File indexing broken system-wide - Baloo Index could not be opened

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1

So, a while ago on my Fedora 40 KDE system, the file indexing stopped working entirely. The settings page just report this:

"File Search" page in system settings
"File Search" page in system settings790×290 23.1 KB

The “Pause Indexer” button does not work, and disabling and re-enabling File indexing doesn’t do anything.
Running balooctl6 status gives the following result:

➜  ~ balooctl6 status
Baloo Index could not be opened

So, after some research I found that others could fix their problem by executing this:

➜  ~ balooctl6 disable      
Disabling and stopping the File Indexer
➜  ~ balooctl6 purge  
Deleted the index database
➜  ~ balooctl6 enable
Enabling and starting the File Indexer

Which, unfortunately, didn’t fix the issue for me and balooctl6 status still gave the same message Baloo Index could not be opened.

What I also noticed was that the index file at ~/.local/share/baloo/index doesn’t even exist, so when creating it manually using touch .local/share/baloo/index, an index-lock file is created automatically, no matter if baloo is enabled or disabled. However, the Baloo Index could not be opened error persists - both when the index is purged and when it is manually created.

I also tried creating a new user on my system and logging into that user instead to see if it works there, but the exact same issue exists in the newly created account, so it seems to be a system-level issue.

I don’t really know how to obtain proper logs for baloo - running journalctl -b -g baloo doesn’t give any output, unfortunately, so I really have no idea if I should just do a system reinstall or how to fix the issue and would appreciate any help.

2

I never experienced such problems, I’m using Arch.

Maybe it’s something specific of Fedora and you might want to ask there.

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3

My trick on Manjaro is to do this every time baloo gone crazy

balooctl6 disable

then check if it’s really disabled
balooctl6 status

you should get
Baloo is currently disabled. To enable, please run balooctl enable

then remove index folder
rm -rf ~/.local/share/baloo/
balooctl6 purge

then re-enable baloo two times like this
balooctl6 enable
balooctl6 enable

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4

Thanks for Your reply - I tried it out, but it unfortunately didn’t fix my problem. As I mentioned, I don’t think the issue is related to any configuration in my home directory since it occurs for all users on the system, so maybe @lorebett is right and it’s an issue with fedora

5

I have the exact same problem.
I found the same “solution” and it didn’t work for me either.
I checked, and indeed, I don’t even have .local/share/baloo/index (I didn’t notice before you mentioned it).

I posted the same question here Baloo not indexing, no index file - Fedora Discussion.

6

OK, so if I’m not the only one with this problem, this should probably be reported on fedoras bugzilla.

7

I’m encountering this exact same issue on EndeavourOS as well, it’s not a Fedora problem

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