Find (search) Very Slow - Page 2

hayne · 08-22-2003, 04:36 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by dcwallin [Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes/Y/ [Computer:~] davew%

This means that there are no files or sub-folders in the /Volumes/Y folder. it is as if the volume is not really mounted.

What do you get when you do the following?
ls -l /Volumes

dcwallin · 08-22-2003, 04:53 PM

[Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 davew wheel 102 May 12 17:26 Y
drwxrwxrwx 23 davew unknown 738 Aug 20 12:58 Y-1
drwxrwxrwx 27 root staff 918 Aug 18 00:07 DCW
drwxrwxrwx 54 root staff 1836 Aug 18 00:07 FONTS HD
drwxrwxrwx 23 davew staff 782 Aug 19 03:39 OG IMAGES 1

"Y" is the server volume. I have no idea what "Y-1" is. There is no volume with that name visible. It's the same name as the server but with "-1" added to the end.

hayne · 08-22-2003, 05:13 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by dcwallin [Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 davew wheel 102 May 12 17:26 Y drwxrwxrwx 23 davew unknown 738 Aug 20 12:58 Y-1 [...] "Y" is the server volume. I have no idea what "Y-1" is. There is no volume with that name visible. It's the same name as the server but with "-1" added to the end.

Ah - I think I might know what is happening. Note the date on the "Y" volume - May 12 - rather old.
Sometimes this happens, I don't know why - but it obviously can be considered a bug in OS X. The folder "Volumes/Y" has persisted on your machine even after the server went away - maybe when the server was rebooted or something. Then when you mounted the server volume again, the folder name "Volumes/Y" was already taken, so OS X quietly chooses the next name that occurs to it: "Y-1". I think you will find that your files are under /Volumes/Y-1
Try doing the 'ls -l' again but this time with "/Volumes/Y-1"

The fix is simple - you can delete the empty folder /Volumes/Y by doing the following in Terminal:
sudo rmdir /Volumes/Y
I put the sudo in front because you likely need to have admin privileges to remove it - you will get prompted for your password.
Then unmount the volume (you can do this in the Finder by selecting it and using File/Eject) and then remount it and see if things are better.

[edit] It occurs to me that it might make you nervous to be doing that 'rmdir' command - you might worry that it could remove files from the server. It won't. First of all, 'rmdir' will only remove an empty directory - if there are any files in it you get an error message. But if you want to lessen your anxiety, you could unmount the server volume first and then do the 'rmdir'.[/edit]

dcwallin · 08-22-2003, 05:31 PM

[Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes/Y-1
total 16
drwxrwxrwx 6 davew unknown 264 Aug 22 14:04 Network Trash Folder
drwxrwxrwx 6 davew unknown 264 Aug 19 13:29 SB53

Yes, the directory (SB53) is now showing up.

I tried this:

[Computer:~] davew% sudo rmdir /Volumes/Y
rmdir: /Volumes/Y: Directory not empty

Does this result mean it did not work properly? I ejected the volume anyway and remounted. I tried a search and after 5 minutes, it actually found the file. That's an improvement!

dcwallin · 08-22-2003, 05:37 PM

I manually deleted the server's invisible file in the volumes folder and then remounted the server. Now the terminal is seeing the server properly... but the find command is still slow. However at least I am getting results. Thanks for troubleshooting this mess, Hayne.

hayne · 08-22-2003, 05:39 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by dcwallin [Computer:~] davew% sudo rmdir /Volumes/Y rmdir: /Volumes/Y: Directory not empty

Okay - that is what I mentioned in my added (edit) note above. So that directory isn't really empty - there must be some hidden files in it.
Run the following command:
ls -la /Volumes/Y

That should show you what the files are. They probably are nothing you want. So you can just remove all the files:
sudo rm file_that_you_dont_want

and then do the 'rmdir' again.

hayne · 08-22-2003, 05:41 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by dcwallin Now the terminal is seeing the server properly... but the find command is still slow.

The find command in Finder or the 'find' command in Terminal?

And do some tests to see if the speed depends on where in teh folder hierarchy the file is. E.g. what if you search for a file that is right at the top level?

dcwallin · 08-22-2003, 06:23 PM

Sorry, I meant to say "find command in the finder - not terminal".

