mlocate does not work for root, even if root in mlocate group

Bug #592193 reported by IanBall
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
mlocate (Ubuntu)
New
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: mlocate

When doing a sudo su - and working as root, locate never returns any results.

Curiously, when I use stracein the form
# strace locate <filename> > locate.out
and redirect to a file, there are results to be found in the file locate.out

For example, I have a file /home/ian/Documents/ws_20010.wma
The following usage of locate as root returns no results:
# locate ws_20010

However if I use strace, there are results which can only be seen if I redirect the output to a file
# strace locate ws_20010 > afile
# cat afile
/home/ian/Documents/ws_20010.wma
/home/ian/Documents/ws_20011.wma
#

What should happen is that root gets results of the search, regardless of if root is part of the mlocate group.

I do have my normal user in the mlocate group, there is no problem there.

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10
# apt-cache policy mlocate
mlocate:
  Installed: 0.21.1-2
  Candidate: 0.21.1-2
  Version table:
 *** 0.21.1-2 0
        500 http://at.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

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