your assumptions about the setup that causes the problem
(Xorg + GTK apps) are correct; I have tested your ppa3 version, and the
bug I had is gone.

Many thanks for your help with this issue @gunnarhj !

Federico

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ibus - 1.5.28-6

---------------
ibus (1.5.28-6) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Team upload
  * Fix jumbling issue when typing fast (LP: #1996652)
    - d/p/bus-Apply-code-style-to-inputcontext.c.patch
    - d/p/src-Fix-sync-ibus_input_context_process_key_event.patch
    - d/p/client-x11-Fix-sync-ibus_input_context_process_key_event.patch
  * Update d/libibus-1.0-5.symbols accordingly

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Wed, 26 Jul 2023 22:39:15 +0200