When I try to use dolphin to search for text inside files that are in multiple directories, there are few results and sometimes none.
I know there are more results
What should I do to make the search work?
assuming your on plasma (i.e. using baloo)
balooshow /path/file_where_text_not_being_found.txt
also look up balooctl commands, and of course try balooctl status
Many thanks for the tips, but they are somewhat complicated and not very obvious.
I noticed that when I open dolpin as root, the search works fine.
Without a doubt, this is the best option for now, because I will not change settings that I do not know what the consequences are.
Thanks for the tip, but I’ve read before and found it a bit complicated and it’s not at all clear that the settings made will only work on Dolphin and I was afraid of more complications.
I am satisfied using the Dolphin as hoot, and because I rarely do searches
I think that baloo’s default setting for an ordinary user are just to index files off their home. Root uses a different setting that does most of the files on a machine. If you look in the settings file mention in the link which will be off the user home directory the difference is pretty clear. You could simply copy root’s across but may need to change ownership to user when you put it in your own home directory. All users have there own home - even root.
Mentioning your problem has given me another job to do. It sounds like a separate indexing cache is generated for each user on a machine including root. I’ll be logging in as root and completely disabling it.
I mostly use kfind to search for files even files with certain contents. This too can use an index and I hope it’s still the old one. A command has to be run in the console to update the index when new files are added. It can be used without this though and will search system wide from a directory root even /. When the index option is used it’s setting file comes into play so that can be used to exclude certain directories or file types. Currently I use kfind to search for system files and don’t use the index option. It’s still pretty quick though but would be even quicker if it skipped most of my home folders. It’s extremely quick if the old index is used.
:(I just hope that kfind carries on being available as kde evolves. Some years ago I mentioned on a kde forum that searches really needed the ability to exclude directories or at least offer some control as includes would be useful too. Some one said I’ll do it. Never happened on KDE. Gnome seems to have done it but it no longer works so can’t be sure. INMHO it doesn’t make much sense to have baloo indexing and cataloguing all files on a system. There can be several 100 gb or more of them and it’s best constrained to what a user usually wants and something else used when the search needs a broader scope.
My user home baloo is currently entirely disable so that I can bring it back up just indexing an cataloguing in a manner that’s useful for me. It’s way too exuberant as it comes. Maybe not as much as akonadi was when kde4 came out though and other than maybe kicker which for me is now dead for some reason they don’t seem to have tied anything in to must have baloo up and running.
John
ajohnw:
excludes are very simple, see .config/baloofilerc
sergelli:
the tips i gave you are for investigation, they change nothing, they are certainly not very difficult to type:
balooctl status
balooshow /path/filename (for filename where you expected positive search results)
;)I’ve already excluded all of them. Bookmarks was a challenge as it’s started by plasma so it kept on running until I disabled it there. The file index enable / disable in kde settings works ok. Not so the other panel with lots of options in it. If all are disabled they re enable themselves. Leave one enabled and all is ok. I left aspell active and since that the rest have remained disabled.
I also deleted the cache file otherwise what it had already collected would still be in it. One of baloo’s config files has a flag to show that it’s done it’s first run. That can be set to false so that when it’s re enabled it will scan the entire file system - this time as I want it to.
I posted a link to baloo’s doc’s some time ago in another thread. Some one else has posted it in this thread as well.