Why my files from an NTFS partition are not shown in Gnome Activities search?

Question

My files are in NTFS drive 4416017316016770 which is automount on bootup. No files however is shown during gnome search from my NTFS drive. Although lot of crawling work of tracker has gone for hours now.

android@clr:~
$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465.8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   292M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2   8:2    0   512M  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda3   8:3    0 108.6G  0 part /
├─sda4   8:4    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda5   8:5    0    79G  0 part 
└─sda6   8:6    0 277.4G  0 part /media/4416017316016770
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

4416017316016770 contains common directory for me (linux+ windows dual boot)

i have full read/write access to that partition.

android@clr:~
$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=81c4bc1c-1a7e-4822-acae-220bbe572240 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=1A74-A270  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=10842320-1286-413f-bf08-3e0ca76bcf2f none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/disk/by-uuid/4416017316016770 /media/4416017316016770 ntfs-3g  defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8  0 0


android@clr:~
$ sudo cat /etc/updatedb.conf
PRUNE_BIND_MOUNTS="yes"
# PRUNENAMES=".git .bzr .hg .svn"
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/spool /var/lib/os-prober /var/lib/ceph /home/.ecryptfs /var/lib/schroot"
PRUNEFS="NFS afs autofs binfmt_misc ceph cgroup cgroup2 cifs coda configfs curlftpfs debugfs devfs devpts devtmpfs ecryptfs ftpfs fuse.ceph fuse.cryfs fuse.encfs fuse.glusterfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse fuse.mfs fuse.rozofs fuse.sshfs fusectl fusesmb hugetlbfs iso9660 lustre lustre_lite mfs mqueue ncpfs nfs nfs4 ocfs ocfs2 proc pstore rpc_pipefs securityfs shfs smbfs sysfs tmpfs tracefs udev udf usbfs"
android@clr:~
$

CATFISH SEARCH

i want verkhnenovokutlumbetyevo to be shown on gnome activities search.

i mounted the volume now to home itself.. still gnome search not working.

[android@android ~]$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system>             <mount point>  <type>  <options>  <dump>  <pass>
UUID=9DB8-17F3                            /boot/efi      vfat    umask=0077 0 2
UUID=4ac0a64a-e4eb-4921-bb96-9bcfef722aa4 /              ext4    defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/disk/by-uuid/4416017316016770 /home/android/4416017316016770 ntfs-3g defaults 0 0

FINALLY SOLVED . THANKS TO POST BELOW IN ANSWER

Default mounts are read/write. Not sure if tracker then is just using the read only mode which does work. But if Windows fast start up is on, the mount is read only and Gnome will not see it. Check Windows fast start up, it does get turned back on with Windows updates. http://askubuntu.com/questions/843153/ubuntu-16-showing-windows-10-partitions & https://askubuntu.com/questions/145902/unable-to-mount-windows-ntfs-filesystem-due-to-hibernation — oldfred, Apr 27 '20 at 15:03
no update in windows. i have disabled windows fast boot. and i always restart my windows to boot to my linux. So from windows side it is not in fast boot or hibernation or any other like so. — nazar2sfive, Apr 27 '20 at 15:09

sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-01T11:54:27.417

To have tracker index a directory that is not included in its default list, you have to take several actions. I have just managed to have indexed a mounted windows partition, which was previously not indexed, so the description below worked for me.

I took several actions, and some of them may be redundant. It would take some more trial and error to find the exact combination/s that produce the intended results. But this configuration (perhaps "in excess") would work.

Add a bind mount as explained here (also linked in another answer). Assume the mount is in $HOME/mount_dir. It will point to the same directory as /media/4416017316016770 (in my case, /mnt/windows). The fact that you see it twice in catfish probably means the binding is ok. Note that this mentions a soft link instead of a mount should work. I didn't try it.
Add directory /media/4416017316016770 in gsettings org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files index-recursive-directories. You could use dconf-editor (install it if you don't have it), navigate to org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files, and modify key index-recursive-directories. My current value is ['&DESKTOP', '&DOCUMENTS', '&DOWNLOAD', '&MUSIC', '&PICTURES', '&VIDEOS', '/mnt/windows', '/bin'] (I have added also /bin to test the difference between adding a directory in the same drive and a different drive).
Add directories /media/4416017316016770 and $HOME/mount_dir in key org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files index-single-directories. My current value is ['$HOME', '/mnt/windows', '$HOME/mount_dir'].
Set org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files index-removable-devices to True.
Stop and start the daemons.

$ tracker daemon -t
$ tracker daemon -s

Make sure indexing finished with

$ tracker daemon -f

Check if your file is indexed with

$ tracker search "verkhnenovokutlumbetyevo"

It may require reboot. As said, perhaps some of the additions are not needed.

does tracker also index inside file. it seems it is quite slow than mlocate/updatedb. — nazar2sfive, May 01 '20 at 11:47
@nazar2sfive - tracker can store much more info than the file names alone. See https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/tracker/overview/ — sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio, May 01 '20 at 11:51
@nazar2sfive - That I am not sure. At one point I had to configure baloo that way, to avoid using too much storage space. I suspect you are seeing the same with tracker. — sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio, May 01 '20 at 11:55
wow true. it had happened with baloo. Tracker is doing more than just indexing filename. — nazar2sfive, May 01 '20 at 11:57

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 27 '20 at 16:53

I Hope this shall help You: from This post

https://superuser.com/questions/1260226/gnome-activities-search-does-not-show-most-files

Why doesn't Gnome Search find your files?

Well, by default Gnome only indexes files which reside directly in your home directory or in the folders Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos.

Is there some way to search in other folders?

Yes, there is. To add a folder to the index open gnome-control-center, open the "Search" menu, click on the little gearwheel symbol and switch to the tab "Other". Now you can add a folder of your choice by clicking on the plus symbol, unfortunately this works only for folders located on the same drive as your home folder. How to index files located on a different drive than your home folder?

For that you need to bind the directory you want indexed to a folder located on home's drive.

For example use:

cd ~/
mkdir ./searchdirectory
sudo mount --bind /some/directory ./searchdirectory

To make it permanent you would need to write a new entry to "/etc/fstab".

For example like this:

/some/directory /home/youruser/searchdirectory none bind 0 0

nope not working. it did bind to searchdirectory but files from ntfs volume is not showing. catfish now shows double files however - one from ntfs volume and another from this bind directory — nazar2sfive, Apr 28 '20 at 03:48

Why my files from an NTFS partition are not shown in Gnome Activities search?

2 Answers2