KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

piedro · 2015-12-20 07:05:04

Hello!

This has been troublesome for over two years now. I usually use my file browser to search for files.
Now I get that KDE now has two ways of searching - searching for strings (file names) and semantic search.

Sadly none of the above seems to work correctly within dolphin. This is dolphin 5.12 on plasma 5.5 (Arch fully upgraded).

When trying to search my home directory for any content of files like "Dear Mr. Doe" I never get any results though in system settings baloo search is enabled.

When trying to search for "file name" I get some complete nonsensical results, most of the time nothing but when searching for "pdf" for example I get many results - but I have no way of knowing whether it's all of them...

Searching within emails doesn't work reliably also.

My questions are:

1. How is the whole searching system layed out and how to know whether it's working as intended or not?

2. Where is any up to date documentation for the different layers of the KDE search system: the akonadi system, the baloo system and the plasma search system, the recent documents system and so forth... ?

3. How can I fix the simple file name search in dolphin? - I create a file "example.abc" on my desktop and then search for it without any result- what's going on here?

4. If I have to completely reset all these search systems - is there an up to date (!) howto somewhere?

5. Is there a way to verify the sanity of the search systems (search has to work flawless otherwise you can't rely on it)?

Thx for reading, piedro

arojas · 2015-12-20 10:11:39

Is your desktop folder bring indexed? What does 'balooctl status example.abc' return?

When baloo search starts acting up, I turn to good old kfind, which always works reliably.

Rog131 · 2015-12-20 10:25:43

Desktop search / Baloo

KDE forums: https://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=1 … 1c7e65338a
Arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Baloo
Lot of links: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthrea … aloo-links

Coming: KDE review board - https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/123883/ - DolphinSearchBox: Add a "More search tools..." menu button
- Option to launch KFind/Catfish from the Dolphin search box

piedro · 2015-12-20 10:48:41

@arojas

>> balooctl status example.abc
File: /home/piedro/example.abc
Basic Indexing: Done
Content Indexing: Disabled

which is strange:
- I have not disabled content indexing...
- the file "example.abc" is not empty and it is located at /home/piedro/Desktop/example.abc"
- the folder "Desktop" is not excluded in systemsettings for searching

Any ideas?

Last edited by piedro (2015-12-20 10:49:14)

arojas · 2015-12-20 10:54:54

piedro wrote:

>> balooctl status example.abc
File: /home/piedro/example.abc
Basic Indexing: Done
Content Indexing: Disabled
which is strange:
- I have not disabled content indexing...
- the file "example.abc" is not empty and it is located at /home/piedro/Desktop/example.abc"
- the folder "Desktop" is not excluded in systemsettings for searching
Any ideas?

I tested and found this on my journal:

baloo_file_extractor[5062]: org.kde.baloo: text/plain does not end with .txt. Ignoring

So it looks like for some reason baloo doesn't index text files unless they have .txt extension. This may explain it.

piedro · 2015-12-20 11:15:22

This is a serious problem then.

What happens to all those files:

important-document.txt.backup
note.txt.bak
financial-report.csv.version-1.1

and so forth...

Does baloo finally force us to use the silly "every file needs an extension to know what is in there - otherwise we can't use it" policy created by microsoft 15 years ago? This would be the biggest conceptual regression ever created for linux desktops...

I deleted all baloo configuration files completely including existing indices and let it reindex at the moment.
When finished I try with "example.txt" to see if your suspicion holds...

I'll be back.
p.

piedro · 2015-12-20 11:36:30

@Rog131

Thx for the links.

I know about these and most of them are outdated (most of the stuff in the forums - as there is references to coming changes that will probably be implemented by now), contain no information at all (like the kde baloo wiki) or as for example the debugging possibilities are somehow besides my point (I just want to use searches and want to be sure it's reliable without additionally running test for every search to find out whether I can trust the results or not - and I think this should be the norm for a desktop technology that apart from some minor bugs a user can trust the core concept is implemented correctly and working!)

p.

Last edited by piedro (2015-12-20 11:36:57)

piedro · 2015-12-21 01:22:27

I think it works now after deleting all baloo files in my user directory and restarting/reindexing baloo.

