SFTP is horrendously slow in Nautilus.

I should add that this happened in Dapper and peresists in Edgy.

Thanks for your bug. Do you have the issue using sftp from a command line? Are network copies slow too? Could you get a backtrace for nautilus while it's hanging, you can get it by doing that:
gdb -p $(pidof nautilus)
(gdb) continue
... get it hanging, press Ctrl-C to gdb
(gdb) thread apply all bt

It's blazing fast from the cli.

Here's the backtrace:
#0 0xffffe410 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1 0xb769241b in __read_nocancel () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0
#2 0xb5faf054 in vfs_module_shutdown ()
   from /usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libsftp.so
#3 0xb5faf20d in vfs_module_shutdown ()
   from /usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libsftp.so
#4 0xb5fb01d1 in vfs_module_shutdown ()
   from /usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libsftp.so
#5 0xb5fb35a5 in vfs_module_shutdown ()
   from /usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libsftp.so
#6 0xb5fb38a3 in vfs_module_shutdown ()
   from /usr/lib/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/libsftp.so
#7 0xb787cd09 in gnome_vfs_get_file_info_uri_cancellable ()
   from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
#8 0xb7892cf9 in gnome_vfs_get_file_info_uri ()
   from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
#9 0xb7899003 in gnome_vfs_escape_path_string ()
   from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
#10 0xb787d184 in gnome_vfs_find_directory_cancellable ()
   from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
#11 0xb7884a10 in gnome_vfs_find_directory () from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
#12 0xb7eefdb2 in eel_uri_is_in_trash () from /usr/lib/libeel-2.so.2
#13 0x080f1230 in nautilus_file_is_gone ()
#14 0x080d0a87 in fm_directory_view_bump_zoom_level ()
#15 0xb76b2a2a in g_cclosure_marshal_VOID__VOID ()
   from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
#16 0xb76a665f in g_closure_invoke () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
#17 0xb76b5924 in g_signal_chain_from_overridden ()
   from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
#18 0xb76b6e47 in g_signal_emit_valist () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
#19 0xb76b7000 in g_signal_emit () from /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0
#20 0x080f2661 in nautilus_file_get_uri ()
#21 0x080e0c3c in nautilus_directory_async_state_changed ()
#22 0x080f2765 in nautilus_file_get_uri ()
#23 0x080dcbfa in nautilus_directory_async_state_changed ()
#24 0x080dd6be in nautilus_directory_async_state_changed ()
#25 0xb7887de9 in gnome_vfs_job_get_count () from /usr/lib/libgnomevfs-2.so.0
#26 0xb762056f in g_source_is_destroyed () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#27 0xb76220c8 in g_main_context_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#28 0xb7624e62 in g_main_context_check () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#29 0xb762520c in g_main_loop_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#30 0xb7b3a072 in gtk_main () from /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
#31 0x0807b085 in POA_Nautilus_MetafileMonitor__init ()
#32 0xb73c28b8 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
#33 0x080678a1 in ?? ()

It looks like it's looking for trash directories on your drive. Do you feel like forwarding that bug to bugzilla.gnome? People knowing that code will probably have better idea, especially than it's not happening for everybody (sftp works fine on my desktop by example). Having a backtrace with nautilus-dbg and libgnomevfs2-0-dbg installed could be nice too

Okay, reported upstream. Gnome bug 349241.

thank you for forwarding it upstream

Upstream's patch Works For Me. Hopefully it gets into .91 or something.

Fixed upstream in CVS.

fixed with this upload:

 gnome-vfs2 (2.15.91-0ubuntu1) edgy; urgency=low
 .
   * New upstream version:
     - Avoid slow I/O looking for trash on remote shares (Ubuntu: #48579)
     - Inotify updates to avoid polling as much.
     - Build fix