PDF files not present in Index

[Nic]

Hi, I have a serious problem with the creation of a complete index.

Some files are simply missing in the index while others in the same folder are indexed.

I looked once at the Logfile of the indexing process, there the files were completely missing as well (no warning that it could not be opened or information why it was deliberately skipped).

All files are PDF,  90% do contain text, only a few are scanned documents.

I do my searches mostly on the filename, so if the content is scanned and OCR is poor, it does not really matter.

The files lie on a macServer, I access it from three different workplaces which each makes its own index. (2x personal-registered, 1x professional-demo).

A lot of files are tagged with tags that are internal to our company (so not just the standard macOS red, blue,... ) and it seems that, at least in some cases, only the files without these tags are indexed.

[CTM Engineering]

I have no real idea of what happens. You may try some of the following, to try to understand the cause of the problem:

- do you have the same problem from each mac? For the same files?

- if you copy a "missed" file to a local folder, and index this folder, can the file be found?

- if you remove the tags from one file, then update the index, can it then be found?

- if you add such a tag to a file that can be found, then update the index, can you still find it?

- can you find the files by searching:

    [all items of type] [PDF]

    in: [the folder containing them]

- What is the filesystem of your "macServer"? APFS, HFS, other? Case sensitive? What is the sharing protocol (AFP? SMB? other?)

- are there some other particularities for these files? maybe an uppercase .PDF extension? Non ascii characters in the name? Do they have an HFS type/creator?

- maybe a screenshot of your query, of the result, and of the folder in the Finder could also help.

PS: for new threads, please use our new user forum: https://forum.foxtrot-search.com

Thanks

[Nic]

Ok, i started the proposed tests:

- I copied one of the affected folders to local disk. It contains 7 files of which only 1 can be found

- On local path still only the same file can be found (has no tags), but another file without tags could not be found

- The file that is found contains special characters in its Filename (ä), another that could not be found as well

- In the crawler-log only one file is listed

- updated the index: now suddenly all 7 files are indexed. The files itself haven't changed, neither the folder-structure. Strange

So I will try to update the index on the server as well and see what happens

[Nic]

So far, updating the index on the server has resulted in 8k Files instead of the earlier 7k, but my sample files are still missing so it is not yet reliable.

Will come back when I got deeper into the issue

[Nic]

I try and try, but can't get my files on Index.

I copied the folder from the Server to a local path and indexed both paths. The Folder structure contains around 1203 files. On the server only 548 are found, on local path the indexing is a bit better, but even there only 745 files are found. So I removed all Tags on the local copy and deleted an empty folder that I found lying around. After rebuilding the Index, only 744 files are found.

Still I am searching for parts of the Filename. The Filenames are built up by a five digit numerical part, followed by the name of the customer e.g. 12345_Morgan.pdf The address of the customer ist then contained once or twice inside the file itself. For those files that are found, all hits (Filename and content) are shown properly.

Strangely, sometimes Foxtrot even completes correctly what I am typing, but the does not find the File. e.g. I am typing "rockef" and FoxTrot suggests "rockefeller". When I select the proposed keyword nothing is found. (Of course, the Keyword could be stored from previous searches, but it's something I could reproduce with several randomly picked files).

The above information relates to the unregistered FoxTrot Pro app running on my iMac. The registered FoxTrot installations that run on other machines and index the same Folder on the server can find 548 and 565 files respectively.

[Nic]

After restarting the computer, suddenly on the local path all files are found and indexed.

No improvement on the server.

So I copied back to the server all files without the tags, still only 750 of them were found. Rebuilding the Index did not help.

Copied the files without Tags to a local Network Storage (shared over smb) there the indexing finds all files at first run.

Copied the files with Tags to the same local Network Storage and rebuild the index, only 680 files are found :-(

[Nic]

After being suggested to reboot the servers as well , I tried this as well (more for knowledge-finding than that this would be a viable solution for daily business).

Unfortunately, rebooting the server  did not bring the desired result. Of the 1203 files and folders only 552 were found on the AFP-Server and the (same) 680 on the SMB-NAS.

What I don't understand: how can Fox Trot skip those files, not even mentioning them in the indexing and crawler logs? I mean the files are there when I open the folder with finder and they are listed when I list the folder content in Terminal. Does FoxTrot rely on some "Magic-Apple-Metadata" to find the files??