Interesting that the last person mentioned Caja - there is potential progress in narrowing down where the problem lies in their issue tracker (https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues/528).
Nautilus, Caja and Nemo all exhibit this same behaviour. In the Caja issue tracker zaps666 suggested that when the problem occurs, dbus (in glib) is waiting for a long time for a notification from somewhere, and that commenting out dbus in the glib move file code fixes the problem, but isn't a solution. If it's a glib issue, then https://bugzilla.gnome.org is the relevant place for bug reporting; it could also be something to do with the way nautilus uses glib, in which case bugzilla.gnome.org is still the best place to report a bug for nautilus. It's worth having a look there in any case to see if there's already something relevant, as this bug has been around for a while. ** Bug watch added: github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues #528 https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues/528 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to nautilus in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1133477 Title: cut-n-paste move files got stuck forever Status in nautilus package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in pcmanfm package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: With Nautilus, I navigated to a folder that contained about 2,000 gif files. I selected all of them I cut with Ctrl+X I navigated to another folder I pasted with Ctrl+V => A popup window appeared saying "Preparing to move N files", and it got stuck there forever. Nautilus stopped responding. I waited half an hour, then I had to kill it. Actually some of the files were moved. Which is the worst thing that could happen. I tried again with the remaining files and it happened again!! It's systematic!!!!!! I suspect it has to do with displaying the previews of a big number of files. Nautilus becomes completely unmanageable whenever you open folders with lots of files. Maximum priority should be given to the UI and actual operations; displaying of the previews should be done in the background and should never, ever slow down user operations the slightest bit. Seems pretty obvious. Also note that 2000 is not even that much. Actually it's very few files. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10 Package: nautilus 1:3.5.90.really.3.4.2-0ubuntu4.2 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-25.38-generic 3.5.7.4 Uname: Linux 3.5.0-25-generic i686 NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10 Architecture: i386 Date: Tue Feb 26 18:23:52 2013 GsettingsChanges: b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'1312x713+64+71'" b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'sidebar-width' b'180' b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'start-with-status-bar' b'true' InstallationDate: Installed on 2010-06-23 (979 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429) MarkForUpload: True ProcEnviron: TERM=xterm PATH=(custom, no user) XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set> LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: nautilus UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2013-01-13 (44 days ago) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/1133477/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp