SUMMARY I edited ~/.config/baloofilerc telling it to index folders on my NTFS drive which I had mounted in /etc/fstab, and Baloo indexed them for years 🥳. Until, as part of reinstalling Fedora, instead of /etc/fstab I let KDE mount my NTFS drive using System Settings > Removable Storage > Removable Devices, by checking Automount > Attached Devices > Windows "On Login". After I this change, `balooctl monitor` showed that baloo_file wasn't noticing new and changed files on NTFS. However, a manual `balooctl check` would find new and changed files and index them. I'm pretty sure the reason they're not indexed is Plasma startup starts the /usr/libexec/baloo_file process before calling /sbin/mount.ntfs to mount the drive, and the already running baloo_file doesn't seem to "notice" that the path to the folder is now available to monitor. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. In System Settings > Removable Storage > Removable Devices , configure an attached drive to Automount "On Login" 2. Add the absolute (no symbolic links) path to a directory on this drive to ~/.config/baloofilerc, e.g. folders[$e]=$HOME/,/run/media/spage/Windows/Users/spage/Documents/ 3. Reboot computer. 4. Enter the terminal command `balooctl monitor &` 5. Modify a file in this directory, e.g. `echo balooIndexMe > /run/media/spage/Windows/Users/spage/Documents/index_test.txt 6. Search for this file, e.g. `baloosearch balooIndexMe` 7. Restart baloo with `balooctl disable`, `baloctl enable` 8. Repeat step 5. OBSERVED RESULT balooctl monitor doesn't report "Indexing: /path/to/new/file.txt"; searching for its content fails. But if you restart baloo, then baloo_file starts watching the folder on the drive. EXPECTED RESULT I know file notification is hard, and there's an argument that Baloo shouldn't index "removable" drives; but this is unexpected behavior that's too sensitive to startup order. baloo_file should watch for when folders it's been told to index appear, even when it's already running. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: KDE Plasma Version: 5.24.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.93.0 Qt Version: 5.13.3 on Wayland ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Advanced users might be able to modify the kde-baloo.service to wait for KDE's disk automounting. A workaround is to restart baloo_file with balooctl disable then balooctl enable.
You managed to get further than I... (In reply to skierpage from comment #0) > ... NTFS drive which I had mounted in /etc/fstab, and Baloo indexed them for years 🥳. I assume you are/were using the (older) ntfs-3g drivers, not the recently included ntfs3? I tried the ntfs3 drivers with some "magic dust" in the /etc/fstab, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=406506#c21 That seems quite solid, not trusting production data on it but seems OK during "regular revisiting" If I remove the /etc/fstab line and try mounting via Dolphin, I get a authentication prompt and the volume is mounted via fuseblk (and ntfs-3g). Couldn't get automounting to work...