KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

Xavion · 2021-09-05 02:25:32

Hi Guys,

I've been having (persistent) slowdowns with KDE file management in recent weeks. After upgrading my system packages on 22 August, there's a delay each time I try to enter a folder in a KDE application.

To illustrate the problem, I have attached (here) a video-grab of Dolphin. As you can see, there's a delay of about half a second each time I try to enter a folder. The exception was in the first (AAAAA) case, where it took several seconds! The problem also becomes obvious towards end of the video when it walks back through the folders to the beginning. (You can see how slowly the folders are changing in the titlebar of the window, next to the mouse cursor.)

I wish this problem was Dolphin-specific. Unfortunately that's not the case as it happens in other KDE applications (e.g. Gwenview and the File Open/Save-As windows while using Google Chrome) as well. This makes it difficult (for me) to work out which part of KDE is to blame.

I have also attached (here) an extract from the pacman log file to list all packages that were upgraded on that day. The bug has to be present in one of them; I'm just not sure which one. I'm hoping you guys (with more knowledge of the KDE file management system than me) might be able to narrow it down a bit. Once we've worked out which package it's likely to be, I will then file a report on the KDE bug tracker website.

I'm sure this bug is occurring on other people's computers as well. However, as they're much newer and faster than mine (last upgraded in early-2014), I'm guessing the delay isn't noticeable to the human eye -- at least in most cases.

I'm currently working around the problem by using PCManFM, which is actually quite a worthy replacement for Dolphin. All the same, I would like to get to the bottom of the KDE bug (for their sake as well as mine). That delay of several seconds is particularly nasty! Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this post.

V1del · 2021-09-05 10:16:28

There are already some reports about this e.g. [1]. I can't say I can reproduce, what's your filesystem? Package wise this will be something in kio.

Can you strace a dolphin run and identify a spot that blocks?

[1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=268825

Xavion · 2021-09-06 03:17:59

@V1del:

Thanks very much for the helpful reply. I use a couple of different file systems. Some are Ext4 and others are NTFS. The one yesterday was 'tmpfs'.

Unfortunately, strace was spewing out so much information and I didn't really know what I was looking for. In case you wanna take a look, I have attached a tarball of the output here. The steps taken were as follows: [1] launch Dolphin; [2] walk through folders as in the video; and [3] quit Dolphin. Should I have passed any special flags (or just "strace dolphin" like I did)? Also, note that I wasn't able to capture the huge lockup (of several seconds). KDE was playing nice this time.

I can tell you that, when I run Dolphin normally (i.e. without strace), I get the following output:

kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so'"

The guys in the other thread were seeing that as well, which makes me quietly pleased. :-) I feared I would be all alone on this one.

Last edited by Xavion (2021-09-06 03:22:15)

Xavion · 2021-09-06 05:28:07

Some of what I've written above is no longer relevant as I've managed to solve the problem.

Many thanks to V1del for suggesting it was due to 'kio'. I just downgraded that package to v5.84.0-2 and everything is back to normal.

I will notify the guys in the other thread and submit a report to the KDE bug tracker. EDIT: The latter can be accessed here.

Last edited by Xavion (2021-09-07 03:42:53)

critter · 2021-09-08 00:05:01

I has the same problem, and can confirm - downgrade kio to v5.84.0-2 resolve it. Thanks a lot! No more delays in dolphin and krusader, But messages like

kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/applications.so'"
kf.coreaddons: no metadata found in "/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so" "Failed to extract plugin meta data from '/usr/lib/qt/plugins/kf5/kio/desktop.so'"

are still in console launching dolphin or krusader.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-09-05 02:25:32

KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

#2 2021-09-05 10:16:28

Re: KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

#3 2021-09-06 03:17:59

Re: KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

#4 2021-09-06 05:28:07

Re: KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

#5 2021-09-08 00:05:01

Re: KDE file management has slowed to a crawl here in recent weeks

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