Also Arojas, it seems the file name finding still works on the text file "example.abc" when searching for "example".
though you are right that there is no content index for the content of "example.abc" which is a bit unconvenient as it omits all the files with non standard file extensions. This can't really be wanted...

At least I can search now and I know what to expect from the results.

Thx, good night, p.

davidm · 2015-12-23 23:47:08

arojas wrote:

piedro wrote:
>> balooctl status example.abc
File: /home/piedro/example.abc
Basic Indexing: Done
Content Indexing: Disabled
which is strange:
- I have not disabled content indexing...
- the file "example.abc" is not empty and it is located at /home/piedro/Desktop/example.abc"
- the folder "Desktop" is not excluded in systemsettings for searching
Any ideas?
I tested and found this on my journal:
baloo_file_extractor[5062]: org.kde.baloo: text/plain does not end with .txt. Ignoring
So it looks like for some reason baloo doesn't index text files unless they have .txt extension. This may explain it.

Correct. The maintainer switched to that after a lot of people were complaining about baloo indexing files which they felt should not be indexed. I'm not sure if there is a way to re-enable the old behavior. There should be but sadly it seems anything search/rating/tag related in Plasma 5 always has problems of some sort. It will be nice when it all finally works as intended but I know not which year that will be!

piedro · 2015-12-24 20:56:38

thx davidm for your confirmation.

This is exactly the reason why people went rampant over the demand for some fine-grained and transparent configuration Gui for the search related functions, specifically for baloo... it's Kde after all: users expect configurability...

So let's hope these issues get solved as sooon as possible. I vote for a useful default with a comprehensible settings GUI for power users to tweak it to fit their individual needs.

Have a nive holiday everyone and a happy, successful 2016!

Cheers, piedro

Last edited by piedro (2015-12-24 20:57:42)

colinkeenan · 2015-12-26 04:21:21

Seems to me baloo really isn't working correctly. The solution here of deleting all the baloo files in order to force another indexing seems like it's only temporary.

Why doesn't baloo automatically index new directories and files? I installed some desktop themes and trying to find where they were stored using baloo failed. I used `find` from the command line to find them, and ended up manually telling baloo to index those directories with `balooctl`, but it defeats the point if I have to manually tell it to index each directory that gets created because I'm obviously not going to be able to keep up with that.

piedro · 2016-06-12 12:50:09

For me making KDE work again and again has proven to be too much.

I am using Gnome now, don't like the design at all but the functionality is there - there seems to be always a way to get stuff done.
Apart from theme changes things working once do not regress it seems.

In KDE everything searching related is a mess - the above still an issue.

- baloosearch is not transparent and does only sometimes work - unreliable
- email search is the same issue
- email search within virtual folders (basic feature in thunderbird for 10 years now at least) can't be configured and once a search is established can't be changed
- autocompletion of email contacts still not fixed

I do not get it- KDE thrives in the idea of dynamic desktop search, indexing APIs and stuff, rewriting akonadi every two years, changing baloo's behaviour all the time but no one integrates the machinery into applications - at least not consistently - it all feels like a messy approach without any visions except from some really blurry political ones.

Since no dev ever reads any forum, I am sure not to offend anyone.

I am glad I just quickly fired up KDE found it's still not working on basic productive functionality in any reliable manner - and I am out again - check in end of the year again but I do not get my hopes up.

sunday rant,
p.

Last edited by piedro (2016-06-12 12:58:08)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-12-20 07:05:04

KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#2 2015-12-20 10:11:39

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#3 2015-12-20 10:25:43

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#4 2015-12-20 10:48:41

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#5 2015-12-20 10:54:54

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#6 2015-12-20 11:15:22

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#7 2015-12-20 11:36:30

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#8 2015-12-21 01:22:27

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#9 2015-12-23 23:47:08

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#10 2015-12-24 20:56:38

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#11 2015-12-26 04:21:21

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

#12 2016-06-12 12:50:09

Re: KDE dolphin "search for files" doesn't work...

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