Created attachment 167277 [details]
Cannot duplicate on latest Neon (KDE 6)

Hi

I did a quick test on the latest Neon (KDE 6) and this works fine. Conscious you are on 5.27 but on Tumbleweed. Are you able to re-test again when Tumbleweed upgrades you to 6.0? If the problem persists this might be a Tumbleweed specific issue, or specific to your system. 

Thanks.

Needs more information - cannot duplicate on KDE 6.0 / Neon.

You could try the command line search:
    baloosearch filename:steam

You have also moved to the steam folder and are searching from there, you could try searching from your home folder and see whether that makes any difference.

From my understanding, baloo wasn't running and it should have used the built-in search of Dolphin. However, I have to admit I found the UI about what search provider was actually used or enabled fairly confusing, so I'm actually not sure.

(In reply to Ellie from comment #4)
> ... I have to admit I found the UI about what
> search provider was actually used or enabled fairly confusing ...
Indeed, it seems very well hidden :-/

The command line "baloosearch" will give you a way of searching exactly "what has been indexed", sometimes the extra layer on top from Dolphin muddles things a bit.
    
So if you know you have Alice in Wonderland on your disk, you should find it with:
    $ baloosearch filename:Alice
and if you are content searching
    $ baloosearch Cheshire Cat

If you have Baloo disabled (you can check with "balooctl status"), Dolphin should choose to search with its own "there and then" search. In the old days, there would be a pause while that happened and you'd hear the Hard Disk rattling.

You can see whether Dolphin will ask Baloo or doing a "there and then" search by looking at the search prompt. If you do a Ctrl-F to get the prompt and it looks like this:
    
    https://bugsfiles.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=137170
        
then you will be doing the "there and then" (filenamesearch) search. If however you see extra search options (the "Any Type", "Any Rating" etc) as here:
    
    https://bugsfiles.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=137169
        
then Dolphin knows it can ask baloo for its search results (baloosearch)

The thing to watch for is ...

If "baloosearch" doesn't give you any answers, that is Baloo has not indexed your "steam" folder ...

... But Dolphin thinks it has

Created attachment 167872 [details]
Screenshot of Dolphin search provider settings (or at least that's what I think this window is)

The baloosearch libraries were definitely installed, I think openSUSE pulled those in, while the baloo indexer was not. The indexer might be installed now but isn't running and probably wasn't ever, the service is disabled. I suggest Dolphin should probably detect this situation if that's a problem.

But the dolphin search settings window honestly doesn't look like ANY search provider is known to it, for whatever reason. It doesn't seem to me like it's trying to use baloo, but see for yourself on the screenshot I guess. I can't quite figure out what it's showing me.

Dear Bug Submitter,

This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least
15 days. Please provide the requested information as soon as
possible and set the bug status as REPORTED. Due to regular bug
tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDSINFO status with
no change in 30 days the bug will be closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME
due to lack of needed information.

For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the
wiki located here:
https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging

If you have already provided the requested information, please
mark the bug as REPORTED so that the KDE team knows that the bug is
ready to be confirmed.

Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!

Is there useful information I could still provide?

Moving back to 'reported' in case anyone else can review and possibly duplicate. Needs further triage.

I can confirm. Problem still exists. In my case, problem probably is related to sleeping (I restarts laptop one time per 2-3 week). When I restart laptop, then baloo start working for few minutes and that's all. After few minutes, baloo show idle and stop working.
When I started to use baloo (I didn't have database installed one month ago), first time baloo stucked at directory with sylpheed mails. Next, stucked at thunderbird directory and last, stucked at some image (if I remember well). When I excluded these directories, baloo started work and indexed files and stucked at 99% (132 files remaining). Since one week, baloo can't index any file, but "iotop -o" show, that "baloo_file_extractor" read disk all the time (max about 150KB/s)

I tried everything. I tried to use KDE GUI and console app. Button Pause indexer doesn't work.
I tried to disable and enable baloo, but it doesn't work. I mean it doesn't resolve problem.
Is there any chance to restart baloo? Like systemctl restart sddm.service?
I tried it, but I don't know how to do that.

As for me, I intentionally don't use baloo. I usually just search by file name and in the same folder or subfolders of it anyway. However, just the presence of the client-side baloo libraries with the indexer either not even installed, or the indexer installed but never used, Dolphin seems to automatically use it as the *only* search backend with no obvious way to bypass that.

