Bug#767276: [nautilus] Nautilus very slow navigating through directory. "Loading...".

[Francois Carpentier]

Package: nautilus
Version: 3.4.2-1+build1
Severity: normal

--- Please enter the report below this line. ---

Steps to reproduce issue

1. Use Nautilus for hours or for a few days. Navigate large size
directories with at least 100 files and folders per directory. Folders
are composed of a mix of LibreOffice files, image files, .txt files and
sub-folders.

2. Randomly Nautilus becomes very slow. A "Loading..." icon appears at
the bottom right side of the Nautilus window. Sometime up to 60 seconds
delay between each directly. Same issue when using Nautilus to create
new files or new directories.

3. Expected result is Nautilus should be faster when navigating
directory, creating new files or creating new folder. This issue is not
present with other similar tools such as gnome-commander 1.2.8.15-3+b1
very fast.

Using
* Nautilus: 3.4.2-1+build1
* Nautilus View: "List View"
* Debian: Wheezy 7.7 at 64 bit
* Gnome: Version 3.4.2
* Intel Core: i7-3770S CPU @ 3.10GHz × 8
* RAM: 16 GB

Things we have tried
* The following Nautilus settings did speed up Nautilus a little bit.
But did not fix the issue.
** "Other Previewable files" -> "Show thumbnails": Never -> "Only for
files smaller than": 100 KB
** "Text Files" -> "Show text in icons": Never
** "Folders" -> "Count number of items": Never
* Rebooting computer temporarily fix the issue. But after a few hours or
a few days issue is back.

Related issues
* https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/869793
* http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=103974
* http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6585620
* http://subbass.blogspot.ca/2009/05/is-your-nautilus-slow-to-open.html
* http://askubuntu.com/questions/147682/nautilus-is-very-slow

Note
* Issue was first noticed by numerous users back in 2009


--- System information. ---
Architecture: amd64
Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64

Debian Release: 7.7
500 stable-updates ftp.ca.debian.org
500 stable security.debian.org
500 stable ftp.ca.debian.org
500 stable dl.google.com
100 wheezy-backports http.debian.net

--- Package information. ---
Depends (Version) | Installed
==========================================-+-=============
libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4) |
libc6 (>= 2.7) |
libcairo-gobject2 (>= 1.10.0) |
libcairo2 (>= 1.10.0) |
libexempi3 (>= 2.2.0) |
libexif12 |
libgail-3-0 (>= 3.0.0) |
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0) |
libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.31.18) |
libgnome-desktop-3-2 (>= 3.2.0) |
libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.3.18) |
libnautilus-extension1a (>= 2.91) |
libnotify4 (>= 0.7.0) |
libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.20.0) |
libselinux1 (>= 1.32) |
libtracker-sparql-0.14-0 (>= 0.10.0) |
libx11-6 |
libxml2 (>= 2.7.4) |
nautilus-data (>= 3.4) |
nautilus-data (<< 3.5) |
shared-mime-info (>= 0.50) |
desktop-file-utils (>= 0.7) |
gvfs (>= 1.3.2) |
libglib2.0-data |
gsettings-desktop-schemas |


Recommends (Version) | Installed
==============================-+-===========
eject | 2.1.5+deb1+cvs20081104-13
brasero (>= 2.26) | 3.4.1-4
librsvg2-common | 2.36.1-2
gvfs-backends | 1.12.3-4
gnome-sushi | 0.4.1-3


Suggests (Version) | Installed
============================-+-===========
eog | 3.4.2-1+build1
evince | 3.4.0-3.1
OR pdf-viewer |
totem | 3.0.1-8
OR mp3-decoder |
xdg-user-dirs | 0.14-1
tracker | 0.14.1-3