File filter not returning all files on one computer

[dhjdhj]

I've been using the File Filter extensively in workflows --- VERY convenient.

 

However, I just noticed that on one of my laptops, a workflow is only returning three items from a folder instead of all the matching items. This is new behavior.

 

The only thing that has changed on that particular laptop is that I installed the El Capitan beta on it about a week ago and this issue (I think!) started just after it.

 

Any ideas?

[deanishe]

That's usually a metadata issue. Does Spotlight find the files? If not, use Rebuild OS X Metadata in the Advanced pane of Alfred Preferences.
 
Otherwise, it might be an issue with UTIs (depending on the filetype).
 
Navigate to the directory in Terminal/iTerm and run this on the files Alfred finds and the ones it doesn't: 

mdls -name kMDItemContentType -raw <filename>

Make sure files of the same type all have the same UTI (e.g. "public.html").

[dhjdhj]

Yes, spotlight shows them all.

 

I deleted the File Type entry in the Basic Setup for the File Filter and then dropped one of the Powerpoint files on it again.

 

Now it works fine again.

 

This begs the question as to why it broke

[deanishe]

Most likely because the system decided to use a different UTI for PowerPoint files since you set up the File Filter.

Unfortunately, screw-ups of this type are beyond Alfred's power to fix: the whole UTI system is a complete mess, not least because app developers love to declare their own, custom UTIs for filetypes that already have a (de facto) standard one.

What typically goes wrong is that an application you install defines a different UTI for a file extension to what your system was previously using, and any files created or updated after the installation will be given a different UTI to those last changed before the new UTI was registered (the metadata subsystem caches file metadata until the file is updated).

The solution is to ensure that all files with a given extension are re-indexed by the metadata subsystem (by resetting the Spotlight index or running mdimport on them), which will also give them the new UTI.