My first experience of baloo going wild

[chimak111]

Kubuntu 16.04 with kubuntu-backports enabled:

From KInfocenter
KDE Plasma: 5.8.7
KDE Frameworks: 5.36.0
Qt: 5.6.1
Kernel: 4.10.0-32-generic

Today I had my first experience of baloo being hyperactive. CPU usage was steadily above 50%.

So I opened top and saw that baloo-file-extractor was the culprit. So I killed it.

Then I found How do you nuke baloo_file_extractor? and applied the solution provided by Snowhog:

System Settings > Search > File Search and uncheck Enable File Search

At that point, I had Systems Settings open. I wanted to provide some of my system info for this post so I launched krunner to open KInfocenter. And now krunner was taking 100% CPU So I killed that as well.

Question 1: what facility do I lose by unchecking Enable File Search?

Question 2: why did krunner go crazy?

I've been using Kubuntu 16.04 for about two months and this is the first time I've had something uncomfortable happen.

[GreyGeek]

Baloo indexes files. It usually "takes off" after a massive update or when the index gets dated. When that happens on my machine I upgrade its priority so that it finishes faster. Or, you can go the other route and give it a very low priority.

[jglen490]

I'm all for turning indexing off. The find command works very well. Almost all the vestiges of baloo are gone form my system, other than the ones that take out dolphin, also.

[GreyGeek]

I'm all for turning indexing off. The find command works very well. Almost all the vestiges of baloo are gone form my system, other than the ones that take out dolphin, also.

The locate command (occasionally using the fast re-indexing command "sudo updatedb") works VERY fast. I believe the baloo index is used by Dolphin and other KDE apps.

[chimak111]

I'm all for turning indexing off. The find command works very well. Almost all the vestiges of baloo are gone form my system, other than the ones that take out dolphin, also.

Since I'm still finding my way around Kubuntu, I don't want to delete stuff. However, I've turned File Search off. I like krunner and KDE Connect a lot and don't want to break them!

I've used kupfer a lot, dmenu a little and I have a set of find commands for various situations. So I too don't care much for indexing and things like appstream, zeitgeist, etc.

[chimak111]

Baloo indexes files. It usually "takes off" after a massive update or when the index gets dated. When that happens on my machine I upgrade its priority so that it finishes faster. Or, you can go the other route and give it a very low priority.

Well, the time it happened there weren't any massive updates to speak of.

Even if it was updating the index, the time taken and the CPU usage certainly seemed excessive. Others have talked about baloo being stuck in some sort of loop. I don't know how to check that.

I read somewhere that baloo, by default, runs at very low priority.

The thing is that I wouldn't know when it's going to do its job. I usually leave my laptop on and unattended for some hours. The thought of baloo running wild is a bit disconcerting.

I hate turning it off but now that's where things are at.

[GreyGeek]

There should be a way to tell Baloo which folders to NOT index.

Note: /HOME is an environmental variable which contains "/home/youracctname"
You can see what is in it by issuing "echo $HOME" in a Konsole.

On my laptop ~/.local contains 23Gb.

Perhaps setting
folders[$e]=/HOME
in ~/.config/baloofilerc to
folders[$e]=/HOME/Documents
excludes the hidden files and may help to make baloo indexing tolerable or even unnoticeable.
Having four cores and 8 threads with lots of RAM also helps.

http://awesomelinux.blogspot.com/201...xtraction.html

If you do a lot of browsing you may have megabytes or more of files in the hidden directories related to your browser, in addition to what's in ~/.local.

skierpage
May 26, 2017 at 11:09 PM
If you edit ~/.config/baloofilerc you can specify what directories to index. Change the line

folders[$e]=$HOME/

to the places you want indexed. You may have to completely turn off indexing, remove $HOME/.local/share/baloo/index-lock, remove $HOME/.local/share/baloo/index , and restart.

But it's great when it works, you can find files anywhere by content in Dolphin.

or

Here is how to disable Baloo from operating.
Edit the file $HOME/.kde/share/config/baloofilerc. It is enough to edit it and change the option:

Indexing-Enabled=true

to (or add if there is not such option)

Indexing-Enabled=false

to disable baloo.

[jglen490]

23gb? Wow!

john@John-Desktop:~$ du -c -h /home/john/.local
...
186M    /home/john/.local
186M    total

[GreyGeek]

Yup!

[FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000][/COLOR]
23G     /home/jerry/.local
23G     total
[/FONT]

[dequire]

A lot of Steam games get installed there, so if one games that size is not a surprise. Mine's 77.2GB.

[chimak111]

Is there any way to monitor what's happening when baloo_file_extr is using 100% of one of my two CPUs? A sort of progress bar?

As you can guess, I'm giving it one more try and it's been running for just over 15 min.

