I cannot work out what is happening. I have an SVG file created within 0.48.1 Inkscape. Whenever I try to view the directory it's in, Nautilus shows a clock (meaning it's working) instead of the thumb, and then freezes. Dolphin (KDE file manager) has no problems.

The problem goes away when I change Nautilus prefs to never preview files. So, there is something going on with the thumbnail image. What could it be?
I think the problem might be due to the artboard being smaller than the drawing?

System:
Ubuntu Linux 10.04
Inkscape 0.48.1 r9760

Nautilus is a file manager?

I can't open your file, because honestly I don't know how (what program opens a TAR.GZ file). (I'm a rather non-technically inclined Windows user, and as such, might not be able to open such file formats at all?) But your description may be gold! If it contains a linked bitmap (raster?), and you have moved the bitmap, or otherwise Nautilus can't find it, it's probably looking and looking, and endlessly looking for and not finding it. You can probably avoid that by embedding the bitmap (either at import, or later using the extension).

That might not be the problem, since the other file manager apparently does find it. Usually if a linked image is not found, Inkscape displays the text "Linked image not found". And I have seen that in previews on my system. Maybe Nautilus has a problem with that for some reason? Or maybe that's not the problem at all. If not, there are plenty of Linux users around

"artboard smaller than drawing".....not sure if by "artboard" you mean "canvas" or "image border" or if artboard is a technical term that I don't understand. But if it means canvas or image border, that shouldn't cause this problem to my knowledge. But again, my knowledge doesn't include Nautilus.

Yeh, I think the linked image might be a red herring. I also created a copy of this file, got rid of the layer with the linked image, and I'm still having the problem. Attached is the other file.

.tar.gz files are a type of compressed file, and can be opened on Windows using 7-zip.

AFAIK the library used by Nautilus to render the preview thumbnails for SVG files (librsvg) supports fewer SVG features than Inkscape, and chokes on certain filter effects and linked images (IIRC of type 'jpeg' or 'tiff'), and possibly other items too.

See also: Bug #305546 in librsvg (Ubuntu): “Nautilus crashing/freezing when opening folder with svg file”.

Nothing Inkscape can do about that-> needs to be addressed in Nautilus (don't freeze) and librsvg (handle failures to render certain SVG files more graciously).

Thanks for the info ~suv, that's just awesome

Essentially, Inkscape's ability to create images seems to be a few steps a head of what GNOME's file browser, Nautilus, can handle.

Try creating a drawing that includes a few simple elements such as an ellipse, a rectangle and triangle. Save the file and view its thumbnail in Nautilus. You'll see it is rendered correctly. But my files contain far more detail than what Nautilus can render. I just chalk that up to the file's complexity.

I guess I'm not fussy. Windows doesn't render SVG at all in its Windows Explorer. That a few more complex files aren't rendered aren't an issue for me.