Full reads of chunked datasets handed their chunks to rayon. With a
one-thread pool (concurrent_read --decode-threads 1, RAYON_NUM_THREADS=1)
every thread reading through a File queued behind that single worker, so
16 readers decoded on one core: per-thread CPU time showed one thread
doing all the decoding and the readers almost none, and full reads
stopped at about 2x one thread. The cached full-read path and the
uncached reader behind verify_provenance now decode inline when the pool
cannot parallelise (parallel_read::pool_can_parallelise).
The File's chunk cache was the suspect but not the cause: datasets over
its budget were already read without inserting, and skipping its lookups
gained only a few percent at 16 threads.
The regression test keeps a one-thread global pool's worker busy and
requires a full read and verify_provenance to finish anyway; before the
fix both waited for the worker (timed out).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
