What is the baloo file indexer doing?

Volker Wysk

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Dec 19, 2014, 1:40:03 PM12/19/14

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Hi!

Is there a way to tell, what the baloo file indexer is doing in the background?
It runs and runs, and I'm wondering, how much longer the indexing will take.

Cheers
Volker

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Keian Rao Eng Haau

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Dec 19, 2014, 4:00:03 PM12/19/14

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Have you tried the verbose argument?

I've never heard of baloo file indexer, but chances are, it has a -v option. If you haven't, try turning that on, if it exists.

David González

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Dec 19, 2014, 11:40:02 PM12/19/14

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Hello,

You can check if its status if it's indexing anything with "balooctl
status" which should return something similar to this:

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexed 385822 / 385822 files

It might as well be just idling/waiting for something to happen. If it
isn't consuming any resources (hogging CPU/RAM) I would think everything
might be okay.

Cheers,
David

Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5494FB30...@gmail.com

Martin Steigerwald

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Dec 20, 2014, 4:50:02 AM12/20/14

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Am Freitag, 19. Dezember 2014, 19:33:35 schrieb Volker Wysk:
> Hi!

Hi Volker,

> Is there a way to tell, what the baloo file indexer is doing in the
> background? It runs and runs, and I'm wondering, how much longer the
> indexing will take.

Several ways:

1) Stop the baloo_file process and start it on a konsole tab, you see its
activity there then. A balooctl restart on a Konsole may do the trick as well.

2) Run kdebugdialog and activate debug for baloo_file, then run tail -f
~/.xsession errors – This works as well, it may need a restart of Ballo file
indexer tough.

3) With an running baloo_file process on the fly:

strace -e stat -p $(pgrep baloo_file) 2>&1 | grep -v "share/baloo"

if you want to see a bit more than use -e open

So check whether a file is index you can try balooshow command:

martin@merkaba:~> echo "Bla" > hallo
martin@merkaba:~> balooshow hallo
Object::connect: No such signal org::freedesktop::UPower::DeviceAdded(QString)
Object::connect: No such signal
org::freedesktop::UPower::DeviceRemoved(QString)
426864 /home/martin/hallo
martin@merkaba:~> rm hallo

You can always create a file like this to test whether any of the three ways to
above to watch baloo works for you.

Ciao,
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Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald - http://www.Lichtvoll.de
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Volker Wysk

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Dec 20, 2014, 11:10:02 AM12/20/14

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It can be suspended and resumed in "Desktop Search Advanced" in the system
settings. I'm not starting it from the command line.

But this is an idea.

Cheers
Volker

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Volker Wysk

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Dec 20, 2014, 11:20:02 AM12/20/14

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Am Samstag, 20. Dezember 2014, 00:29:36 schrieb David González:
> Hello,
>
> You can check if its status if it's indexing anything with "balooctl
> status" which should return something similar to this:
>
> $ balooctl status
> Baloo File Indexer is running
> Indexed 385822 / 385822 files

Yes, this is what I was looking for.

> It might as well be just idling/waiting for something to happen. If it
> isn't consuming any resources (hogging CPU/RAM) I would think everything
> might be okay.

It's still running, having indexed only one fourth of my files.

Thnx

Volker

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Volker Wysk

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Dec 20, 2014, 12:10:04 PM12/20/14

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Am Samstag, 20. Dezember 2014, 10:48:01 schrieb Martin Steigerwald:
> Am Freitag, 19. Dezember 2014, 19:33:35 schrieb Volker Wysk:
> > Hi!
>
> Hi Volker,
>
> > Is there a way to tell, what the baloo file indexer is doing in the
> > background? It runs and runs, and I'm wondering, how much longer the
> > indexing will take.
>
> Several ways:
>
> 1) Stop the baloo_file process and start it on a konsole tab, you see its
> activity there then. A balooctl restart on a Konsole may do the trick as
> well.

"balooclt restart" works fine.

> 2) Run kdebugdialog and activate debug for baloo_file, then run tail -f
> ~/.xsession errors – This works as well, it may need a restart of Ballo file
> indexer tough.

I get the messages on the console.

> 3) With an running baloo_file process on the fly:
>
> strace -e stat -p $(pgrep baloo_file) 2>&1 | grep -v "share/baloo"
>
> if you want to see a bit more than use -e open

Yes, this works. I can see which files are being indexed, by calling "strace -e
trace=file -p ...".

> So check whether a file is index you can try balooshow command:

This works as well.

Thanx for your help!

Volker

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Martin Steigerwald

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Dec 20, 2014, 12:40:02 PM12/20/14

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Am Samstag, 20. Dezember 2014, 18:04:05 schrieb Volker Wysk:
> > 2) Run kdebugdialog and activate debug for baloo_file, then run tail -f
> > ~/.xsession errors – This works as well, it may need a restart of Ballo
> > file indexer tough.
>
> I get the messages on the console.

This one may work without restarting baloo. :)

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Michael Schuerig

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Dec 20, 2014, 7:00:03 PM12/20/14

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On Saturday 20 December 2014 18:38:49 Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Am Samstag, 20. Dezember 2014, 18:04:05 schrieb Volker Wysk:
> > > 2) Run kdebugdialog and activate debug for baloo_file, then run
> > > tail -f ~/.xsession errors – This works as well, it may need a
> > > restart of Ballo file indexer tough.
> >
> > I get the messages on the console.
>
> This one may work without restarting baloo. :)

What *I* am seeing there right now is endlessly repeated entries like
this

baloo_file(28519) Baloo::FileIndexingJob::start: ("299868")

The argument in parentheses is *always* the same. Also, when I grep
running processes, I see that baloo_file_extractor is indeed called with
the argument 299868. Which doesn't make sense because according to its
--help text, it expects a URL.

I've only been looking into this because after a reboot, after 10 days
without one, baloo seem to be twiddling its thumbs with high intensity
and no discernible purpose. strace output[*] indicates that while baloo
and subprocesses does open a lot of files, there not one among them that
would make sense to index.

Baloo works a lot better than nepomuk ever did, however, I'm still
hesitant to reboot or start a new KDE session as that is when things
tend to go weird.

baloo is 4:4.14.2-1 on an up-to-date sid.

Michael

[*] strace -f -p `pidof baloo_file` -e trace=open 2>&1 | egrep -v '.kde|
\.local|kdeglobals|/lib|/etc|/usr|/var|/dev|SIGCHLD'

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