Bug 448539

Summary:	Exclude .cache from Baloo indexing
Product:	[Frameworks and Libraries] frameworks-baloo	Reporter:	Matt Kovacs <koma111>
Component:	general	Assignee:	baloo-bugs-null
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	tagwerk19
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	unspecified
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Matt Kovacs 2022-01-15 17:30:56 UTC

SUMMARY
By default, Baloo indexes every directory and file under the user's home directory. The directory named .cache, however, should not be indexed as it contains files the user usually doesn't want to directly search for, but the contents of the directory are enormous in size and changed very often, resulting in Baloo hogging up system resources uselessly indexing cached webpages. Solution: add a rule by default to exclude .cache from indexing. The user can, if they so desire, remove that rule. This would improve the perception of Baloo and less people would turn it off.


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1.  Use a web browser extensively
2.  Look at system resource usage
3.  Look at what Baloo is working on in the Baloo page in System Settings

OBSERVED RESULT
Baloo consumes a lot of CPU while indexing .cache, which is pointless.

EXPECTED RESULT
Baloo should never index .cache

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Irrelevant, apart from it is Manjaro Linux (there might be distros that add the required exclusion rule to their default Plasma configuration, idk)

Comment 1 tagwerk19 2022-01-15 21:05:31 UTC

(In reply to Matt Kovacs from comment #0)
> ... add a rule by default to exclude .cache from indexing ...
Methinks baloo wouldn't normally index .cache. Do you have
    Search > File Search > "Index hidden files and folders"
set?

Have a look at Bug 434705

Comment 2 Matt Kovacs 2022-01-15 22:32:28 UTC

(In reply to tagwerk19 from comment #1)
> (In reply to Matt Kovacs from comment #0)
> > ... add a rule by default to exclude .cache from indexing ...
> Methinks baloo wouldn't normally index .cache. Do you have
>     Search > File Search > "Index hidden files and folders"
> set?
> 
> Have a look at Bug 434705

Oh yeah, sorry for the duplicate, and thanks. I searched for "cache" and tried a bunch of Baloo-related products, haven't tried baloo-widgets because this seems more like a backend issue rather than widget-related (which are user-facing). (I bet a lot of bug triaging effort is wasted on duplicates that people filed under distinct but closely related products, and bugs filed under the wrong product, like here: a Baloo-related bug can go under a bunch of different products even though Baloo is one thing and an user reporting a Baloo issue won't know which product to tag)

Yes I have "index hidden files" enabled because I have stuff in .local and .wine that I want indexed. But indexing .cache and the other dirs mentioned in 434705 is still pointless, even with that setting enabled.

Comment 3 tagwerk19 2022-01-16 09:17:40 UTC

(In reply to Matt Kovacs from comment #2)
> ... I bet a lot of bug triaging effort is wasted on duplicates ...
No way wasted, different perspectives or assumptions can really help get you down to the root cause...

> ... indexing .cache and the other dirs mentioned
> in 434705 is still pointless, even with that setting enabled ...
With you.

Flagging as a duplicate...

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 434705 ***