Repeating the original experiment, but from the command line instead of bzr-explorer: bzr init-repo SHARED_REPO cd SHARED_REPO bzr init trunk cd trunk # copy all 5000+ files and 300+ directories to trunk bzr add # takes 2.9 seconds bzr commit -m "start project" # takes 142 seconds, very reasonable for the work done bzr stat # 22 seconds bzr stat # less than 1 second So... we see that the first bzr stat after the commit takes much longer than the second and third, but still nowhere near the 4.5 minutes typical of the first bzr stat in bzr-explorer after the same commit. Perhaps fstat/lstat is creating a fundamental effect, but something else seems to be happening in bzr-explorer. And to be fair, I should test qbzr as well, since that may be the real reason bzr-explorer takes 4.5 minutes. Meanwhile, I need to think about how to write this up in a bug report. Suggestions are welcome. ~M