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That process happened to crash on my system.

Nothing very serious, but as I am curious I tried to get information on it but could not find a quite satisfying answer about what it is and what it does.

All I know is that it is somewhat related to Samba, but nothing more precise.

Anybody has a more precise explanation of what it is ?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
9

I've found something in the GVFS man page that states that it's for browsing windows file shares.

• gvfsd-smb-browse - browses Windows Shares Filesystem volumes

GVFS is the gnome virtual filesystem:

GIO provides a VFS API to GLib applications. It includes a 'local'
implementation using POSIX. gvfs provides implementations that go
beyond that and allow to access files and storage using many protocols,
such as ftp, http, sftp, dav, obexftp, etc. It also provides support
for trash folders, for cd burning and for monitoring interesting
devices and volumes on the computer.

There are several reports of bugs in GVFS which caused 100% cpu usage including this one which is currently open.

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4
  • 1
    I find it bizarre it uses 100% CPU endlessly even when I have no dual boot so no Window filesystem ... /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-smb-browse --spawner :1.6 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/4 .... it jumps into this spin loop when I launch a new flavor of browser ... in desperation I just renamed that binary ;-)
    – Scott Stensland
    Apr 27, 2016 at 15:12
  • I have the same problem
    – dspjm
    Jun 7, 2016 at 6:01
  • 2
    bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/1409032/comments/29 Solved it for me on a Ubuntu-Mate Pi3
    – Dennis
    Jul 23, 2016 at 20:00
  • Happened to me on a brand new Dell Precision (Ubuntu was preinstalled).
    – Gabor
    Jun 30, 2017 at 5:47
4

I switched from Kubuntu 16.04 LTS to a Xubuntu 16.04 desktop expecting a leaner desktop. However, it pulled in some of the GNOME annoyance including this gvfsd-smb-browse.

Fortunately, the package that provides the plugin, can be removed by opening a terminal and using the following.

   $ dpkg -S /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-smb-browse
   gvfs-backends: /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-smb-browse
   $ dpkg -L gvfs-backends

If you don't care for the other functionalities, remove the package

   $ sudo apt-get remove gvfs-backends
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