Vero

4 hours ago, fonginator said:

There have been a number of reports like these in this thread with many scenarios to reproduce the problem, and I wonder whether this is even being looked into or if anyone in the dev team has been able to reproduce this. I don't think I've seen this listed as a known issue or something that's being looked into.

@fonginator As this issue is only affecting a tiny proportion of users, we are actively in the process of trying to gather as much information as possible so as to identify the underlying issue, and why it's affecting so few. Every time anyone has provided any more insight, we've done further tests and still can't replicate the behaviour you're seeing. If it was a widespread or reproducible issue, we would have been able to identify and resolve it, or at the very least, raise a bug report with Apple.

Right now, I'm using macOS 12.1 and Alfred 4.6.2, and trying both of your Terminal secure entry tests do not prevent Alfred from operating normally in my tests.

Take a critical look at what apps or utilities you have installed, and also apps which would have been installed before Monterey which may no longer be compatible but still operating behind the scenes, as these may be ultimately responsible.

Have you tried the suggestion earlier in this thread of creating a new vanilla account on your Mac and testing which behaviour you see on this new account? Another user earlier in the thread reported that this fixed the issue - which points to a specific issue with the primary user profile.

@DrDishant Take a look at this recent blog post where I use one snippet trigger to present a set of possible snippets to use:

https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/guides-and-tutorials/single-keyword-for-multiple-snippets-workflow/

With one snippet, I can choose from a list of three possible email signatures, depending on the identity I want to use.

Pressing return will then paste the selected snippet to the frontmost app.

You can download an example workflow from the blog post as well to help you get started.

5 hours ago, aMoniker said:

Let me know if I can do anything to help you track down the cause.

Could you let us know which version of Alfred you're using? Always best to update to the latest pre-release (4.6.2 at this time)

Take a look at the Console logs from earlier in this thread and see whether any of these happen on your Mac, and report these back to us so that we can see what macOS has to say.

Also, please let us know in as much detail as possible when it happens (what app is in the foreground), what browser plugins you're using, etc. 

@Sam Tang Welcome to the forum. What @deanishe is saying in his very succinct response is that this has been answered many times in recent months and that the best first step when looking for answers is to use the search feature.

Having said that, we've now created a step-by-step guide to troubleshooting this issue, which seems to be caused by a bug in the macOS Monterey Migration Assistant, resulting in files not being found when they should be. 

Please take a look at this guide and follow the instructions carefully:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/monterey/

I'm confident this will solve your issue, but if for any reason, you still have indexing issues, please follow up in the relevant thread linked below. I'll now lock this thread to avoid splitting up the discussion of the same topic any further.

Cheers,
Vero

@burtyish Welcome to the forum. You need to ensure you've granted Alfred Automation access to System Events for this.

Open your macOS Security & Privacy preferences > Privacy > Automation, and check that under Alfred 4 "System Events" is ticked.

If this box is already checked:

- Quit Alfred

- uncheck the box and re-check it in case macOS has lost resolution of the existing permissions

- Restart Alfred

Let me know how you get on

@learned Could you drag the folders in question into the File Troubleshooter to check they're correctly indexed?

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/

I've created a test folder with the same hierarchy as yours and it's found immediately, so are there any rules or exclusions for the folders in question?

What happens if you create a new test folder in your user directory and search for a sub-folder of it?

Cheers,
Vero

@learned When choosing the "Move to..." action, to start off with, only a few default folders (Desktop, Documents and a couple of others, off the top of my head  ). Typing a few characters from the name of the folder you want to move your files to should show more results for the relevant folders.

After this first move action, the recently used folders will be listed in the "Move To" list for next time.

Or were you saying that when typing "target" in the Move To action, your folder wasn't shown in the results?

@EricW For your benefit and that of future users: Clipboard History always has to be activated independently on a new Mac, no matter whether your preferences are synced with another Mac or copied over. 

This is to protect your privacy and ensure you're fully aware that your copied items are being copied to the clipboard by Alfred. It also means that you can use the clipboard at home but not at work, for example, as the setting is not synced between Macs. Glad you're all sorted now

Cheers,
Vero

@sots Thanks for inspiring a blog post; It essentially reiterates what Andrew already suggested above, but in more details!

https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/guides-and-tutorials/single-keyword-for-multiple-snippets-workflow/

Cheers,
Vero

1 hour ago, Koen_73 said:

... I'd like to point out that Spotlight is finding these folders (and files)! So it must be Alfred, I guess?

No, this issue will be caused by using the Migration Assistant, which you confirmed in the previous thread you used to transfer your setup from your previous Mac. Even though not all files were copied from another Mac, the underlying file system structure likely assumes that your user directory setup is identical to the previous Mac when it isn't. This is where the bug in macOS Monterey lies, and all we can do is offer workarounds to the issue caused by Apple.

