What is "baloo" and why is it stuffing the journal with errors?

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1

Today I found the example error below 100s of entries in the journal.

2020-09-02T10:08:36-0700 sma-server3 baloo_file[19753]: org.kde.baloo.engine: PostingDB::put MDB_BAD_TXN: Transaction must abort, has a child, or is invalid

I recently upgraded to LEAP 15.2 from 15.1. “baloo” appears to be either a new feature or is broken now.
What is “baloo?” (Vaguely, I know it is an indexer. Of what? For whose use?)
It is not controlled by systemd. It is not a system service then?
There were two instances running. I kill’ed them both; the storm of error messages has stopped.

2

It’s the file indexing and file search framework for KDE Plasma: <https://community.kde.org/Baloo&gt;.

[HR][/HR]What you may have to do is, to clear Baloo’s database:

  • In ~/.local/share/baloo/ remove the files “index” and “index-lock” – you’ll have to stop Baloo before you remove the database files:
 > balooctl stop
  • There’s also the command “balooctl purge” – see “balooctl --help” for further information.
3

Hmm. KDE is not isntalled on that computer. Or any of the others.
I suppose the function is so useful that baloo is installed and run anyway?

I suspect that since two instances were running, that is what caused all of the errors.

Thank you.

4

I can’t find the dependency which installs Baloo on a non-KDE Plasma system.
Simply try to remove the following packages – if they’re installed:


S  | Name                    | Summary                                       | Type
---+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+--------
i+ | baloo5-file             | Filesearch components for Baloo Framework     | package
i  | baloo5-file-lang        | Translations for package baloo5               | package
i  | baloo5-imports          | QML components for Baloo Framework            | package
i  | baloo5-imports-lang     | Translations for package baloo5               | package
i  | baloo5-kioslaves        | KIO slave components for Baloo Framework      | package
i  | baloo5-kioslaves-lang   | Translations for package baloo5               | package
i+ | baloo5-tools            | Aditional components for Baloo Framework      | package
i  | baloo5-tools-lang       | Translations for package baloo5               | package
i  | baloo5-widgets          | Framework for searching and managing metadata | package
i  | baloo5-widgets-lang     | Translations for package baloo5-widgets       | package
i  | libKF5Baloo5            | Core library for Baloo Framework              | package
i  | libKF5BalooEngine5      | Baloo Engine library                          | package
i  | libKF5BalooEngine5-lang | Translations for package baloo5               | package

If there’s a dependency which has been broken as a result of the removal(s), the next time you run the YaST Software Package Administration, the needed packages will be semi-automatically re-installed.

5

If you installed dolphin - KDEs file manager - on its own that will pull in at least parts of baloo:

# zypper info --requires dolphin
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...


Information for package dolphin:
--------------------------------
Repository     : openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss
Name           : dolphin
Version        : 20.08.0-1.2
Arch           : x86_64
Vendor         : openSUSE
Installed Size : 1.5 MiB
Installed      : Yes
Status         : up-to-date
Source package : dolphin-20.08.0-1.2.src
Summary        : KDE File Manager
Description    : 
    This package contains the default file manager of KDE Workspaces.
Requires       : [48]
    libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.14)(64bit)
...
    baloo5-kioslaves
...
    libKF5Baloo.so.5()(64bit)
    libKF5BalooWidgets.so.5()(64bit)
...
#

Regards

susejunky

6

Which user is (are) the process owner(s). What are the parent processes. All things that could give information on what is happening.

As this is a feature of the KDE desktop environment, which will only run when a user logs in using it, i can run twice (or more) when there are more users activein using KDE at the same time.

Running it outside KDE isn’t useful IMHO, who will ever look at the results?