I am aware that this requires me to run updatedb from time to time. Other that that, I am not sure about the side effects.
Do you refer to Catfish, plocate & updatedb broken - TW (XFCE) - #2 by knurpht as other threads about this issue? Note that in my case, it’s not that the DB is outdated, but that it is broken and appears empty. I haven’t found a similar thread in https://forums.opensuse.org/search?expanded=true&q=plocate%20database so far.