Have you tried following Andrew's suggestion here? Again, it's only a workaround, and the real resolution can only come through either 1. a reinstall of your Mac, or 2. Apple fixing the issue with Migration Assistant retrospectively for users who've already used it.

Cheers,
Vero

@Koen_73 Could you drag one of the folders within the relevant search scope to the File Troubleshooting tool? Is the metadata complete?

Next, try removing the folder file type so that only the search scope is set in your workflow. The "open" keyword (and spacebar) opens up the search to most file types, so if it's found then but not in your workflow while looking at the same scope, could it be that folders aren't correctly being recognised as folders by macOS?

You mentioned in the other thread that sometimes results are found and sometimes not (which I assume you meant while using the same keyword and/or workflows). Is this still happening on your Mac? If so, there's something very strange happening to your underlying metadata, and Alfred is just the app showing you it's happening.

10 hours ago, Maciej Swoboda said:

Oh, I got caught by that! I thought that the "tinypng" in not part of the filename, but the command to run the script "tinypng" on the "panda.png" file.

That's a very valid point though - I'll keep this in mind for future blog posts and ensure this kind of example doesn't cause confusion

On 12/28/2021 at 7:52 PM, Roger said:

@Vero I've tried this but I cannot find ANY file on my Mac. I just changed to a new Mac. What else can I do?

@Roger Welcome to the forum. 

This issue is widely discussed in the thread @Stephen_C has already pointed you to, assuming you're on macOS Monterey. (As a tip, in the future, please be more descriptive and specific about your issue so that we know how to help you).

If you are indeed on macOS Monterey, you'll find this detailed page helpful:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/monterey/

@Undertaker01 You have three options for where to show Alfred, which you'll find in Appearance > Options:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/appearance/#options

You can either show Alfred on default screen, mouse screen or active screen.

Cheers,
Vero

@LorenzoA It's unusual for a proper reindex with appropriate permissions for Terminal not to solve the issue, but you may want to have a look at Andrew's workaround here instead, which will set the search scope more explicitly, working around the macOS issue:

Cheers,
Vero

6 hours ago, Archenemy said:

However no notification.

Have you granted Alfred permission to show notifications? Open System Preferences > Notifications > locate Alfred 4 and check that you have notifications allowed and banners or alerts on, as per your personal preferences.

Cheers,
Vero

@Koen_73 It's not normal for issues like these to come and go within such a short amount of time. Do you use any third-party tools that may be manipulating your index (e.g. Onyx) or some cache cleaning tool?

As there's likely underlying macOS issue with the search scope, try the following:

- Open Alfred's preferences to Features > Default Results

- untick the two options for macOS Applications Folder and Folders in Home, and remove all the folders from the list

- add in your Macintosh HD (or equivalent, which adds just / to your scope)

Your scope should then look like this:

Type "reload" into Alfred to clear the cache, then try doing a file search.

If you still don't see the results, try prefixing your search with the spacebar, e.g. show Alfred and type:

[spacebar]Mijn

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers,
Vero

@Undertaker01 Which application's save dialog are you referring to? 

Do snippets work in normal conditions, e.g. in a plain TextEdit window?

Which version of macOS and Alfred are you using (please say exactly which version, not "latest")? 

@Beatrix Willius Alfred is intended to be controlled via keyboard, not by mouse - The sidebar is only an indicator that there are results below.

You're better off using one of the follow keyboard-based methods to navigate results:

• Type a few more characters to find the accurate result where relevant
• Use the up/down arrows to browse through the results
• Use Function + up/down arrows to skip to the next page of results

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Vero

@Kikker Even when a file already exists, the normal macOS behaviour is to ask whether you want to keep both, stop or replace.

Rather than just try copying to a network location, start by creating a new folder on your Desktop, then drag your Alfred.alfredpreferences file to this new folder where there isn't already a preferences file. 

If I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to achieve in copying your preferences, could you please provide more details?

@Kikker Where are you copying the preferences to in order to back them up? And what is giving you this error, macOS Finder or a third-party app?

@hjuk  First, please ensure you're using Alfred 4.6.1.

Next, could you please let us know whether you've migrated your preferences from a previous Mac. If so, could you please take a look at this thread, which explains how to work around this macOS Monterey issue.

@vlar Could you confirm you're using Alfred 4.6.1?

The other reason you may see "unable to import" is if you're using a browser or post-download third party unarchiving tool that's trying to unarchive the workflow. If that's the case, either disable the tool or use an alternative browser.

@vlar Here's your workflow, updated to add an Arg/Var object which takes the clipboard and turns it into the argument that is then passed on to your Notification 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmk7bwknyzl9e4h/CSFIP for vlar.alfredworkflow?dl=0

Hope this helps!

@vlar Could you please share your workflow so that we can see what you've got so far? You may just need to add an Arg/Var utility before your Post Notification to add the Clipboard to the output from your script.

Cheers,
Vero