Powertoys Run does not search files/folders

[amzon-ex]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.49.1

Running as admin

• Yes

Area(s) with issue?

PowerToys Run

Steps to reproduce

I press Alt+Space and PT Run pops up. When I search for files/folders, no file/folder results show up, even when

1. I use the '?' trigger key
2. Use Windows Search troubleshooter to search for issues and fix them
3. Restart my computer
4. Restart PT as admin

Indexing is turned on for all drives and file/folder search ran as expected yesterday as well. Today, without any explicit changes made, it does not work. I can search successfully for the same file using Windows Search.

Log:
PowerToysReport_2021-11-06-11-45-46.zip

✔️ Expected Behavior

PT Run shows file/folder search results upon search.

❌ Actual Behavior

No file/folder results show up in PT Run.

Other Software

No response

[jaimecbernardo]

Couldn't find anything suspicious in the logs.
Does it find it in the global results?
Is it only a specific search that is failing or are searchs for all files failing?

[amzon-ex]

It is happening (seemingly?) at random. For some periods of time, PT Run completely stops showing search results from the explorer, with ? trigger AND in global results. However, it seems like some files that I have searched and opened recently show up.
For all other searches it fails.

[amzon-ex]

Now search has been constantly failing me for the past two days, so I'm posting some screenshots of this strange behaviour.

A file named credocuous.txt exists somewhere on my disk. When I type c it shows up (along with a few other names starting with c, but in no way all the possible results starting with c). But when I type cre the results vanish. In fact, typing out the name of entire file does not make it appear either.

[jaimecbernardo]

I've been unable to replicate it.
The results do disappear and reappear as they're recalculated.
Perhaps in your case this is taking longer than usual and timing out?
If you have task manager open, could you check for high CPU usage on PowerToys Run while trying to replicate this?

[amzon-ex]

For me the issue persists, I've been unable to search with PT Run ever since :(

As you say, the results are indeed supposed to disappear and reappear as more letters are typed, but that is not what happens. Also, as you asked, I kept task manager open while typing various letters. The "Powerlauncher" process appears and uses no CPU at all. Everything is perfectly "normal".

The key behaviour that I keep seeing is PT Run displaying some results from Search when I type a single letter. As soon as more letters are typed, no results are displayed anymore.

Can it have something to do with other settings in Windows?

[jaimecbernardo]

I've tried using the settings in bug report locally, but can't reproduce it.
Guess we'll have to try some theories.
After writing "?c" some files appear, right? After writing "?cre", they disappear. What about then hitting backspace until "?c" is written again? Do the results show again?

[amzon-ex]

What about then hitting backspace until "?c" is written again? Do the results show again?

Yes. Whatever results appeared after writing "c" or "cr" had appeared, they reappear if I start deleting letters from "cred" or "cre" for instance.

By the way, I seem to have (temporarily?) solved the issue (confirming this after searching successfully with a few random queries) after rebuilding the search index from settings. I don't know why this works, because Windows Search was working fine all this while.

[jaimecbernardo]

That's interesting. Has the issue appeared since then?
Something might be different in terms of the APIs used internally by Windows Search and what we use in the plugin.

[amzon-ex]

No, the issue hasn't appeared since. Though I cannot figure out in any case the exact reason why this might've happened.

[Martinxc]

I have a similar issue. Whenever I search for something like "07. Some Name - Title" it won't show any results, until I will back up to "07. Some Name - ". My file name in this test was "07. Some Name - Title.txt" Maybe because there is a "-" in there? I tried to rebuild indexing couple times, rebooted my PC couple times and always result is the same. Calculator plugin is disabled.

[x-desire]

I have the same issue as @Martinxc, sometimes. For example, when searching for foo.bar.file, when I search for ?foo or foo, the file is displayed. But as soon as I add a dot ?foo. or foo., the results are empty. Same if I add a space foo , the results are empty. When searching the same way through Windows Search, everything is fine. Restarting Powertoys doesn't help.

The weird thing is, this only happens sometimes, on some files. In this case, I downloaded a different file moments later - foo.bar.file2 and placed it in the same folder as the previous one. And search worked fine for that file.