[plug] odd file manager hangs

[Mark O'Shea]

On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 14:54, Craig Ringer wrote:
> Hi folks
> 
> I'm running into some odd trouble on my core server, related to users'
> file browsers. Sometimes, when a user tries to open a certain commonly
> used shared directory, /netstore/current_stories, their file browser
> will hang for a few seconds (up to a minute). This only seems to happen
> when several people are active in that directory, and only during active
> times on the server.
> 
> The directory is accessed by a bunch of users over Samba, and a number
> of users running apps locally on the server (via remote X). The hanging
> file browesr issue has only been spotted on the remote X users'
> machines, never in SMB file browsers. I've also never seen 'ls' pause
> for an unusually long time when listing the directory.
> 
> I have not yet been able to reproduce the problem in testing when
> strace()ing a process or running it under gdb, but have observed it on
> users' machines. Trust me, this is not for lack of trying - it seems
> like just before I get to attach a debugger or trace the program, it
> stops doing it.
> 
> The only "in process" info I've collected so far is info on open file
> handles (thanks, James!) with fuser. Most of the time the directory
> looks like I'd expect:
> 
> 
> [root at bucket root]# fuser -v /netstore/current_stories
> 
>                      USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
> /netstore/current_stories
>                      root       6153 ..c..  smbd
>                      root       9778 ..c..  smbd
>                      root      13091 ..c..  afpd
>                      root      15977 ..c..  smbd
>                      root      18765 f....  fam
>                      root      22595 ..c..  smbd
>                      root      27396 ..c..  afpd
>                      root      28007 ..c..  afpd
>                      root      30517 ..c..  smbd
> 
> but on one occasion - shortly after which a user reported that they'd
> seen the freeze again - I saw the following instead:
> 
> [root at bucket root]# fuser -v /netstore/current_stories
> 
>                      USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
> /netstore/current_stories
>                      root       6153 ..c..  smbd
>                      root       9778 ..c..  smbd
>                      aja       10566 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10572 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10573 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10574 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10575 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10576 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10578 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10579 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10580 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10581 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10582 f....  nautilus
>                      aja       10583 f....  nautilus
>                      root      15977 ..c..  smbd
>                      root      18765 f....  fam
>                      root      21128 ..c..  smbd
>                      jen       23525 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23539 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23540 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23541 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23546 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23547 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23548 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23549 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23550 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23552 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23553 f....  nautilus
>                      jen       23556 f....  nautilus
>                      root      28007 ..c..  afpd
>                      root      30517 ..c..  smbd
> 
> (Aja and Jen are two of the users here who use graphical file browsers
> and have this problem).
> 
> It's odd that /both/ users' file browsers show up as having the
> directory open at once, but otherwise I never see any. Perhaps there's
> some odd race/conflict with directory listing?
> 
> I've tried running
> 
> while true; do ls >&/dev/null; done
> 
> and trying to access the dir with a file manager then, but it doesn't
> seem to make a difference and works normally.
> 
> I've also seen this hang at least once under Konqueror when testing with
> it on my local login, but it was too brief to get a debugging trace of
> any sort from. Of course.
> 
> There are no interesting messages in syslog or dmesg that might point to
> the problem.
> 
> So ... has anybody else seen anything like this? Any ideas, guesses, or
> voodo rituals?
> 
Hi Craig,

Nope never seen this before.  Don't know what's causing it.  That leaves
guesses and voodoo (are you up to date with your chicken sacrifices?)

I don't really use graphical file managers much but does this version of
nautilus produce thumbnails of the documents/images that they are
browsing?  That might be causing a problem if two are trying to do that
at the same time (although it shouldn't).

Have you replicated this on a local x server (to rule out any networking
unexpectedness)?

If you could get some more information like ps and lsof listings that
might help, as well as how well the network is coping with the traffic
(although you said the smb clients were working okay during these
problems).

-- 
Mark O'Shea