Bug#1108438: Very slow to start with NFS-mounted home directory
On Sat, 28 Jun 2025 at 18:31:49 +0200, Ben Hutchings wrote: On this desktop system /home is mounted from an NFS server. This was usable in bookworm. After upgrading to trixie, the shell doesn't appear for several minutes, and then takes over a minute to respond to some buttons. I'm not at all sure that this is really a gnome-shell problem: the fact that various services' startups are timing out seems like it indicates some lower-level problem. I suspect that gnome-shell functionality is blocking on those services' startups, which would happen promptly under normal circumstances. I created a fresh account to test this in isolation from any special configuration I have that might make this worse One good place to start would be to create a similar fresh account with an on-disk $HOME (but otherwise the same system-level configuration), and see whether that is equally slow to start. If this is a fully diskless system, it could be on tmpfs if necessary; or if it has a real SSD/HDD, use that (perhaps below /var/local). Assuming the on-disk or tmpfs $HOME is OK, the next step would be to narrow down which part of the home directory causes trouble when located on NFS, by making a hybrid home directory where the top-level directory is on one storage type but ~/.cache, ~/.config and ~/.local are on the other. My first suspicion would be dconf (~/.cache/dconf, ~/.config/dconf) which uses a format that is designed to be mmap'd; but perhaps that's a red herring. Since you've said that everything is much slower with localsearch-3 (formerly Tracker), please try without that - I suspect that it might just be another victim of the same underlying issue, but I'm also quite confident that localsearch/Tracker was not designed with a high-latency $HOME in mind. Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop' unit='xdg-desktop-portal.service' requested by ':1.40' (uid=1003 pid=22662 comm="/usr/bin/gnome-software --gapplication-service") Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service... This takes a while to start, most likely because it is waiting for the portal backend x-d-p-gtk to initialize (the other major portal backend, x-d-p-gnome, seems healthy). I suspect this might be either the root cause, or at least several steps closer to the root cause than gnome-shell is. Each of several IPC calls to x-d-p-gtk triggers another attempt to start x-d-p-gtk, none of which is any more successful than the first. Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gtk' unit='xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service' requested by ':1.78' (uid=1003 pid=23000 comm="/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal") Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)... Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor wireplumber[22963]: spa.bluez5: BlueZ system service is not available Jun 28 17:55:13 grosvenor wireplumber[22963]: [1:06:14.970013985] [22963] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:327 libcamera v0.4.0 Jun 28 17:55:38 grosvenor xdg-desktop-por[23000]: Failed to create settings proxy: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gtk: Timeout was reached ... Jun 28 17:57:13 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gtk': timed out (service_start_timeout=12ms) I think this is a large part of the problem: xdg-desktop-portal-gtk, from the package of the same name, is taking a very long time to start. Please try re-running it in the session, with verbose log messages (/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk -vr), perhaps using strace or dbus-monitor to see what it's doing and where it gets stuck. If it starts promptly when restarted within the session itself, you could try using an edited version of /usr/lib/systemd/user/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service and saving it in ~/.config/systemd/user/ - in this case you would only want the -v option (not -r), and it might also be useful to set Environment=G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all. Jun 28 17:57:12 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Failed to activate service 'org.gnome.Shell.Screencast': timed out (service_start_timeout=12ms) This is clearly also getting stuck somewhere. As well as dconf, it makes me wonder about perhaps GStreamer or Pipewire. Jun 28 17:58:13 grosvenor systemd[11109]: localsearch-3.service: start operation timed out. Terminating. Jun 28 17:58:13 grosvenor systemd[11109]: localsearch-3.service: Killing process 23480 (gst-plugin:sh0) with signal SIGKILL. Jun 28 17:58:13 grosvenor systemd[11109]: localsearch-3.service: Failed with result 'timeout'. Jun 28 17:58:13 grosv
Bug#1108438: Very slow to start with NFS-mounted home directory
Package: gnome-shell Version: 48.2-3 Severity: serious On this desktop system /home is mounted from an NFS server. This was usable in bookworm. After upgrading to trixie, the shell doesn't appear for several minutes, and then takes over a minute to respond to some buttons. The journal showed a number of services timing out (see the bottom of this message). After much experimentation I found that masking localsearch-3.service makes this less bad, but it is still unacceptably slow to start. I created a fresh account to test this in isolation from any special configuration I have that might make this worse, and recorded the following timings (approximate, in seconds): With Without localsearch-3 localsearch-3 Time to fully appear~120-500 ~90 Time to respond to ~200 ~20 "all apps" button Time to respond to ~60 ~60 quick settings button The response times are for use of the respective buttons immediately after the shell appears. When they are pressed a second time, or a few minutes after the shell appears, the response is quick (< 1 s). Ben. Jun 28 17:55:10 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Started gnome-keyring-daemon.service - GNOME Keyring daemon. Jun 28 17:55:10 grosvenor gnome-keyring-daemon[22416]: GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/run/user/1003/keyring Jun 28 17:55:10 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting dbus.service - D-Bus User Message Bus... Jun 28 17:55:10 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Started dbus.service - D-Bus User Message Bus. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Reached target gnome-session-wayland.target - GNOME Wayland Session. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Reached target org.gnome.Shell.target - GNOME Shell. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting gnome-session-monitor.service - Monitor Session leader for GNOME Session... Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting user-session-migration.service - User Session Migration... Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal-rewrite-launchers.service - Rewrite dynamic launcher portal entries... Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Started gnome-session-monitor.service - Monitor Session leader for GNOME Session. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor user-session-migration[22461]: Exited with an error Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor user-session-migration[22461]: stdout: Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor user-session-migration[22461]: stderr: rm: cannot remove '.config/autostart/ignore-lid-switch-tweak.desktop': No such file or directory Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.gtk.vfs.Daemon' unit='gvfs-daemon.service' requested by ':1.6' (uid=1003 pid=22462 comm="/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal-rewrite-launchers") Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Finished user-session-migration.service - User Session Migration. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting gvfs-daemon.service - Virtual filesystem service... Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor dbus-daemon[22421]: [session uid=1003 pid=22421 pidfd=5] Successfully activated service 'org.gtk.vfs.Daemon' Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Started gvfs-daemon.service - Virtual filesystem service. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Finished xdg-desktop-portal-rewrite-launchers.service - Rewrite dynamic launcher portal entries. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Reached target graphical-session-pre.target - Session services which should run early before the graphical session is brought up. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Reached target gnome-session-pre.target - Tasks to be run before GNOME Session starts. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Starting [email protected] - GNOME Session Manager (session: gnome)... Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor gnome-keyring-daemon[22416]: The Secret Service was already initialized Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor gnome-keyring-d[22416]: The Secret Service was already initialized Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor gnome-keyring-daemon[22507]: discover_other_daemon: 1 Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor gnome-keyring-secrets.desktop[22507]: discover_other_daemon: 1GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/run/user/1003/keyring Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: Started app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dpkcs11-22504.scope - Application launched by gnome-session-binary. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dsecrets-22498.scope: PID 22498 vanished before we could move it to target cgroup '/user.slice/user-1003.slice/[email protected]/app.slice/app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dsecrets-22498.scope', skipping: No such process Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring\x2dsecrets-22498.scope: No PIDs left to attach to the scope's control group, refusing. Jun 28 17:55:11 grosvenor systemd[11109]: app-gnome-gnome\x2dkeyring
