Hi.
Since kde 4.3 I had problems with using fish protocol. Recently I have found a suggestion to use sftp protocol instead. It seems working better, but still not perfect.
I have FolderView plasma applet on desktop showing remote folder via sftp. I can browse popups, open files etc. from it. But when I try to open this remote folder in dolphin, it startes a lot of kio_sftp processes, each trying to connect to the server. When I double-click on remote-folder in my plasma applet, dolphin starts around 38 kio_sftp processes. When I click my network connection (pointing to the same folder) in remote:/ folder, it is around 9 new processes. Lots of connections is a problem, because the firewall then kicks me out of the server. When I hit refresh in dolphin I can usually see previously requested folder. But each attempt to change to another folder causes new connection attemt and the firewall-kick problem arises again.
However when I enter the sftp:// address in dolphin's addresbar it startes 2 of them and then it is usable.
Very similar problem exists with kio_fish.

Nevertheless it's vety annoying behavior and it definetly looks like a bug. Any one having same problem? Are there any workarounds or secret configuration options to limit number of kio_ processes?
I'm using kde 4.4.4. Before kde 4.3 kio_fish worked perfectly, and i didn't even know about kio_sftp in dolphin.

Can you please try disabling thumbnails? Also, try to use views which provide less details on information such as the Icons view.

I'm using just simple icon view, no thumbnails, no hints with file details.

But I think I discovered what caused the problem - it's the address bar. The one that have every path component made as dropdown menu. It must read every directory on the path to fill these dropdowns. But still I don't know why it does not reuse existing connection. It screws up kio_sftp, kio_fish, kio_ftp in the same way.
Disabling it seems to partially solve the problem with all above mentioned protocols (2 kio processess started instead of one expected, but that is acceptable). I can now open my remote folder from remote:/ view in dolphin, browse it, open files etc. However the problem still exists when I click on FolderView plasma applet on my desktop (wchich shows my remote folder without any problems) to open some subfolder in dolphin. And again, whole bunch on kio processes is started. Also when thumbnails are enables, the connection count increases while browsing, causing kick at some moment, but I don't really need that feature on remote folder.

For now I am satisfied with my solution. I will remove FolderView of remote folder from my desktop and disable this fancy address bar in dolphin. However I still think there is somewhere a bug.

Please definitely file a bug report about the address bar causing this.