Nautilus "Files" hangs when trying to type search string

[Philippe Lamalle]

Hi,

I recently installed Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (dual boot installation on a new Dell XPS15 laptop shipped with Windows 11 Pro).

For the last couple of days, when I try typing more than one letter in the files search menu, I get a ' "Files" is not responding ' message and have to force quit.

My /var/log/syslog (and a syslog.1) had grown to a large number of GB (so I won't attempt to attach it). I purged them a while ago but syslog has grown again to >23GB. It seems filled by lines all similar to these two:
Oct 19 16:58:57 [...] tracker-miner-f[2233]: g_file_equal: assertion 'G_IS_FILE (file1)' failed
Oct 19 16:58:57 [...] tracker-miner-f[2233]: g_file_has_prefix: assertion 'G_IS_FILE (file)' failed

nautilus:
  Installed: 1:42.2-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1:42.2-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 1:42.2-0ubuntu1 500
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:42.0-1ubuntu2 500
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages

Your help resolving this would be much appreciated.

Philippe

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: nautilus 1:42.2-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-52.58-generic 5.15.60
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-52-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Oct 19 17:20:24 2022
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.list-view' b'default-zoom-level' b"'small'"
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.preferences' b'default-folder-viewer' b"'list-view'"
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.preferences' b'fts-enabled' b'false'
 b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'initial-size' b'(1198, 1042)'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-10-11 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20220809.1)
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_nautilus:
 evince 42.3-0ubuntu2
 file-roller 3.42.0-1
 nautilus-extension-gnome-terminal 3.44.0-1ubuntu1
 nautilus-share 0.7.3-2ubuntu6

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please try to obtain a backtrace following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Backtrace#Generation and upload the backtrace (as an attachment) to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It seems the indexing service is also having an issue, probably hitting a bug on one of the files it tries to index and not dealing with the error correctly.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Tracker/Documentation/Debugging has the debugging details

is 'tracker search <...>' working or is it also having issues?

[Philippe Lamalle (jb2022)]

Hello and thanks for your replies.
I followed the instructions provided in your first reply to generate the attached gdb-nautilus.txt

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gdb didn't manage to get a backtrace it seems :(

did you try if 'tracker search <something>' is also misbehaving?

[Philippe Lamalle (jb2022)]

I performed a Files search with gdb running - since this is where my trouble lies. Files hanged as before. I tried ^C within the gdb screen, but without effect. I had to force quit Files before I could type anything in the gdb.

Now, I have tried again and was able to ^C in gdb with force quit in Files. The new gdb-nautilus.txt is attached, hope this is more useful.

Not sure what I have to do to find out about about tracker and would need more detailed guidance - being an end user and not an IT professional: according to Synaptic package manager I have tracker, tracker-extract and tracker-miner-fs 3.3.0-1 installed. But typing 'tracker' or 'tracker-control' results in 'command not found'.

[Philippe Lamalle (jb2022)]

Sorry, in second paragraph I meant *without* force quit in Files!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thanks, the new gdb file confirms it's hanging due to tracker

they renamed the utility to tracker3, could you try to
$ tracker3 search something

and share the output on the report?

[Philippe Lamalle (jb2022)]

Here is an attempt with tracker3...

[Philippe Lamalle (jb2022)]

Sebastien,

Sorry, haven't had time to pursue this recently... A little more searching led me to this question:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/346211/tracker-store-and-tracker-miner-fs-eating-up-my-cpu-on-every-startup

What I see appears completely similar. The syslog gets huge, filled with messages such as:
(tracker-miner-fs-3:7665): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: 22:26:55.266: g_file_equal: assertion 'G_IS_FILE (file1)' failed

Following the discussion at
https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/tracker/faq/#how-can-i-disable-tracker-in-gnome
I have executed
systemctl mask --user --now tracker-miner-fs-3.service

This seems to have solved my problem: syslog has stopped filling my hard drive, and the nautilus search in Files is back to normal functioning.
I don't know what I may be missing without tracker-miner, though.

Thanks again for your help - let me know if trying to get further debug information could be useful.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for nautilus (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]