Nautilus keeps getting stuck on opening

General Help
,
1

I've read a few thread about nautilus issues, but none fixed my problem, so I'm posting again.

Most of the times, when I open nautilus, it doesn't open. The taskbar icon has the "dot" that signals its running, but no screen shows up. After a few seconds of clicking, I get the popup to wait or force close. When I force close and then open again,it usually works!!

It's extremely frustrating!

When I open from the terminal it doesn't output any significant clues:

$ nautilus
** Message: 16:39:49.926: Connecting to org.freedesktop.Tracker3.Miner.Files

(org.gnome.Nautilus:78296): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: 16:39:50.166: Failed to parse translated string '‘24h’' for key 'clock-format' in schema 'org.gnome.desktop.interface': 0:expected value

(org.gnome.Nautilus:78296): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: 16:39:50.166: Using untranslated default instead.
Killed

(the 'killed' was me, otherwise it just hangs there)
I had Dropbox installed, but I already uninstalled it. I'm suspecting Tracker3 but have no idea what to do with it...

Thoughts?

1 Like
2

Do you have tried to reinstall nautilus?

sudo apt reinstall nautilus

Do you use nautilus extensions?

3

Yes, tried it.
No, I dont use any extensions (not that I know, I didn't install anything new except for Dropbox, which I removed)

4

Welcome to the Forum!

Happens that all the Time with every Opening independently from the Folder You open or does it only happen when You open folders with a lot of Content?

5

All the time.
I usually open it from the menu, so its just my home folder (7 subfolders)

6

Hmm ... Okay, let's try it with reinstalling Tracker Minder:

sudo apt reinstall tracker-miner-fs

You mean the Startmenu or the Taskbar?

7

both, same launcher

8

Okay, and the Command:

9

Didn't try that one. Will do and report back
thanks!!

10

Unfortunately, didn't solve the problem.

11

Can You post Your Hardware Specs? Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that in Settings>About.

12

System Details Report

Report details

  • Date generated: 2025-12-06 14:08:20

Hardware Information:

  • Hardware Model: Lenovo Lenovo Legion 5 15ARH05H
  • Memory: 24,0 GiB
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 7 4800H with Radeon™ Graphics × 16
  • Graphics: AMD Radeon™ Graphics
  • Graphics 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 2060
  • Disk Capacity: (null)

Software Information:

  • Firmware Version: FSCN14WW
  • OS Name: Zorin OS 18 Pro
  • OS Build: (null)
  • OS Type: 64-bit
  • Windowing System: X11
  • Kernel Version: Linux 6.14.0-36-generic
13

Okay, You are running in X11 and Your Hardware Specs are not limited so this could be a Point ...

Maybe something in the Starters are not Okay. Unpin Nautilus from the Taskbar. Then open ''Main Menu'' (the Program), look there for the Nautilus Enty, click on it and then click on Properties at the right Side and in the opening Window look in the Command Line what Start Command it has.

14

This indicates GNOME settings corruption.
This may be a malformed quote character (“smart quotes”) in a GSettings key that Nautilus depends on when loading the desktop environment schema. The crash/hang likely happens when Nautilus tries to query GUI-related GSettings.

In terminal, can you run

nautilus -q

rm -rf ~/.cache/nautilus

rm -rf ~/.local/share/nautilus

sudo apt purge nautilus-dropbox

sudo apt clean && sudo apt autoremove

tracker3 reset --filesystem --force

And finally, resetting the clock format:
gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-format gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-format '24h'

After a full reboot, test...

15

thanks. will try

although I can say that when I run it from the terminal, when it works, it also shows the exact same warnings. So I don't think it's related with the fact that it hangs

16

it hangs from the terminal as well, not related with any launcher

17

Running nautilus from the terminal is exactly the same launch process as running it as a launcher.
The Nautilus File Manager still must initialize, with all its settings and processes.

18

yes, thats what I meant, it makes no difference. The problem is not in the launcher

19

@Aravisian your gsettings command solved the warning but, as I suspected, that wasn't the cause.
Now it hangs anyway, but without the warnings :slight_smile:

$ nautilus
** Message: 10:23:25.881: Connecting to org.freedesktop.Tracker3.Miner.Files
Killed
21

I have the same problem, and it's totaly random, I gave up to try to solve it, I have my terminal open anf I "kill" nautilus when it stuck, if someone have an idea it could be cool