I use ‘du -Lhs’ to check directory size. How long does it take for you to run that command? The only time I’ve ever run into a ‘du’ command taking a long time is when running it over the network to a slow-ass 2010-era system in California for a project I was doing at work with hundreds of terabytes of data and millions of files.
Ahh yep, that’ll do it. At least you figured out the issue!