Horrible directory listing performance

I've been noticing lately that the performance whenever a directory is listed is terrible. Anyone else see this? I'm using: Value: "21.4 (patch 12) \"Portable Code\" XEmacs Lucid" on RH9 Linux. Even worse, when a *local* directory listing is attempted, xemacs hangs for a *very* long time if an automount point, not at all related to the local directory, is hung. It eventually gives up, complaining Finding truename: Input/output error, /net/adgcluster7/tmp/ Why is truename looking for /net/adgcluster7/tmp/, when I ased for a *local* directory listing having nothing to do with this?