Search keeps forgetting past results; also is slow when searching from scratch. Alfred 5.5, Sonoma M2.

[MINT]

As stated in the title. Happens multiple times daily.

 

I fiddled around with keyword latching (now back to default) / clearing the cache / rebuild spotlight index - but Alfred is back to slow and laggy performance after a while. Is there something about Sonoma / M2 that messes with Alfred's "standard knowledge"?

 

It really messes with my workflow, as I use Alfred mostly for file search and app launching. Switching from Alfred 2 was a mistake (yeah, I had a very old Mac before the current one)! That version worked like a charm.

[Vero]

@MINT Given you've already rebuild the Spotlight index, could you please provide the output from the File Troubleshooter for a few files you're having difficulties finding? This will help work out what's happening on your Mac.

 

To do this, open Alfred 5's preferences to the Help tab > Troubleshooting > Run troubleshooting... then drag in a few files you're having issues with, and paste the output in your reply here.

 

Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address so that I can take a look at your configuration.

 

Alfred 5 is working great on Sonoma and M2 Macs, so it's likely an underlying index issue, so please provide some more details and I'll be happy to help you out.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[MINT]

I'll send both info in a PM for privacy reasons.

[Vero]

@MINT There seem to be two aspects to your issue; First, a lag or delay when searching, and second, a possible permissions issue where knowledge isn't remembered for your previous searches.

 

Tackling the lag issue first; Having taken a look at your search scope, the first thing I would suggest is to take out any external volume out of the default search scope (at least for now) to establish whether a secondary drive that is slow to respond is part of the issue.

 

Next, I can see you're on an older Sonoma update, so I would recommend updating to the latest (14.4.1)

 

Once you've done this, could you please search and let me know if you're still experiencing any lag?

[MINT]

- Disconnecting the drives speeds up the search, but I have already trimmed down the search scope (via Spotlight privacy) to just one Media volume (movies, some disk image files). I added some file types in Alfred for that purpose. Anyway - it worked flawlessly with multiple drives on Alfred 2.

- Updating the OS did nothing.

 

So what about that permissions thing?

[Andrew]

Alfred relies on the underlying macOS APIs for file search, so any comparisons to older versions of Alfred/macOS are in fact misdirected as the macOS file search system was much more simple back then (primarily local based).

 

Having said that, Alfred 5 should always perform practically instantly and very accurately on the an up to date Mac / macOS. We perform a significant amount of profiling and diagnostics to ensure that Alfred is always lightweight and performant.

 

When users are seeing laggy performance on file searches, the advice is always the same, and directed at fixing the underlying issues which may exist in the macOS metadata. This usually results in a macOS rebuild index (in certain cases with deleting the .Spotlight-V100 folder for a deep reindex).

 

Subsequently, we recommend using Alfred's default search scope, then use Workflow file filters for external drives. This avoids quirks such as waiting for external drives to wake up. We also recommend keeping Alfred's default result types to a minimum, (e.g. Apps / Prefs), then using the file search modes ([spacebar prefix], open, find) to search for files.

 

Note: Alfred's knowledge is used for result sorting, not file search. Before considering issues with sorting, it's best to get to the bottom of why the macOS file search isn't working. Did you migrate your very old Mac to your M2, as the macOS migration assistant has been known to cause file search issues. If so, did you delete the .Spotlight-V100 folder when rebuilding the macOS index?

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[MINT]

Yes, I migrated from a 2011 Macbook Pro because of unsolvable spotlight issues (file types and even folders did not turn up in search anymore; in-app searches like mail were also totally busted; otherwise that machine was a beast). So it's not unlikely (like you say), that I transferred an index issue to the new mac.

 

So I'll try a "deep reindex". I have reindexed (with some kind of mdutil command) multiple times (also on the new M2), but never heard of a deep reindex. Some forum searching gives me these Terminal commands:

    mdutil -i off /
    mdutil -X /
    mdutil -i on /

 

Will those do the trick (including deleting the .Spotlight-V100 folder)?

