Dash search gives no result

Question

I just upgraded my Ubuntu 11.10 (x86) to Ubuntu 12.04 (x86). The upgrade completed without any errors.

Since then, I am unable to access any of the applications in the Dash. The Dash seems to be empty. When I search for some application like gedit, it says "Sorry, there is nothing that matches your search".

Is there any way to fix it?

possible duplicate of Unity Applications lens is empty – André Marinho Jun 27 '15 at 15:46 — André Marinho, Jun 27 '15 at 15:46
try sudo apt-get install --reinstall unity-scope-home – Amir Fo May 04 '20 at 09:46 — Amir Fo, May 04 '20 at 09:46

score 44 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 04 '12 at 09:45

44

None of these fixes worked for me. But after more searching:

rm ~/.cache/software-center -R

worked like a charm. I did need to run:

unity --reset &

afterwards though, for the changes to take effect within dash, but the software center just started working straightaway.

edited Apr 04 '12 at 09:45

jokerdino

41,320

answered Apr 03 '12 at 23:02

Andrew

441

7

In Ubuntu 13.10 the second command gives: ERROR: the reset option is now deprecated – Drew Noakes Feb 24 '14 at 13:56
4

In Ubuntu 14.04 I have the same issue: ERROR: the reset option is now deprecated – Fernando Paladini Jun 15 '14 at 13:14
3

unity --replace & is the non-deprecated version. – ulidtko Nov 14 '15 at 15:05
Well, for 16.04 this just worked! Although Ubuntu crashed and I had to power-cycle the machine. – OmarOthman Oct 19 '16 at 14:36

score 32 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

32

You should ensure that you have these 2 packages installed:

For 12.10 and older:
- unity-place-applications
- unity-place-files
For newer versions:
- unity-lens-applications
- unity-lens-files

Then logout/login and you will get back you the 2 lenses and the search will search applications and files.

edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

Community

1

answered Apr 29 '11 at 06:54

didrocks

2,452

I had a fresh install of 12.04, not an upgrade. Just wanted to point that out since someone else had said that one of the previous answers was for upgrade path only. These packages were not installed. Once installed, all was well with the world. – twindham Feb 07 '13 at 19:23
These packages seem to be unavailable on 14.04. – jobin Jun 16 '14 at 12:47
Instead of doing a logout/login I executed unity --reset &, it worked! – dusan Aug 18 '14 at 16:24
2

In Ubuntu 14.04 they are called unity-place-applications and unity-lens-files – MadMike Sep 27 '14 at 08:16
2

@MadMike thanks. But the are both called unity-lens-… – jmk Nov 24 '14 at 10:44
Installing the unity-lens-applications package fixed this for me after upgrading to 14.04, thank goodness! – Iguananaut Jan 29 '15 at 01:35
this answer's suggestion worked for me on Ubuntu server 12.04 – mastazi Apr 14 '15 at 08:24
In Ubuntu 20.04 LTS this finally worked after trying all of the others – Fabio Jun 01 '20 at 03:16
After years, I found this answer. It worked. Finding that my firefox shortcut was gone (thanks snap) in Ubuntu 21.10 was the straw that broke (snapped) this camel's back! – user643722 Oct 17 '21 at 12:23

score 18 · Answer 3 · edited May 29 '12 at 15:35

18

In my case none of the solutions above worked.

The solution I found:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/zeitgeist

Then close your session and login again, and dash worked again.

edited May 29 '12 at 15:35

jokerdino

41,320

answered May 08 '12 at 16:33

BlakeAndMortimer

201
1
2

This is the only solution which helped me. In my case dash stopped to search for applications after a forced shutdown. – George Polevoy Jan 06 '15 at 13:23

score 10 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 27 '12 at 09:02

Same here. After upgrading from 11.04 to 11.10 to 12.04 (beta2) the DASH menu doesn't list any applications. Previously typing "calc" for example would list the calculator and LibreOffice Calc. Now, nothing shows up, neither in the main DASH window, nor in the application lens.

However, in the main lens songs (FLAC) do show up, but for instance documents don't. Furthermore, I have regular crashes of unity-lens-video. Apport told me this problem had already been reported. Maybe this is related?

Looking a bit closer in ~/.xsession-errors I found that the zeitgeist daemon crashed:

(zeitgeist-datahub:2329): LibZeitgeist-CRITICAL **: Unable to connect to Zeitgeist daemon: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.zeitgeist.Engine: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process /usr/bin/zeitgeist-daemon exited with status 1

According to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/zeitgeist/+bug/986191 this happens when upgrading from Ubuntu 11.04 to 12.04. Removing ~/.local/share/zeitgeist/activity.sqlite solves the problem. I tried it and it works :-).

Note that this answer is specifically for the 11.04 -> 12.04 upgrade path. For those updating from Oneiric (11.10), this doesn't apply. — Scott Severance, Jul 10 '12 at 08:40

score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 30 '11 at 00:05

8

I just encountered this problem earlier today on my laptop. It surprised me, given that I couldn't think of any reason it didn't show up until now.

After some struggling, I eventually resolved the issue by opening a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T if you don't already have it pinned to the launcher) and using unity --replace &. (You could probably also do this with Unity's Alt+F2 prompt, but it too went missing for me at the time.)

answered Nov 30 '11 at 00:05

Knowledge Cube

14,781

Works great! This command will log you out and discard the previous session. So save everything important before. – czerasz Apr 24 '15 at 11:32
@czerasz This shouldn't log you out, just restart the Unity shell. What you're describing sounds more like a crash. – Knowledge Cube Apr 27 '15 at 02:23
@Christopher Kyle Horton NO this is not a crash. For example upon the restart of a new session, you will keep access to external storage without having to re-type the password. But all your previously opened windows are lost, as you start a new session. That's why you better save your work before. – Antonio Oct 08 '15 at 14:19
@Antonio I've never lost any of my open windows before when running this command. It only restarts the Unity shell, not the whole session. That's what suggests a crash to me if you run this command but your windows aren't kept; something went wrong in the process. – Knowledge Cube Oct 09 '15 at 06:11

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited Nov 27 '11 at 21:56

7

I experienced this problem on 11.10 and solved it by installing unity-place-applications and unity-place-files

edited Nov 27 '11 at 21:56

Jorge Castro

71,754

answered Nov 26 '11 at 22:37

Chris

71

2

These packages seem to be unavailable on 14.04. – jobin Jun 16 '14 at 12:48
@i08in: unity-lens-applications and unity-lens-files are what you need.
$ dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall | grep unity-lens-applications unity-lens-applications install $ dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall | grep unity-lens-files unity-lens-files install
– OmarOthman Oct 19 '16 at 14:43

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 08 '15 at 14:15

In Ubuntu Trusty 14.04, I loosed all Applications in Dash after an Ubuntu Update of update-manager-core package.

The solution was:

$ rm ~/.cache/software-center -R

However as said earlier here the unity --reset command is now deprecated. the solution is now:

<Alt> <F2> and type unity

This will kill your session (please save your work before) and restart unity.

Dash search gives no result

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