Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting & Diagnostics

1. Hotkey (Cmd+Space) Does Not Open Look

• Spotlight Conflict: Ensure the default macOS Spotlight shortcut has been disabled or reassigned.
  • Open System Settings -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts... -> Spotlight -> Uncheck Show Spotlight search.
• Accessibility Permissions: If Look does not have Accessibility permission, macOS will drop global keystrokes.
  • Open System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility -> Toggle Look Off and On.
• Process Stuck: Quit any hung instance:

  killall Look || true

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2. Results Seem Stale, Missing, or Empty

• Force Reload Configuration:
  • Press Cmd+Shift+; while Look is open to trigger an immediate config re-read and cache invalidation.
• Inspect Scan Limits & Roots:
  • Open ~/.look.config and verify file_scan_roots includes the expected directories (e.g. ~/Documents, ~/Desktop).
  • Verify that file_scan_limit has not been exceeded.
• Inspect Exclude Rules:
  • Ensure parent directory basenames are not matched by skip_dir_names or file_exclude_paths.

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3. Database Diagnostics & Repair

Look stores its candidates, search frecency, and tasks in a local SQLite database at:

~/Library/Application Support/look/look.db

Inspecting Indexed Items

sqlite3 "$HOME/Library/Application Support/look/look.db" \
  "SELECT id, title, use_count FROM candidates ORDER BY use_count DESC LIMIT 20;"

Resetting the Search Index

If the local database becomes corrupted or out of sync:

killall Look
rm "$HOME/Library/Application Support/look/look.db"
# Relaunch Look - it will recreate the database automatically on startup

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4. Enabling Verbose Debug Logs

Run Look from Terminal with debug flags:

LOOK_LOG_LEVEL=debug /Applications/Look.app/Contents/MacOS/Look

Or stream live logs via macOS log stream:

log stream --predicate 'subsystem == "noah-code.Look"' --level debug