Arch Linux

snack

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 893

NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

I recently added this entry to my fstab:

172.16.3.241:/data /mnt/nas nfs rw,noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.requires=network-online.target,x-systemd.idle-timeout=5min,x-systemd.device-timeout=10,_netdev 0 0

When the NAS is not available the Dolphin file manager waits on startup until the timeout, making it unresponsive and unusable. Stopping the systemd automount unit fixes the problem.
So there must be something wrong in the fstab entry that generate this issue but I can't figure out what especially since I have other similar entries (albeit not for NFS) like:

example.com /cvmfs/example.com cvmfs noauto,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.requires=network-online.target,x-systemd.idle-timeout=5min,x-systemd.device-timeout=10,_netdev 0 0

that do not trigger this problem when the network filesystem is not available.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by snack (2023-08-27 08:16:57)

cheyene12

Member

Registered: 2016-07-21

Posts: 1

Re: NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NFS
Especially tip:
- Do not add the x-systemd.requires=network-online.target mount option as this can lead to ordering cycles within systemd [4]. systemd adds the network-online.target dependency to the unit for _netdev mount automatically.

snack

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 893

Re: NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

I removed the x-systemd.requires=network-online.target option (then reloaded the systemd daemon and restarted the remote-fs.target) but still Dolphin behaves badly. I understand that the NFS mount might be stuck waiting for the file server that never responds, but why Dolphin gets stuck as well?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,678

Re: NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

When the NAS is not available the Dolphin file manager waits on startup until the timeout

https://man.archlinux.org/man/core/nfs- … .5.en#soft
https://man.archlinux.org/man/core/nfs- … fs.5.en#bg

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snack

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2009-01-13

Posts: 893

Re: NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

I partially solved the problem: the freeze on startup was due to Dolphin trying to restore the last visited folder, which was the NAS mount folder. By disabling NAS mount, opening Dolphin, visiting a different folder then closing the application,, on next start the GUI is no longer frozen even if the automount is restored.  But then it freezes again when trying to access the NAS mount point.

I have tried adding both soft and bg to the mount options, but this doesn't help.

I think the bottom line is a bad interaction between Dolphin and systemd. I have other fstab NFS entries with no systemd automount, and these are correctly handled by Doplhin which tries to mount them automatically when I click on the network disk icon, and does not freeze while waiting for mount. I guess this is something worth a bug report upstream.

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,678

Re: NFS fstab entry makes Dolphin stuck at startup

I have other fstab NFS entries with no systemd automount, and these are correctly handled by Doplhin which tries to mount them automatically when I click on the network disk icon

What will likely use kio nfs://, not an NFS mount that dolphin tries to handle synchronously like a local FS.

You could try to lower timeo from it's default 60s to 5s or so to shorten the freeze (timeo=50, but even 15 for 1.5s isn't unreasonable on a decent LAN)

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