tracker-miner-fs is taking 90% of CPU

Question

tracker-miner-fs is taking 90% of CPU. I am using Ubuntu 20.04.

vanadium · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-13T16:45:27.393

21

Have some patience. It eventually will go over.

Tracker is an indexing system. It searches all files for words, which are included in a database so you can quickly find files containing specific words.

The first time, tracker needs to index all files. On subsequent times, only changed and new files are also included in the index. It is typical for Tracker to require some minutes of high processor activity to check the file system for changed files and update the index.

‣ If, despite your patience, tracker keeps using high cpu, then there may be an issue with the database. In that case, clearing the database and having tracker reconstruct it may help:

tracker reset --hard ; tracker daemon --start

Beware, all files need reindexing, so there will be some processor useage for a while.

‣ It may be that you have a folder with frequently changing content, e.g. a Downloads folder. You can selectively disabling tracking a folder by placing a hidden file .trackerignore in the folder, or disable searching the folder in the Settings - Search dialog (button "Search locations:" in Ubuntu 20.04, gear wheel in older versions).

‣ If Tracker overall annoys you, you can disable it completely. File name based search in nautilus will still work (and be quite a bit faster).

edited Jul 13 '20 at 16:45

answered Jul 13 '20 at 16:38

vanadium

88,010

tracker reset --hard ; tracker daemon --start worked for me on 20.04. Previously extract and store work taking vast amounts of CPU time and "tracker status" said to would take 84 days to complete. Finished indexing in a matter of minutes once database cleaned up. You do have to go past the "danger this will delete everything" bits on the reset command though! – David Oct 27 '20 at 09:00
@vanadium : Does tracker-miner-fs has something to do with Zeitgeist or are these 2 different software? What software/components make usage of tracker-miner-fs? It is not clear to me. – Rudy Vissers Dec 18 '20 at 09:52
1

Zeitgeist indeed is different and independent. Gnome-Shell (Application overview) and gnome applications (Files, Documents, Photos) use it. Despite the impression my answer here may suggest, I always disable tracker right away. – vanadium Dec 18 '20 at 09:56
1

Phew. I just happened to have been on a torrent tracking website which coincidentally has the name "tracker" in it. While I was downloading a huge torrent, the service kicked in. I thought I had been infected hahaha. Phew :D – chx101 Sep 17 '21 at 19:51

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 08 '22 at 20:45

3

Tracker (and miner) has plenty of configuration options accessible via dconf-editor under /org/freedesktop/tracker/.

Specifically to make miner less CPU aggressive org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files throttle value can be set to anything between 0 and 20, the higher the slower.

Also, setting org.freedesktop.Tracker.Extract wait-for-miner-fs to true should prevent running tracker-miner-fs and tracker-extract in parallel.

edited Nov 08 '22 at 20:45

Pablo Bianchi

15,657

answered May 21 '21 at 21:42

yrtimiD

141

There is also a switch that prevents indexing while on battery. – Jan-Åke Larsson May 17 '22 at 05:25

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 08 '22 at 20:53

Run the following commands in a shell:

echo -e "\nHidden=true\n" | sudo tee --append /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-extract.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-apps.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-fs.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-miner-user-guides.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/tracker-store.desktop > /dev/null
Interval in days to check whether the filesystem is up to date in the database. 0 forces crawling anytime, -1 forces it only after unclean shutdowns, and -2 disables it entirely. Default: -1
gsettings set org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files crawling-interval -2
Set to false to completely disable any file monitoring. Default: true
gsettings set org.freedesktop.Tracker.Miner.Files enable-monitors false
tracker reset --hard # Remove tracker database

Similar answer: CPU load - tracker-store and tracker-miner-fs eating up my CPU on every startup
Standard desktop entry keys: Hidden should have been called Deleted. It means the user deleted (at his level) something that was present (at an upper level, e.g. in the system dirs). It's strictly equivalent to the .desktop file not existing at all, as far as that user is concerned.
FAQ - Tracker: How can I control what Tracker indexes?

Could you please explain the details of what this command does? — azmeuk, Dec 01 '21 at 08:53
@azmeuk stop to autostart of tracker-miner related processes and remove the existing indexing database — wsdzbm, Dec 01 '21 at 16:30
On Ubuntu 22.04 is Tracker3: org.freedesktop.Tracker3.Miner.Files — Pablo Bianchi, Nov 08 '22 at 21:01

tracker-miner-fs is taking 90% of CPU

3 Answers3

Interval in days to check whether the filesystem is up to date in the database. 0 forces crawling anytime, -1 forces it only after unclean shutdowns, and -2 disables it entirely. Default: -1

Set to false to completely disable any file monitoring. Default: true

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