Baloo does need more work to deal well with emails :-/
 
It can handle message/rfc822 format messages (where there is one msg per file) but reads them as text. If you have encoded attachments, Baloo indexes, ouch, everything. See Bug 460882. Baloo should really extract the text/plain part (or the text/html if there is no text/plain)

It tries to read mbox files (where there are many messages concatenated in one file) but these can grow to GByte sizes, best to exclude those. See Bug 443547.

Thunderbird holds its database of messages as a tree of files under ~/.thunderbird,  Thunderbird has its own pretty good indexing and searching though. You might be indexing those if you enabled "index hidden files". If you are indexing hidden files/folders it's probably best to exclude folders like .cache, .local/share/Trash, .mozilla and .thunderbird, Bug 434705.

If disabling Baloo does not seem to work, it may be in the middle of trying to index a GByte mbox. You can kill the processes with systemctl:

    systemctl --user stop kde-baloo

Note that Dolphin uses the Baloo index if Baloo is enabled and you are "in" a folder that Baloo has indexed. Otherwise it does a "there and then" search with filenamesearch (at least on Neon and Fedora, I'd need to check with Tumbleweed). Unfortunately, it is not particularly easy to see whether Dolphin is querying Baloo or not...

"Note that Dolphin uses the Baloo index if Baloo is enabled and you are "in" a folder that Baloo has indexed. Otherwise it does a "there and then" search with filenamesearch (at least on Neon and Fedora, I'd need to check with Tumbleweed)."

This doesn't seem to be working for me. That's basically why I made this bug report. It seems to always do a baloo search but with zero results.

(In reply to Ellie from comment #15)
> ... This doesn't seem to be working for me ...
Let me try a Tumbleweed... Will be back asap :-)

(In reply to tagwerk19 from comment #16)
> Let me try a Tumbleweed... Will be back asap :-)
I've a very vanilla tumbleweed installed (openSUSE-Tumbleweed-DVD-x86_64-Snapshot20240425-Media.iso) and it behaves nearly as it should...

Have a look at ~/.config/baloofilerc, if you've disabled Baloo you should see:

    [Basic Settings]
    Indexing-Enabled=false

at the top of the file. This would be set if you disable via System Settings > Search.

I have a memory, of an Arch system I think, where it wasn't possible to get that to "stick", the config was rewritten by something and Baloo reenabled. You had to disable Baloo and set the file read-only to get round that (Bug 481101)

Sadly, it's still broken in 24.05.1 and no files ever show up in the search, including no matching file names in the same folder I'm currently in. There is no obvious way for me as a user to fix this, unless I missed it, which seems like an issue.

I got it to work by one day finding the Baloo indexing options inside KDE system settings, and fully turning off baloo there. So I think the solution in Dolphin would be something like:

1. Let me identify clearly in some way, e.g. when going into the settings to configure search providers, which search provider is actually used. Let me pick a different provider in the Dolphin settings if I want that, too. Neither of those two things seem to be possible right now.

2. If baloo returns nothing in a folder that clearly isn't empty, maybe Dolphin could eventually figure out there's some issue with it and display some sort of warning.

Basically, when baloo is enabled but not working at all, Dolphin doesn't give the user much to work with to figure out what is going on.

(In reply to Ellie from comment #19)
> ... I got it to work by one day finding the Baloo indexing options inside KDE
> system settings, and fully turning off baloo there ...
That's the GUI way of setting the "Indexing-Enabled" on or off...

> Have a look at ~/.config/baloofilerc, if you've disabled Baloo you should see:
> 
>   [Basic Settings]
>   Indexing-Enabled=false
Dolphin looks at this config file and decides whether to use Baloo or not.

> 1. Let me identify clearly in some way, e.g. when going into the settings to
> configure search providers, which search provider is actually used. Let me
> pick a different provider in the Dolphin settings if I want that, too.
That would be a nice option. There's baloosearch and filenamesearch, if someone came up with a kfilesearch that followed the same API and behaviour it would make sense that Dolphin has an option to use it...

> 2. If baloo returns nothing in a folder that clearly isn't empty, maybe
> Dolphin could eventually figure out there's some issue with it and display
> some sort of warning.
The "clearly isn't empty" is troublesome... I don't think you can know whether Baloo is not finding file because you have too tight a search criteria (think of a typo in your search query) or that Baloo has died...

> Basically, when baloo is enabled but not working at all, Dolphin doesn't
> give the user much to work with to figure out what is going on.
I think there's a case for Dolphin asking Baloo if it has indexed that particular folder. If Baloo is alive and can answer "yes" then Dolphin uses the Baloo index, otherwise it falls back to its own (filenamesearch) way of doing things....

