SUMMARY When baloo_file_explorer is running, it uses about 20w of energy on it's own. This halves my battery life. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. get a device with a battery 2. Disable Baloo (if it is running) 3. Measure Battery Drain (powertop) 4. Enable Baloo (if it is done indexing either give it a new directory to index or clear the index) 5. Measure Battery Drain again OBSERVED RESULT Baloo uses 20 watts on my machine. EXPECTED RESULT Something slightly more reasonable. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: NixOS 24.11 KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0 Qt Version: 6.7.1 Kernel Version: 6.6.32 (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics Memory: 27.1 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics SUGGESTIONS: I think Baloo needs an overhaul. I am having so many issues with it. The file search behavior I am experiencing in Plasma has always been so unhelpful that I never use it and I have the bug that baloo keeps getting to around 79 percent of indexed files and never finishes indexing. But this rework will need a lot of time and effort. So for the time being, I would recommend to just disable it when the system runs on battery. Or at least give an option to do so.
ADDITIONAL CONTEXT: #488446 is probably related.
You can watch how content indexing is progressing with by running: balooctl monitor Normally you'd see it index a batch of 40 files, pause, index the next batch, etc, etc... See what htop says about baloo_file_extractor, it is running? Check systemctl --user status kde-baloo Do you notice the indexing affecting system performance?
(In reply to tagwerk19 from comment #2) > balooctl monitor File indexer is running Indexing file content > See what > htop > says about baloo_file_extractor, it is running? It is running and using 40% CPU and ~670 M/s R/W > > Check > systemctl --user status kde-baloo ● kde-baloo.service - Baloo File Indexer Daemon Loaded: loaded (]8;;file://workframe/run/current-system/sw/share/systemd/user/kde-baloo.serviceG/run/current-system/sw/share/systemd/user/kde-baloo.service]8;;G; linked-runtime; preset: enabled) Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-06-14 09:18:13 CEST; 15min ago Process: 1927 ExecCondition=/run/current-system/sw/bin/kde-systemd-start-condition --condition baloofilerc:Basic Settings:Indexing-Enabled:true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 1932 (.baloo_file-wra) Tasks: 5 (limit: 33421) Memory: 512.2M (high: 512.0M available: 0B peak: 513.0M swap: 1.1G swap peak: 1.1G) CPU: 6min 17.477s CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/background.slice/kde-baloo.service ├─1932 /nix/store/n96bf9mshy8wcz4kmhfazlm3383b7rnf-baloo-6.2.0/libexec/kf6/baloo_file └─2618 /nix/store/n96bf9mshy8wcz4kmhfazlm3383b7rnf-baloo-6.2.0/libexec/kf6/baloo_file_extractor Jun 14 09:18:13 workframe systemd[1892]: Starting Baloo File Indexer Daemon... Jun 14 09:18:13 workframe systemd[1892]: Started Baloo File Indexer Daemon. Jun 14 09:18:18 workframe baloo_file_extractor[2618]: kf.idletime: Could not find any system poller plugin Jun 14 09:18:18 workframe baloo_file_extractor[2618]: qt.core.qobject.connect: QObject::connect(KAbstractIdleTimePoller, KIdleTime): invalid nullptr parameter Jun 14 09:18:18 workframe baloo_file_extractor[2618]: qt.core.qobject.connect: QObject::connect(KAbstractIdleTimePoller, KIdleTime): invalid nullptr parameter Jun 14 09:18:37 workframe baloo_file_extractor[2618]: qt.gui.imageio: libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile Jun 14 09:18:37 workframe baloo_file_extractor[2618]: qt.gui.imageio: libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile > Do you notice the indexing affecting system performance? My system performs pretty poorly when it has run out of battery. ;) And it is annoying to always hear fans spin when doing basic office work. But it is not less responsive.
I'm guessing from the troubleshooting in Bug 488533 and excluding files with mimetype "model/obj" from the content indexing, this is OK now and can be closed..
(In reply to tagwerk19 from comment #4) > I'm guessing from the troubleshooting in Bug 488533 and excluding files with > mimetype "model/obj" from the content indexing, this is OK now and can be > closed.. I intentionally created two bugs, as one issue is: - what is happening to me, why is baloo stuck and the other one is - why is baloo so bad for battery life when it is stuck? Because I think there is a discussion to be had about disabling baloo on battery or some power consumption optimizations, that could mitigate the impact it has on a lapop when you add a bunch of files.
(In reply to contact from comment #5) > ... why is baloo so bad for battery life when it is stuck? ... When it is stuck? That's not going to be easy to find out ... In normal operation, Baloo checks whether the system is running on battery and stops content indexing. At least as far as I remember...
This battery saving feature is - if it exists - is 100% not working on my machine.
(In reply to contact from comment #7) > This battery saving feature is - if it exists - is 100% not working on my > machine. I think it exists (but don't have a laptop to test), there is code to query the PowerManagement via DBus ... ... This may be a distro thing
(In reply to tagwerk19 from comment #8) > ... This may be a distro thing This may be a naive suggestion but... ... https://mynixos.com/nixpkgs/option/powerManagement.enable
Oh dear nixos. I have several options that belong to power management enabled but of course not power management itself. *sigh* Okay I think it is fair to close this. The power management thing was user error/distro confusion.
Resolved, because: - baloo was generating a huge index due to issues when parsing obj files - PowerManagement on my machine was not available due to user error Nixos is really really great, but also really really confusing and poorly documented.