GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 706201
Shell search does find only programs shipped with gnome
Last modified: 2014-01-16 05:28:33 UTC
Created attachment 252010 [details] Searching for Pidgin -> No result, but it is installed and you can find it browsing all Apps Hello there, following issue is bothering me: After update to gnome 3.8 (some time ago, because of this issue I switched to KDE, but would like to return to gnome) the shell search does not find all programs when searching. E.g. thunderbird, chromium, vlc are not found, but applications shipped with gnome are. In "show all applications" I see the icons of all programs, so the search is having the problem. Gnome-Shell extensions installed are "dash-to-dock" and "topicons", but disabling them has no effect. Ask for more information if you like, don't know which are in this case here useful ... I posted this description on the Arch Board (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=166631). One user mentioned the same behavior.
Hm. I haven't seen this before. Can you try switching your system language to English? The search might be having trouble with localized names.
I changed language to en_us. No effect. Are there logs which could help?
I haven't see this either. There's no reason we shouldn't pick up any application with a .desktop file. Maybe you could check to see that the applications in question have installed their desktop files in the correct place?
To stay with the pidgin example from the screenshot, a locate gives me following: /home/me/.gnome2/panel2.d/default/launchers/pidgin.desktop /usr/share/applications/pidgin.desktop In /usr/share/applications/ are also other .desktop files which are not found.
Thanks for the information. That should indeed work.
I have the same problem. Some programs are found, some not. All the gnome programs I tried were found, but many other programs did not turn up. Programs that do turn up: calculator gnome-terminal settings nethack all games from humble bundles (eg trine, hammerfight, torchlight) Programs that do not turn up: firefox thunderbird evolution pidgin xchat gvim All of these are listed in the program overview of the gnome shell. I also updated to gnome 3.8 from an earlier version and am also using the german version. I created a new user and the problem didn't occur there, so my guess is that because of the update some configuration files are making problems.
I tried deleting the following directorys in my existing user account: ~/.gnome* ~/.gconf* ~/.cache ~/.mission-control ~/.config/dconf/* Unfortunately it didn't help, the programs still can't be found by the search.
And are there copies of the corresponding .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications?
Of the applications not turning up in the search only gvim is in ~/.local/share/applications. The .desktop files for firefox, thunderbird, evolution, pidgin and xchat are under /usr/share/applications.
For me in ~/.local/share/applications are only very few .desktop files, mainly wine related stuff. But for example firefox.desktop is there, which is not found either.
I can't reproduce this at all - all the mentioned applications show up in shell search as soon as I have them installed.
After updating to Gnome 3.10 the issue disappeared. All my applications are now available through shell search. Anyway thanks to the developers for their suggestions!
phew, glad to hear it works now!
Hi,all I have the same problem. Some programs are found, some not. BUT,I can find all programs when I login GNOME as ROOT.
Hi,Guys There is the way to fix the problem in GNOME3.8. Remove all files in ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/, [run the following command],and restart shell,and you will find all apps with shell search: 1,Remove files: rm ~/.local/share/desktop-directories/* 2,[Alt]+[F2]&&Typing r,[Enter]to restart shell