Can Alfred search files on a Synology network drive mounted via afp?

[Lynx]

Is it possible to search files with Alfred on a Synology network drive mounted via afp? I can find them with Finder, but not with Alfred.

 

 

[deanishe]

If you add the drive to your Search Scope, it should work.

[Lynx]

44 minutes ago, deanishe said:

If you add the drive to your Search Scope, it should work.

 

Thanks, I have tried this, but after adding the mounted drive to the Search Scope, Alfred does not find any files at all, even the files on my local drive are not found any more.

[deanishe]

And you can find them with Spotlight?

[Lynx]

I can find them with Finder (CMD + ALT + SPACE)

 

The volume has Server search enabled:

 

$ sudo mdutil -s /Volumes/Video
/Volumes/video:
    Server search enabled.

 

[deanishe]

Just now, Lynx said:

I can find them with Finder (CMD + ALT + SPACE)

 

And with Spotlight?

 

CMD+ALT+SPACE doesn't help: How can we know what you've assigned that hotkey to?

[Lynx]

2 minutes ago, deanishe said:

CMD+ALT+SPACE doesn't help: How can we know what you've assigned that hotkey to?

 

CMD+ALT+SPACE is the default keyboard shortcut on the mac to perform a spotlight search from a finder window:

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236:

 

Quote

To perform a Spotlight search from a Finder window, press Command–Option–Space bar. 

 

[deanishe]

6 minutes ago, Lynx said:

CMD+ALT+SPACE is the default keyboard shortcut on the mac to perform a spotlight search from a finder window

 

And it's very commonly remapped.

[Lynx]

9 hours ago, deanishe said:

 

And it's very commonly remapped.

 

I see. 

 

So Spotlight Search via Finder is able to find files on the network volume. 

[kshang]

I'm having the same issue with Alfred fails to search anything when Synology Nas AFP server is added into search scope.

[baglio]

I'm also experiencing this issue. My external Volumes are mounted with the AFP protocol and one of them - the one I'm interested in the most - has been added into the "Search Scope" list, but I can't "find" anything from that volume by typing into Alfred.

[deanishe]

Does Spotlight find things on that volume? That’s always the first thing to check because Alfred uses the same index.

[baglio]

As a matter of fact, no. Neither spotlight can find the files/folders in the external Volume. How should I procede in this case?

[baglio]

Ok, I found a solution. I hope it could also help others.

 

I was trying to enable indexing on my network volume by typing in the terminal

mdutil -i on /Volumes/myvolume-name

but unfortunately the terminal always responded with "Indexing Disabled". After some research I found the following solution:

In order to enable spotlight indexing - and therefore be able to take advantage of Alfred - on network drives I had to create this folder with root permissions:

sudo mkdir -p /private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/

And then re-enable the indexing with

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/myvolume-name

You can immediately check the indexing status by typing something in spotlight; a progress bar titled "indexing" should appear on top of the results. Bear in mind that I'm not using the latest operating system, but macOS 10.12.6, and I'm not sure if the aforementioned method works with other versions.

[Lynx]

 

@baglio thanks for posting your solution

 

I get an error message, after running this command:

37 minutes ago, baglio said:

And then re-enable the indexing with

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/myvolume-name

 

 

/Volumes/video:
Error: unable to perform operation.  (-403)
    Server search enabled.

 

 

[baglio]

51 minutes ago, Lynx said:

 

@baglio thanks for posting your solution

 

I get an error message, after running this command:

 

/Volumes/video:
Error: unable to perform operation.  (-403)
    Server search enabled.

 

 

 

Have you performed the previous step and created the `/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/` folder?

Which connection type are you using? AFP, SMB or others?

[Lynx]

55 minutes ago, baglio said:

Have you performed the previous step and created the `/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/` folder?

 

Yes.

 

56 minutes ago, baglio said:

Which connection type are you using? AFP, SMB or others?

 

 

AFP.

//user@DiskStation._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Magic on /Volumes/Magic (afpfs, nodev, nosuid, mounted by user)

 

I'm using MacOS 10.4.5.

 

[baglio]

1 hour ago, Lynx said:

/Volumes/Magic

 

Wait. Is the volume you’re trying to index  named “video” or is it “Magic”?

[Lynx]

12 hours ago, baglio said:

 

Wait. Is the volume you’re trying to index  named “video” or is it “Magic”?

 

video and magic are both volumes on my NAS. video has Server search enabled, Magic does not. I was able to enable indexing on Magic following you instructions, but Alfred still does not show results from this drive.

 

$ mdutil -sa
/:
	Indexing enabled.
/Volumes/Magic:
	Indexing enabled.
/Volumes/video:
	Server search enabled.

Does Alfred show results from your network drive?

[baglio]

Since it throws a 403 error, the only thing I can think of is some sort of permissions problem. How are permissions set on the Magic shared folder?

[Lynx]

9 minutes ago, baglio said:

Since it throws a 403 error, the only thing I can think of is some sort of permissions problem. How are permissions set on the Magic shared folder?

 

It did not throw an error using the drive Magic. Nevertheless Alfred does not show any results from Magic.

[baglio]

22 minutes ago, Lynx said:

 

It did not throw an error using the drive Magic. Nevertheless Alfred does not show any results from Magic.

 

Right, sorry, the error is thrown with the "video" volume. Can you check the permission on "video"?

 

About "Magic", I'm not sure why Alfred can't search in it since Spotlight can. Maybe I'm going to give you a trivial suggestion, but could you try to perform a fresh install of Alfred? You should not only remove the application, but also the various files associated with it.

[VaalaCat]

https://github.com/VaalaCat/synology-alfred

This Project may help