How do I activate a full text search in Nautilus again after migration to Tumbleweed?
Under Leap 15.6 I could install the Gnome Tracker and let it index my files. But Tracker is apparently not available in the Tumbleweed version of Nautilus. Or have I missed something?
Is TinySPARQL (previously Tracker) integrated now with GNOME or not yet, or no longer? How is Nautilus ‘Full Text Search’ supposed to work now?
@hnimmo It does, assuming you have it configured in Settings → Search. Then in Files (Nautilus) select the folder (Search current folder), then select filter search results and type in your query string.
…but that is exactly my problem…
Those are my settings, but ‘No Results Found’ within the two pdf files of the current folder. It looks as if there is no index for the text of the two files.
@hnimmo but is it configured, search locations etc?
Yes, under bookmarked locations, plus one other folder. To some extent they duplicate each other. But what other pre-requisites are needed to get the full text search working again?
If you find “No results” a circled “i” should appear in the search bar, click on it, it should show why you don’t find results (most likely “Folder not in search locations”)
What you describe is not happening quite that way:
- Select home folder in which the text to be found is in a subfolder/file somewhere.
- Enter text to be found and search
- 'No Results
- Circled i does not show the reason for failure but rather only the Default, Bookmarked, and Custom location.
I. Select a folder that is directly listed in the search settings, (could even be the actual folder in which the search text should be found)
2. Enter text to be found and search
3. No Results
4. Circled i is NOT shown,
Is there a missing indexing step after setting the search locations? Is there perhaps a missing tinysparql script in my configuration?
According to Settings > Search Locations , when you select the Home folder its subfolders are not included automatically but must be specifically added via “+Add Location”.
I tried to enable an additional folder that was not previously enabled (BTW, the “Documents” folder) and a “local.search.extractor” process started and kept running for a couple minutes; afterwards a text search returned a few documents two layers below in the directory tree, so at least for “Documents” subfolders are automatically indexed and the indexing process is quite visible.
I think this is default behaviour since I did not (knowingly) do anything custom to the Gnome search config here.
If I understand you correctly, the chain of all folders and nested folders to be searched must be declared somewhere in the Search Locations (Default, Bookmarked, or Custom), for the full text search to find a file with the search text. In my case , it doesn’t find anything.
I also haven’t noticed a process called ‘local.search.extractor’ in the System Monitor. What would start it?
What I understand is:
“Home” and “Downloads” even if “switched on” in the Default search locations do not include subfolders in the search path; subfolders must be explicitly added in the “Custom Locations”.
“Documents”, “Music”, “Pictures”, “Videos” if enabled do include subfolders.
Don’t know / didn’t try what happens with “Custom Locations”.
I don’t see “Bookmarked” search locations here, so I wonder if we see the same configuration or not.
If you open e.g. “top” in a terminal you will see a “localsearch…” or “localsearch-3” command running for a few seconds whenever you add documents to a folder enabled in the “Search Locations” settings, or when you enable a new location; that is automatic as I see it here.
BTW you should see the details opening “dconf Editor”, going to /org/freedesktop/tracker/miner/files/ and down to index-recursive-directories and index-single-directories
Bookmarked folders correspond to the folders I have bookmarked in Nautilus and appear on the left side of the Nautilus window under Wastebasket. I can add folders as I like I never see process localsearch.
OK, I see them now (below Downloads, not Wastebasket, but doesn’t matter).
Yes, all there as set in Search Locations. Not sure what ‘index on battery’ does as it is a Desktop without battery.
Check in dconf Editor the value of /org/freedesktop/tracker/miner/files/initial-sleep
here I see “default” at 15 seconds.
Yes, initial-sleep is 15
Since yours is an upgrade from Leap, check that libtracker-sparql is installed:
bruno@LT-B:~> zypper --no-refresh se -si libtracker
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Type | Version | Arch | Repository
---+-------------------------+---------+-----------+--------+----------------------
i | libtracker-sparql-3_0-0 | package | 3.8.2-1.2 | x86_64 | Main Repository (OSS)
bruno@LT-B:~>
EDIT and maybe typelib-1_0-Tracker-3_0 as well.
Both are installed, both at version. 3.8.2-1.4
Check
bruno@LT-B:~> systemctl --user status localsearch-3
● localsearch-3.service - Tracker file system data miner
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/localsearch-3.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2025-03-11 09:53:14 CET; 8h ago
Invocation: 2c18d5a466c6469cb4855b2070112d5b
Main PID: 5090 (localsearch-3)
Tasks: 8 (limit: 18881)
CPU: 5min 311ms
CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/background.slice/localsearch-3.service
└─5090 /usr/libexec/localsearch-3
<snip>