this report has been filed here:

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/405908

"I was browsing a folder with videos in it, switched to another application (a wine one), and then once I came out of the other application my desktop and a nautilus window of the folder both turned pure window-color neutral gray. The application I switched to was writing to the folder that nautilus was browsing at the time. Now every instance of nautilus is completely unresponsive. No events are being fired from either the desktop or the folder browser. I haven't been able to reproduce this, but it's a bug nonetheless. There are a lot of nautilus freezes I come across so I figured I would post one for a change.

Below I have a backtrace, and also the strace and ltrace output (the latter two of which consisted of absolutely nothing).

Unfortunately the coredump is 1.6 GB. I bet that's because some infinite loop was going on and it accumulated over time. Compressing it with good 7z settings still yields a file about 1.2 GB. I could post it somewhere if really needed but I don't know where."

"#0 g_nearest_pow (array=0x1dc9c00, len=<value optimized out>)
    at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.21.4/glib/garray.c:397
        n = 0

+ Trace 216723

        no_desktop = 0
        version = 0
        autostart_mode = 1
        autostart_id = <value optimized out>
        geometry = 0x0
        remaining = 0x0
        perform_self_check = 0
        application = <value optimized out>
        context = <value optimized out>
        file = 0x1
        uri = <value optimized out>
        uris = 0x0
        uris_array = <value optimized out>
        error = 0x0
        options = {{long_name = 0x54a4d9 "check", short_name = 99 'c',
            flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, arg_data = 0x7fff6970efc8,
            description = 0x54a520 "Perform a quick set of self-check tests.", arg_description = 0x0}, {long_name = 0x54a40f "version", short_name = 0 '\0',
            flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, arg_data = 0x7fff6970efcc,
            description = 0x54a550 "Show the version of the program.",
            arg_description = 0x0}, {long_name = 0x54e3f3 "geometry",
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
            short_name = 103 'g', flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_STRING,
            arg_data = 0x7fff6970efc0,
            description = 0x54a578 "Create the initial window with the given geometry.", arg_description = 0x54a417 "GEOMETRY"}, {
            long_name = 0x54a420 "no-default-window", short_name = 110 'n',
            flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, arg_data = 0x7fff6970efd8,
            description = 0x54a5b0 "Only create windows for explicitly specified URIs.", arg_description = 0x0}, {long_name = 0x54a432 "no-desktop",
            short_name = 0 '\0', flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE,
            arg_data = 0x7fff6970efd0,
            description = 0x54a5e8 "Do not manage the desktop (ignore the preference set in the preferences dialog).", arg_description = 0x0}, {
            long_name = 0x546de6 "browser", short_name = 0 '\0', flags = 0,
            arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, arg_data = 0x7fff6970efd4,
            description = 0x54a43d "open a browser window.",
            arg_description = 0x0}, {long_name = 0x56b6f1 "quit",
            short_name = 113 'q', flags = 0, arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE,
            arg_data = 0x7fff6970efdc,
            description = 0x54a454 "Quit Nautilus.", arg_description = 0x0}, {
            long_name = 0x54f841 "", short_name = 0 '\0', flags = 0,
            arg = G_OPTION_ARG_STRING_ARRAY, arg_data = 0x7fff6970efb8,
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
            description = 0x0, arg_description = 0x54a463 "[URI...]"}, {
            long_name = 0x0, short_name = 0 '\0', flags = 0,
            arg = G_OPTION_ARG_NONE, arg_data = 0x0, description = 0x0,
            arg_description = 0x0}}"