I think that I know how to cause this at will. It is easy to do if you are impatient with a slow disk or slow driver for a filesystem. Just move a dir before nautalis is done with it.
Of course the clue to what is really happening is to deal with what gvfsd-metadata depends on. If I don't get the problem if I am just moving files from a shell prompt, but I'm waiting for nautilus to do thumbnails of images, but it lets me go off and do something to the filesystem state that confuses the gvfsd-metadata process, that will lead to corruption of the cache, which I assume is a heap of C or C++ structs, and every time it comes back and tries to navigate that it will get hung. I don't know if some locks are needed in the code to prevent another file operation from touching the cache wile one is still in progress, just a guess. Just clobbering the cache is a work around, but does it have any risks, and if so is there a better way to prevent the corruption? Should an attempt to navigate away from a dir that nautalis is busy generating meadata, stop that gracefully? On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Launchpad Bug Tracker < 716...@bugs.launchpad.net> wrote: > ** Changed in: nautilus (Ubuntu) > Status: New => Confirmed > > -- > You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug > report. > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/716280 > > Title: > gvfsd-metadata process pegs CPU while nautilus waits > > Status in “nautilus” package in Ubuntu: > Confirmed > > Bug description: > Binary package hint: nautilus > > I have been getting delays of 30-60 seconds when nautilus copies data > on an NTFS filesystem in a 1.5 TB My Book external USB disk from > Western Digital. I was able to see the process that has 100% of the > CPU and causes spinners in my Nautilus Windows until it finishes. It > is gvfsd-metadata, for which I have no man page. > > Today, I closed an earlier bug thinking that the problem had resolved > itself as I had nominal functionality with nautilus then. I noticed > that the problem returned and looked at running processes with top (1) > to see what process appeared and what it was using when it ran. > > I don't know what gvfsd-metadata does or how important it is, but it > seems to be the hog process. As soon as it exits I get the FM back. It > appears whenever I move (drag) files from one dir to another. Another > bug where I had long delays moving a 1.0 GB dir from the boot drive to > this external drive, may be the same problem. > > ProblemType: Bug > DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10 > Package: nautilus 1:2.32.0-0ubuntu1.3 > ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-25.44-generic 2.6.35.10 > Uname: Linux 2.6.35-25-generic i686 > Architecture: i386 > Date: Wed Feb 9 23:09:42 2011 > ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus > ProcEnviron: > LANG=en_US.utf8 > SHELL=/bin/bash > SourcePackage: nautilus > > To manage notifications about this bug go to: > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/716280/+subscriptions > -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to nautilus in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/716280 Title: gvfsd-metadata process pegs CPU while nautilus waits To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/716280/+subscriptions -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs