Albert v0.8.0 does not store WebSearch entries

[josede]

Hello,
I presuppose, that the WebSearch tab can be enhanced with own entries.
However, these entries are only mantained as log as no shutdown of the computer happens: Albert can be closed (Alt+F4) and started again, the enhancements of the search engines is there. When a shutdown (reboot) of the computer happens however, the enhancements are not available any more. With the button "Restore", six standard search engine entries can be loaded again.

Questions:

• is the assumption above correct?
• where does Albert store the entries of the tab WebSearch?

Regards

[ManuelSchneid3r]

is the assumption above correct?

Yes

where does Albert store the entries of the tab WebSearch?

~/.local/share/albert . The filenames are according to the plugins

This is hard to debug. After a reboot before albert is started, is there a websearch.dat in the given directory?

[josede]

Although I tried several times changing the websearches and rebooting the computer always loosing all my entries, today it works correct. Sorry for reporting an obsolete issue.

The sizes of the files in ~/.local/share/albert/ seem not to be affected by changes in the respective plugins, like inserting entries in Websearch, removing indexes in Files to "0 files indexed".

Question: Where exactly is the parent folder where I can store the file ".albertignore"?

Remark: I expected to find in ~/.config/manuelschneid3r/albert.conf a section [websearch] containing the URL entries in plain text, I still do not understand, where these are stored.

I would like to thank you for this great tool, even if it is in an early phase. I have used several launchers in the past: Gnome Do, Kuper, Synapse and Launchy (works better under Windows), but I consider Albert to be my favourite. I encourage you to continue the development and improvement of the stability of Albert.

Regards.

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Please give informations about environment. Os, DesktopEnv, Qt version, albert version.

The sizes of the files in ~/.local/share/albert/ seem not to be affected by changes in the respective plugins, like inserting entries in Websearch, removing indexes in Files to "0 files indexed".

Be aware that the data is stored at process termination. Please report back if this is still the case after termination.

Question: Where exactly is the parent folder where I can store the file ".albertignore"?

.albertignore is simply a file you can put into any folder. The indexer of the files plugin will ignore the files that match any expressions listed in this file.

Remark: I expected to find in ~/.config/manuelschneid3r/albert.conf a section [websearch] containing the URL entries in plain text, I still do not understand, where these are stored.

Data is stored in the data files in $XDG-DATA-DIR, i.e. most often ~/.local/share/albert/. I.e. the search engines are stored in ~/.local/share/albert/websearch.dat. But its binary.

I would like to thank you for this great tool, even if it is in an early phase. I have used several launchers in the past: Gnome Do, Kuper, Synapse and Launchy (works better under Windows), but I consider Albert to be my favourite. I encourage you to continue the development and improvement of the stability of Albert.

Thank you. I will. I could use some help, just in case youre a techie 😉

[josede]

Today it happened again: after starting the computer, the Websearch Plugin window was empty. As usual, I could [Restore] the six "default" search engines: Google, Youtube, Amazon, Ebay, GitHub and Wolfram Alpha. My entries got lost again :-(.

As I already told, the files containing the data of the plugins in /home//.local/share/albert/ seem not to be affected when configurations are done in the plugins, like entering additional search engines.
I have the impresion, that when entering additional engines, these are stored somewhere else. Could you please check it?
I hope you can fix the bug. The search engines represent probably the most important feature, because they can be very well configured.
My environment:
Linux Mint xfce 17.2 , 64 bit, Albert v0.8.0.

[josede]

... of course, I meant "/home/the_user/.local/share/albert/"...

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Does this happen too, if you close albert by Alt+F4 and start it again?

[ManuelSchneid3r]

@josede Just for information. You should not have to restore anything. The engines should be loaded on start.

Please close albert. Delete the websearch.dat. Start albert ind terminal to use the output. Add a engine. Close albert. Start albert again in terminal. An post both outputs here.

[josede]

It didn't happen untill now, that my entries disapeared after closing with ALT+F4.
I could not save the output when starting Albert in the terminal, am not an expert at the terminal.

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Use albert | tee output.txt. I will try to reproduce the error in a vm. Please give me some instructions how to install from ppa. I am not an expert with ubuntu repos :D

[josede]

I took the commands from you Wiki :-)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flexiondotorg/albert
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install albert

[josede]

the command produced an empty output file.
I closed Albert, I deleted websearch.dat, I started Albert again, I enterd an additional search engine. The file websearch.dat was created again, is now 973 bytes, the first one was 2035 bytes, regardless of how many engines I added. (I added 8 engines)

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Okay just tried it by myself. Closing manually does not produce this problem. Closing a terminal running albert does. This means that the unix signal handling is broken.

[josede]

I started Albert automatically (link to autostart directory) or manually in the GUI, I never used the terminal. Since yesterday, Albert is working correctly. Thank you very much for your attention.
I defined some search engines (dict.cc, LEO, PONS, startpage, Duden, Wikipedia). I can send them to you, maybe other users wish to benefit from them.

[ManuelSchneid3r]

Fine. The problem with the engines is, that untill the app is not translated, it will not make much sense to add a lot of default engines, since they differ in any country. Report back if there are any problems.

[ManuelSchneid3r]

I opened a collective issue #197 for termination / serialization problems on unix. If you want to track it make sure you watch it. Please continue any discussion related to this problem in #197.