Cant add folders to Search in Gnome Control Center

[SB]

When I go to Gnome Control Center-Search the bottom right gear is greyed out and I cant add any folders to Search.

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu Artful Aardvark (development branch)
Release: 17.10
Codename: artful

apt-cache policy gnome-control-center
gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.24.2-0ubuntu4
  Candidate: 1:3.24.2-0ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.24.2-0ubuntu4 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.24.2-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-26.30-generic 4.10.17
Uname: Linux 4.10.0-26-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.5-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Fri Jul 7 12:36:34 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-06-17 (19 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Alpha amd64 (20170616)
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

This is mostly a duplicate of bug 1666676.

Run this command in a terminal, then log out and log back in:

sudo apt install tracker

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I think it could be a valid design decision to show the gear button disabled if tracker isn't installed/running. On the other hand, it doesn't provide any information to the user about what's wrong.

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[SB (emehntehtt)]

sudo apt install tracker helped and now the icon is no longer greyed out. I checked the bug you linked and I definitely think that search in new Ubuntu Session needs to be improved, Unity dash searched for all my files easily and they were always very quickly accessible, KDE does the same with Baloo indexing, everything is easily found in KDE menu search. That is the feature I miss the most from Unity on this new Gnome based session, that and minimize on click option for dock.

[SB (emehntehtt)]

I noticed that Ubuntu does not have tracker-gui package in its archives, is GUI for tracker still maintained in any form? Where can I configure tracker not to index file contents, only file names?

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

tracker 2.0 does not provide tracker-gui any more. If there are search settings you need to be able to configure but can't, please file a bug with GNOME.

There is one other place to customize file search but I think this only affects the Files app search and not what is actually indexed.
1. Open the Files app.
2. Click the Files app menu in the top bar and select Preferences.
3. Switch to the Search and Preview tab.
4. Turn off "Full Text Search: Set as default"

Now when you do searches in the Files app, only file names will be searched by default. To do a one-time search for file content also, click the little drop down arrow next to the search box and choose Full Text.

[SB (emehntehtt)]

Thanks for the information, I am using gnome-search-tool for my searches and it is pretty good, Gnome Files I didnt use much. As for configuring tracker I wasnt able to find any config files for it where I can tell it to avoid indexing contents of files, perhaps I will submit a bug/feature request with Gnome, I checked this:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Tracker/Documentation/Configuration

But it didnt help and I think it refers to an old version of tracker.