[Basic Settings]
Indexing-Enabled=true

[General]
dbVersion=2
exclude filters=qrc_*.cpp,libtool,*.rej,.svn,litmain.sh,_darcs,*.la,po,__pycache__,CMakeFiles,.moc,*.o,*.gmo,.git,CMakeTmp,config.status,*.orig,*.pyc,moc_*.cpp,*.nvram,*.tmp,confstat,*.rcore,*~,confdefs.h,*.lo,.xsession-errors*,autom4te,*.csproj,core-dumps,*.elc,*.aux,.histfile.*,cmake_install.cmake,*.swap,*.m4,lost+found,.obj,.uic,.hg,*.part,Makefile.am,CVS,*.class,*.moc,*.pc,*.loT,*.po,lzo,CTestTestfile.cmake,.bzr,CMakeTmpQmake,ui_*.h,.pch,CMakeCache.txt,conftest,*.omf,*.vm*
exclude filters version=2
exclude folders[$e]=$HOME/.cache/,$HOME/.mozilla/,$HOME/.themes/,$HOME/.thumbnails/
first run=false
folders[$e]=$HOME/
only basic indexing=true

Okay, I found this:

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Indexing file content
Indexed 3920 / 4005 files
Current size of index is 171.04 MiB

And it's steady at 3920/4005

[chimak111]

Grrr... After a reboot,

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Indexing file content
Indexed 392[U]1[/U] / 400[U]6[/U] files
Current size of index is 171.04 MiB

[chimak111]

Okay, I deleted the files suggested by Greygeek, and rebooted.

I ran

baloo status

and got

$ balooctl status
Baloo is currently disabled. To enable, please run "balooctl enable"
12:08 PM ~ $ balooctl enable
Enabling the File Indexer
12:08 PM ~ $ org.kde.baloo: "/home/my_user_name"
Power state changed

This terminal window is still open. I'm scared to close it.

I opened another terminal window and ran baloo status again and I got

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Indexed 3679 / 3679 files
Current size of index is 2.75 MiB
$

BTW, my baloofilerc is now:

[Basic Settings]
Indexing-Enabled=true

[General]
dbVersion=2
exclude filters=qrc_*.cpp,libtool,*.rej,.svn,litmain.sh,_darcs,*.la,po,__pycache__,CMakeFiles,.moc,*.o,*.gmo,.git,CMakeTmp,config.status,*.orig,*.pyc,moc_*.cpp,*.nvram,*.tmp,confstat,*.rcore,*~,confdefs.h,*.lo,.xsession-errors*,autom4te,*.csproj,core-dumps,*.elc,*.aux,.histfile.*,cmake_install.cmake,*.swap,*.m4,lost+found,.obj,.uic,.hg,*.part,Makefile.am,CVS,*.class,*.moc,*.pc,*.loT,*.po,lzo,CTestTestfile.cmake,.bzr,CMakeTmpQmake,ui_*.h,.pch,CMakeCache.txt,conftest,*.omf,*.vm*
exclude filters version=2
exclude folders[$e]=$HOME/.cache/,$HOME/.config/google-chrome/,$HOME/.mozilla/,$HOME/.themes/,$HOME/.thumbnails/
first run=false
folders[$e]=$HOME/
only basic indexing=true

So what should I do with that open window? If I close it will I corrupt something?

My CPU usage hardly spiked and when I ran top I didn't see baloo_file_extr at all.

And what does

org.kde.baloo: "/home/my_user_name"
Power state changed

mean?

Okay, panic mode over, I think. I tried Ctrl+Z but nothing happened. So I hit Enter and got back the prompt.

I then ran baloo-status again and got

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Indexed 3679 / 3679 files
Current size of index is 2.75 MiB
$

So for now, all is good

And krunner is behaving as well.

[GreyGeek]

Glad it worked out for you.
My rc file contains:

[General]
dbVersion=2
exclude filters=.git,*.moc,_darcs,.moc,core-dumps,CMakeCache.txt,.hg,*.part,*.vm*,*.tmp,*.nvra m,.obj,*.o,lost+found,*.orig,.bzr,.svn,qrc_*.cpp,* .rcore,*.pc,.uic,moc_*.cpp,CMakeFiles,*.la,*.omf,_ _pycache__,ui_*.h,lzo,*.lo,CVS,*.rej,*.elc,Makefil e.am,libtool,*.csproj,*.swap,CTestTestfile.cmake,* .aux,.histfile.*,*~,*.m4,litmain.sh,*.pyc,config.s tatus,conftest,po,cmake_install.cmake,.xsession-errors*,confdefs.h,*.class,*.gmo,.pch,*.loT,*.po,C MakeTmp,autom4te,confstat,CMakeTmpQmake
exclude filters version=2
first run=false

and my balooctl status gave:

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Indexed 128088 / 128088 files
Current size of index is 1.46 GiB

on this fully updated Neon User Edition box. I never notice baloo hindering my use of this box. I have 4 cores, 8 threads and 6Gb of RAM, which should be significantly faster than a dual core machine.

I'd wager that things have settled down for you. As files are added and/or deleted baloo indexing will kick in again. You will probably notice some lag in your use of your box. You can ignore it and baloo will finish its indexing, or you can give it a higher priority using KSysGuard, or you can turn off baloo indexing and just not use Dolphin's search features.

[chimak111]

Let's see. I've already rebooted once after the problem was sorted out. There wasn't any additional lag AFAICT.

I ran balooctl status, then deleted three files and ran balooctl status immediately thereafter:

$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Indexed 3635 / 3635 files
Current size of index is 3.93 MiB
$ rm baloo.txt f.txt fxzco.txt
$ balooctl status
Baloo File Indexer is running
Indexer state: Idle
Indexed 3632 / 3632 files
Current size of index is 4.38 MiB
$

Interesting that the size of index increased!