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Description of problem:

When an application tries to save a larger key-value pair than the size of the journal (32kb), it triggers the journal to be flushed to make space for the entry and the operation is then retried, but it never fits, and the loop continues forever.

It causes constant cpu and disk usage, because gvfs-metadata creates and deletes files in ~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/ all the time. This could damage the disk.


How reproducible:

It can be reproduced everytime by saving larger key-value pair than the size of journal (32kb). This bug could be triggered e.g. by Firefox (following steps are copied from upstream bugzilla).


Steps to Reproduce:

1. browse to http://rossl.org/junk/meta.html in Firefox
2. right-click and save the image
3. this should trigger gvfsd-metadata bug, because firefox saves the download URI in metadata::download-uri


Additional info:

The bug was successfully fixed upstream: 
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=637095

Provided patch is applicable also for RHEL7 (it is also backported in F19 and F20):
https://bug637095.bugzilla-attachments.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=284795

The only way how to stop looping is killing gvfsd-metadata deamon. As a workaround gvfsd-metadata could be disabled (removing its binary /usr/libexec/gvfsd-metadata).

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2015-0604.html