 

I'll also have a look into Workflow file filters for external drives.

 

But the most annoying thing is really the forgetting of past results. If you regularly work on files with for example "grant" in the title you want always the current one and not sift through dozens of past projects.

 

[Stephen_C]

There are detailed instructions for rebuilding the macOS metadata index on this Alfred help page: Troubleshooting File Indexing Issues.

 

Stephen

[MINT]

First, thank you all for your input!

 

Deep re-index and file filter for external drive solved the speed issue (as of know, crossing fingers).

 

But the knowledge issue still persists (random sorting of results, not most used or recent).

 

My settings should be standard, I'll append a screenshot.

[Andrew]

@MINT Alfred's default knowledge and latching is based on the currently typed phrase in Alfred's input field to the selected result. As such "F" could match "Firefox", but "Fi" could match "Find My".

 

Take a careful read through this page which explains exactly how Alfred sorts, and when happens when Alfred doesn't have relevant knowledge:

 

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/kb/understanding-result-ordering/

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[MINT]

I observed it for a few days, and it's definitely not working right yet. Let's say I have a bunch of files named X 1, X 2, X 3 etc. I'm currently working on X 2 and select it from the Alfred results. After a few rounds of searching and selecting it should give me X 2 when typing X - right? That's what the knowledge is all about? Instead Alfred just gives me a randomly ordered list of all X-Files (no pun intended).

 

And it's the same problem with many files. Enabling/Disabling latching doesn't do anything. Do you see any way out of it?

[Vero]

2 hours ago, MINT said:

I'm currently working on X 2 and select it from the Alfred results. After a few rounds of searching and selecting it should give me X 2 when typing X - right?

 

@MINT Not quite. Here's an example:

 

I'm using "s" and choosing Safari as my top result, then using "sp" and choosing Spotify.

 

Even I choose Spotify 100 times with "sp", Spotify won't suddenly become the first result for "s", as that's not what I've selected in the past for the keyword "s".

 

So if you want a particular result for the keyword "X", choose it a few times and it'll become your top result for it.

 

Hope this helps!

[MINT]

This is exactly what I'm doing, but it works obnly for a short time (ca. 1 day). Then Alfred forgets the preferred results and reverts to a seemingly random list with simple word matches.

[MINT]

The knowledge issue is still there :/ A file search search that worked flawlessly for a few days (Search "XY" turns up XY.txt without failing) just reverts to all files with XY in the file name, with XY.txt not even in the shown results. Same for all the usual searches.

[Vero]

@MINT Could you drag the file you nicknamed XY.txt file to the File Troubleshooter, and post the full output (including the real names of files, please don't edit these)? It sounds like your Mac's index may be the source of the issue if the file isn't showing in results at all. This is completely different to knowledge issues, if the file isn't being returned at all.

[MINT]

Sent via PM.

[Vero]

@MINT Thanks for sending via DM.

 

On 4/5/2024 at 10:00 AM, MINT said:

Yes, I migrated from a 2011 Macbook Pro because of unsolvable spotlight issues (file types and even folders did not turn up in search anymore; in-app searches like mail were also totally busted; otherwise that machine was a beast). So it's not unlikely (like you say), that I transferred an index issue to the new mac.

 

Provided you've done a full reindex as per your reply of 6th April, this leads me to believe that there are underlying indexing issues on your Mac. Files should not appear and disappear from the metadata index in normal conditions. 

 

Additionally, the example file you DM'ed is stored in Dropbox, which adds another layer of potential source of issues. Are your Dropbox files stored locally or is Dropbox managing whether the files are online-only / downloaded on demand? This could also be having an impact on results reliability.

 

It's safe to say that Knowledge can be set aside right now as it's not the issue; The issue is that files are not being reliably returned by macOS's metadata index when you search in Alfred. You could try doing another deep reindex, but it's possible that you migrated legacy issues when using the macOS migration assistant to move your user from an over-a-decade-old profile.  Once you get to the bottom of this, Alfred will reliably return results.