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Bug 786881 - Nautilus too slow when opening folders with too many files (3k+)
Nautilus too slow when opening folders with too many files (3k+)
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: general
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal critical
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2017-08-28 06:19 UTC by organicchemistry_01
Modified: 2021-06-18 15:55 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 3.25/3.26



Description organicchemistry_01 2017-08-28 06:19:24 UTC
I know its dumb having 3k+ files in one folder only, but sometimes it happens. Specially if you have file servers or maybe accessing huge files from CERN, but it happens.

Surprisingly, Windows Explorer can open folders with 3k+ files without a hitch. So clearly, something should hopefully be improved in Nautilus (Gnome File Manager).

PS: I did not file this bug so somebody could explain why its slow, I filed it so Gnome File Manager can become the best File manager it should be! Cheers!
Comment 1 Carlos Soriano 2017-08-28 06:21:39 UTC
Yeah, we are aware. It just need more work in core parts of Nautilus :)
Comment 2 organicchemistry_01 2017-09-01 06:04:17 UTC
Glad, its being taken care off! :) Let me know if there are software related thing I can help with.
Comment 3 organicchemistry_01 2018-03-20 02:34:54 UTC
I think I have an Idea where the slowness maybe. 

1.) Nautilus does not do multicore processing
2.) Nautilus does not do lazy loading, I think it was trying to display all the files at once, while it can rather just render what is just visible in screen. Another issue maybe a mutex lock or some other lock that is being processed for each file.

Possible suggestions
For no. 1, I dont have idea how to fix that.

For no. 2, I think nautilus can store the arrangement and the paths of all files of the whole disk and then just retrieve the first few from there. Building the cache could not be that big for average desktop usage, like 1M files, that would be equivalent to 1Gig disk cache. It could be faster if the cache is stored per folder.

Maybe in Explorer.exe it read that cache from the NTFS directly. I hope there could be the same counter part for Linux partitions.
Comment 4 Carlos Soriano 2018-03-20 10:21:05 UTC
> 1.) Nautilus does not do multicore processing

Nautilus actually does it, you can see it with gdb.

> 2.) Nautilus does not do lazy loading

It does, look at nautilus-files-view.c and the "display_pending_files" function.
Comment 5 garrett.mitchener 2018-09-19 17:25:06 UTC
A related bug report and conversation going back several years:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/869793
Comment 6 André Klapper 2021-06-18 15:55:43 UTC
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org.
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version of Files (nautilus), then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new ticket at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.