Photo import problems using python

[Damon Lynch <damonlynch gmail com>]

Hi,

I am the developer of Rapid Photo Downloader, a GPL photo downloader/importer mainly written for professional and serious photographers: http://damonlynch.net/rapid/

My users have faced some serious problems using the GVFS/GIO combination to download from cameras, including very poor performance, file truncation, or not working at all.

Rapid Photo Downloader is implemented in python; it is multi-threaded and can download from multiple devices simultaneously. Last year I added the feature to import directly from cameras using GIO, beginning the transition from gnomevfs.  Thus far most of the code changes have been very simple, e.g. using gio.volume_monitor_get() instead of gnomevfs.VolumeMonitor(). The code continues to use standard python file commands such as shutil.copy2(), accessing the mount point created in the user's home directory via FUSE.

My questions:

1. Is accessing a camera via FUSE meant to "just work" in the use scenario I have, or are there limitations I need to be aware of?
2. If the answer to #1 is "no", does that mean I need to figure out how to use the python library gio.File?
3. Would using gio.File in any case improve program performance? The program is meant to be "rapid" after all ;-)
   
4. What is the best way to report bugs for using GVFS, GIO & FUSE? I reported this bug but nothing came of it: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=582266
   

Thank you in advance.

Damon