Git commit 4102ccb80457eea44ea280f0ace2a419602bc34b by Felix Ernst.
Committed on 07/04/2025 at 21:09.
Pushed by felixernst into branch 'master'.

Rewrite search integration

This huge commit is a nearly complete rewrite of the Dolphin search
code. It implements most of the improved Dolphin search UI/UX as
designed and discussed in a collaborative effort by Kristen McWilliam,
Jin Liu, Andy Betts, Tagwerk, a few others and me.
See https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/issues/46.

# Notable changes

- A toggle to change the search tool is provided as most contributors
deemed that useful in
https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/642#note_985112.
- The default search is changed to filenamesearch for maximum
reliability.
- Removing all search parameters will take users back to the view state
prior to starting a search instead of keeping the search results open.
- The UI for choosing file types or modification dates has been made
more powerful with more granularity and more options.
- Most search parameters can be configured from a popup menu which
gives us extra space for extra clarity.
- Labels and help buttons as well as hyperlinks to settings makes sure
the user always knows why some search parameters are unavailable in
some contexts.
- Chips show important search parameters while the popup is closed.
They allow quickly removing filters.
- The titles of the search and the input field placeholder message
change to make clear whether file names or file contents are searched.
- When the user actively switches the search tool, whether content
should be searched, or whether to search everywhere, this is preserved
for the initial state of the search bar when the user opens it the next
time after restarting Dolphin.

# Architecture

- The new DolphinQuery class is independent of the UI and contains all
search parameters modifiable in Dolphin as easy setters and getters.
- DolphinQuery objects are also used to update the states of every
component in the search UI. There is now a clear separation of UI and
search configuration/DolphinQuery.
- DolphinQuery is responsible for exporting to and importing from
search URLs.
- The search UI always reflects the currently configured DolphinQuery
no matter if the user changed the UI to change the DolphinQuery or
loaded a DolphinQuery/older search URL which then is reflected in the
UI.
- I tried to simplify all classes and their interaction between each
other as much as possible.
- I added some tests
Related: bug 386754, bug 446387, bug 470136, bug 480001, bug 488047, bug 488845, bug 500103, bug 435119, bug 458761, bug 471556, bug 475439, bug 477969
FIXED-IN: 25.08

M  +19   -4    src/CMakeLists.txt
M  +5    -0    src/config-dolphin.h.cmake
M  +22   -17   src/dolphinmainwindow.cpp
M  +2    -6    src/dolphinrecenttabsmenu.cpp
M  +103  -130  src/dolphinviewcontainer.cpp
M  +41   -30   src/dolphinviewcontainer.h
M  +2    -2    src/global.h
A  +356  -0    src/search/bar.cpp     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +206  -0    src/search/bar.h     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +150  -0    src/search/barsecondrowflowlayout.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +48   -0    src/search/barsecondrowflowlayout.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +52   -0    src/search/chip.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +101  -0    src/search/chip.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +0    -0    src/search/configurationpopup.h     [License: Trivial file]
M  +5    -1    src/search/dolphin_searchsettings.kcfg
D  +0    -312  src/search/dolphinfacetswidget.cpp
D  +0    -84   src/search/dolphinfacetswidget.h
M  +339  -70   src/search/dolphinquery.cpp
M  +278  -37   src/search/dolphinquery.h
D  +0    -575  src/search/dolphinsearchbox.cpp
D  +0    -189  src/search/dolphinsearchbox.h
A  +378  -0    src/search/popup.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +99   -0    src/search/popup.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +61   -0    src/search/selectors/dateselector.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +42   -0    src/search/selectors/dateselector.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +81   -0    src/search/selectors/filetypeselector.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +36   -0    src/search/selectors/filetypeselector.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +51   -0    src/search/selectors/minimumratingselector.cpp     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +42   -0    src/search/selectors/minimumratingselector.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +189  -0    src/search/selectors/tagsselector.cpp     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +45   -0    src/search/selectors/tagsselector.h     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
A  +56   -0    src/search/updatablestateinterface.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +67   -0    src/search/widgetmenu.cpp     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
A  +63   -0    src/search/widgetmenu.h     [License: LGPL(3+eV) LGPL(v3.0) LGPL(v2.1)]
M  +3    -3    src/tests/CMakeLists.txt
M  +1    -1    src/tests/dolphinmainwindowtest.cpp
M  +214  -64   src/tests/dolphinquerytest.cpp
A  +124  -0    src/tests/dolphinsearchbartest.cpp     [License: GPL(v2.0+)]
D  +0    -63   src/tests/dolphinsearchboxtest.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/commit/4102ccb80457eea44ea280f0ace2a419602bc34b