Could you post your workspace, or at least the portion that you are using the reader? I've never had any performance issues, but I wasn't reading large directories either.

yes. but it doesn't matter how large the directory is. I am ultimately reading large datasets and using a file filter as well. I realize both of these are going to add bandwidth. as well as another requirement (running on server in final form so it is a network drive an di am searching on the unc not the mapped drive.

this reads the unc. converts to a mapped letter, creates some more attributes from the path. and then writes out to sql (deleted that connection)

Did you perhaps enable Retrieve File Properties in the reader parameters? That can make a substantial difference if there are a lot of files. Also make sure to leverage the Path Filter, if you can, rather than using e.g. a Tester in the workspace.

I do require the file properties. However i can watch the difference between recurse yes and recurse no. yes takes several hours, while no runs immediately.

I'm not sure that it's the recurse=yes/no that is causing the issue on its own, rather that the number of files to query the file properties is much larger that way. On Windows, retrieving file properties is relatively slow, and when you multiply it with a large number of files it makes a difference.

I haven't retried with the most recent versions of FME, but some years ago I found that iterating over large directories using Python (os.walk) was substantially faster than FME, even when requesting the file properties.

if i set the number if features to 1 and set the recurse yes it takes hours. if i set the number of features to 1 and set the recurse no it takes seconds.

The bottleneck is when reading the filesystem, which I believe happens before FME limits the number of features.

i understand there is a bottleneck. will the bottleneck ever be fixed?

there is a tool there. obviously if i (as suggested would learn to use it) python, or a dir command or many other methods it does not encounter the bottleneck that the directory and pathnames reader does. if it is not a pathnames reader for bulk data then name it the single pathname reader.

EDIT:** After 5 days no response... Just left hanging. not sure where to turn.

current time is 2022-12-7 9:04 still waiting