Ok,
followed your directions on removing old directory and it's gone completely. ls -l on the new directory works normally. Find in terminal is fast: about a second, and it doesn't seem to make any difference with how nested the file is. The results are apparently the same. Doing a finder find (apple-F) takes about 30 seconds on average and keeps spinning after finding the file (finishing search) for about a minute. Still slow, but vastly improved over before. Should I not expect any better performance on the finder find?

hayne · 08-22-2003, 08:28 PM

Quote:


	Originally posted by dcwallin Find in terminal is fast: about a second, and it doesn't seem to make any difference with how nested the file is. The results are apparently the same. Doing a finder find (apple-F) takes about 30 seconds on average and keeps spinning after finding the file (finishing search) for about a minute. Still slow, but vastly improved over before. Should I not expect any better performance on the finder find?

1) The fact that 'find' in Terminal is fast seems to rule out network problems for you.

2) I don't see any reason why File/Find in Finder would be so much slower than 'find' in Terminal. I would expect it to be a tiny bit slower since it is doing more stuff - e.g. checking for files that start with the file name, etc., but not so much of a difference. There must be something wrong. I don't have any experience with using Finder to search network volumes but it should be better than that.

A few things you could try:
a) Download & install "Path Finder", a third-party replacement for the Finder. (You can run both of them at once.) Check if its searching is slow like Finder.

b) Check for error message in /var/log/system.log when you do the Find/File in Finder.

c) Run the 'fs_usage' command in Terminal when doing File/Find in Finder to see what files Finder is looking at. The 'fs_usage' command outputs a lot of info since it tells you about every file access for the whole system. You can ask it to restrict itself to just the accesses for a particular program if you want - but since there might be something else besides Finder acting here, it would be best to get everything.
What you are looking for is some clue as to why the Finder is taking so long in doing the search. So you want to be watching the output while the File/Find is going on. You could do this with the following command in Terminal:

sudo fs_usage | tee my_output_file

That would save the output into a file "my_output_file" (in the current folder, where you ran the command) but would also (because of the 'tee') display the output in the Terminal window.

It's likely that there will be too much output to be able to read it properly as it scrolls by but you can go back afterwards and look at the file.

This command willl run forever, so you need to stop it with Control C when you think you have enoughh data or the File/Find is finished.

08-22-2003, 04:53 PM	#22
dcwallin Prospect Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 9	[Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 davew wheel 102 May 12 17:26 Y drwxrwxrwx 23 davew unknown 738 Aug 20 12:58 Y-1 drwxrwxrwx 27 root staff 918 Aug 18 00:07 DCW drwxrwxrwx 54 root staff 1836 Aug 18 00:07 FONTS HD drwxrwxrwx 23 davew staff 782 Aug 19 03:39 OG IMAGES 1 "Y" is the server volume. I have no idea what "Y-1" is. There is no volume with that name visible. It's the same name as the server but with "-1" added to the end.

08-22-2003, 05:31 PM	#24
dcwallin Prospect Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 9	[Computer:~] davew% ls -l /Volumes/Y-1 total 16 drwxrwxrwx 6 davew unknown 264 Aug 22 14:04 Network Trash Folder drwxrwxrwx 6 davew unknown 264 Aug 19 13:29 SB53 Yes, the directory (SB53) is now showing up. I tried this: [Computer:~] davew% sudo rmdir /Volumes/Y rmdir: /Volumes/Y: Directory not empty Does this result mean it did not work properly? I ejected the volume anyway and remounted. I tried a search and after 5 minutes, it actually found the file. That's an improvement!

08-22-2003, 05:37 PM	#25
dcwallin Prospect Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 9	I manually deleted the server's invisible file in the volumes folder and then remounted the server. Now the terminal is seeing the server properly... but the find command is still slow. However at least I am getting results. Thanks for troubleshooting this mess, Hayne.

08-22-2003, 06:23 PM	#28
dcwallin Prospect Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 9	Sorry, I meant to say "find command in the finder - not terminal". Ok, followed your directions on removing old directory and it's gone completely. ls -l on the new directory works normally. Find in terminal is fast: about a second, and it doesn't seem to make any difference with how nested the file is. The results are apparently the same. Doing a finder find (apple-F) takes about 30 seconds on average and keeps spinning after finding the file (finishing search) for about a minute. Still slow, but vastly improved over before. Should I not expect any better performance on the finder find?