When using Finder to navigate a directory on an SMB network share, there may be a significant delay before the list of files is shown, or browsing may take longer than expected, especially if there is a large number of files in the folder.
One thing that can cause this is the existence of a .DS_Store file that has been inadvertently transferred to the network share.
These files can typically be safely deleted since they're not really intended for shared storage, but it's also possible to instruct the Mac workstation to simply ignore all .DS_Store files that are presented over SMB (there may be many contained within nested folders, making it difficult to reliably find all of them, and this method also protects against the addition of new .DS_Stores that may later get added).
To instruct macOS to ignore .DS_Store files over SMB, open Terminal and enter:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE
and then log out/log in the macOS user account, or simply reboot the workstation.
This policy will also prevent the creation of .DS_Store files on network shares, as described in this article.
To check the current policy in place, enter:
defaults read com.apple.desktopservices
If .DS_Store files are disallowed for network shares, DSDontWriteNetworkStores = 1 should be displayed.
Note: To remove this policy and restore the default behavior, enter
defaults delete com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores