Comment 2 for bug 386233

Here is an example:

Run the following script, which will create 10000 files, each with size 100k.

mkdir folder1
for (( c=1; c<=10000; c++ ))
do
        dd if=/dev/zero of=folder1/imaginaryfile$c bs=1024 count=100
done

While the script is running, right-click folder1 in a nautilus browser and go to properties-- nautilus will calculate the current size of the folder. Then, wait two seconds, close the properties window, right-click folder1 again, and go to properties again. The size hangs on the previous size and the number of files reported is the same as the previous query. For me, this delay only lasted 5 seconds before nautilus started calculating the real size. Even after the script was done, I queried the properties and it still delayed 5 seconds. When working with bigger folders, I believe the delay increases.

Note that I am experiencing this on both ext3 and fat32

If this delay is necessary, I think it would be a nice feature just to show that nautilus is delaying, that it is not finished calculating the size and cardinality of the folder, that those property statistics do not reflect the true properties.

Thank you for your help!