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Help with "Recreate Full Text Search Index"


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For the second time in a year, Evernote's search (Mac Desktop version) has begun to fail to return results that turn up when searching in the mobile or Web version. This problem usually manifests for me after an update or a reinstall (I just scrapped 6.14 beta 2 and reinstalled my last "favorite" version, 6.11). 

Anyway, my guess is that something breaks during the build of the Full Text Search index.

I know how to locate the option to recreate the full text search index in the (hidden) Troubleshooting menu, but I find the process to be somewhat cryptic. For one thing, I don't know how long the "recreation" process is supposed to take. I have a lot of notes (upwards of 20,000) so I can appreciate that it'll take "some time," but... is it a ten-minute process? An hour? 24 hours? Do I need to leave the computer on overnight? Do I need to adjust the power management settings so it doesn't go to sleep? Will the Activity Log give me a sense as to when it is done?

Also: how long should I wait before trying it anew? If I wait an hour and search still isn't working, should I just start over?  And does that "undo" the work that I've already done? And at what point do I need to stop relying on this particular tool and instead scrape everything and just reinstall, hoping for a correct search indexing from a new installation? 

I've posted some of these questions before in other threads, but thought it might warrant a standalone thread, especially if others needed help with this arcane command. :)

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On 2/6/2018 at 11:05 AM, jbushnell1 said:

Will the Activity Log give me a sense as to when it is done?

The Activity Log shows the activity as the index build is in progress.  No activity = completed

A rough estimate is about an hour for me; 12,000 notes/ 10GB on a Mac mini

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Well, there's plenty of activity (this is what appears in the last five minutes or so) but most of it doesn't appear pertinent to the index build. Is there specific syntax that I could search for? Does it output a "reindexing complete"-type message ever?

Screen Shot 2018-02-06 at 2.25.49 PM.png

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If I filter only for messages with "reindexing" in them, I get messages pertinent to the reindexing, but I can't really glean a sense of progress from these. The fact that the last one was maybe half an hour ago might indicate that the reindexing process is over? My searches still don't work, though, so maybe I need to reinstall and hope for the best?

Screen Shot 2018-02-06 at 2.29.22 PM.png

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8 minutes ago, jbushnell1 said:

(I've also tried the "full sync" option of holding the Shift and Option keys on my keyboard and clicking the sync wheel, but that doesn't seem to be doing the trick either.)

Thats a good idea.  If the database is incomplete, the full sync will also be incomplete

If you post examples of your search page, parameters and expected results we might see other issues

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Sure (and thanks for your help)!

Here's a random note from 2016 that I can find by scrolling back through a notebook... but when I search for a term that appears in the note title, body, and image--zero results. Pretty clear that something is amiss there...

Screen Shot 2018-02-06 at 5.48.58 PM.png

Screen Shot 2018-02-06 at 5.51.20 PM.png

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Just to continue to use this thread to track my slow groping toward a solution, I went ahead and rebuilt the Evernote for Mac database using these steps (found elsewhere), though this also didn't fix the problem, and in fact it triggered a previously dormant known bug for Snippet View in 6.11, so things have actually gotten worse... :( 

1. Open Evernote for Mac
2. Select Evernote > About Evernote
3. Press and hold the Option key on your keyboard and select Open database folder (keep this folder open)
4. Select Evernote > Quit Evernote from the menu bar
5. Move the numbered folder from the database folder to your computer's desktop
     * If you have more than one numbered folder, move each one
6. Open Evernote and log in to your Evernote account

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3 minutes ago, jbushnell1 said:

5. Move the numbered folder from the database folder to your computer's desktop
     * If you have more than one numbered folder, move each one
6. Open Evernote and log in to your Evernote account

Just a warning.  Evernote will rebuild the database drop from the master version on the servers, however the rebuild doesn't include Local Notebooks or unsync'd notes

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Just random thoughts here from a Windows user,  so your mileage will vary anyway,  but I rebuilt the index on a 41,000+ note database a few weeks ago.  That took around 11 hours,  and the computer appeared to be usable for other things during that time.  I didn't try Evernote though - didn't want to interrupt the process.

I'd imagine that the duration would vary with your connection and processor speeds,  database size and system type (SSD vs HDD) so any sort of forecast would be difficult even assuming you weren't also using the system for additional tasks.  I just left my laptop to get on with it overnight.

Not something you'd wish to start just before an important meeting,  but also no big deal to schedule in at an appropriate time as a bit of useful maintenance...

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Any info from evernote on this? I am doing a full index rebuild and there is no visible sign of progress or if it is still progressing. It cannot find a note that is clearly visible. I copied a string of text from it to use in the search box so I know there aren't any errors there. 

gazumped, how did you know it was finished after 11 hours? Did you see progress? 

Thanks. 

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I was looking at CPU & disk activity while it continued.  After around 11 hours Evernote dropped off the scale for either one (Task Manager was more active!) so I took it that things were completed.  I had used the computer a couple of times during the process just to see whether it was possible,  and things were basically normal;  I'd say just ignore the whole thing - you might see somewhat slower performance,  but if you can live with that,  keep going!  Work and shut down as normal.

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14 minutes ago, Lucinda said:

there is no visible sign of progress or if it is still progressing.

As per the above post, the Activity Log shows the rebuild activity.

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In my case I have a search failing which is only searching on attributes and tags, not text content, but was given the same advice to apply full text reindexing. Very little showing in the Activity log.

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3 hours ago, AndyDent said:

failing which is only searching on attributes and tags, not text content

This should be a different discussion; please provide details on your search terms.

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  • 6 months later...

UPDATE: I did eventually solve this problem back in February, although I wish I'd recorded how, since I'm having the same problem now in November, having just updated to 7.5.2. I think the solution was something boring, like "ignore everything and wait." I upgraded at around 10:20 am (on 11/8/2018) and now (10:55) search is not finding a number of notes that I know are there. But rather than panicking, forcing a re-index, or rebuilding the database I'm just going to let Evernote run as normal, and I'll wait to see how long it is before searching begins to return to normal. I'll post updates.

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44 minutes ago, jbushnell1 said:

UPDATE: I did eventually solve this problem back in February, although I wish I'd recorded how, since I'm having the same problem now in November

My solution is to recreate the search index896768653_ScreenShot2018-11-08at08_37_57.png.d3b279eabd3c208a3f2fd77b3a80f747.png

option key Help > Troubleshooting > Recreate

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On 2/6/2018 at 2:05 PM, jbushnell1 said:

"I know how to locate the option to recreate the full text search index in the (hidden) Troubleshooting menu, but I find the process to be somewhat cryptic. For one thing, I don't know how long the "recreation" process is supposed to take. I have a lot of notes (upwards of 20,000) so I can appreciate that it'll take "some time," but... is it a ten-minute process? An hour? 24 hours? Do I need to leave the computer on overnight? Do I need to adjust the power management settings so it doesn't go to sleep? Will the Activity Log give me a sense as to when it is done?"

That's kinda where I started this thread, struggling with that exact fix and the question of how long it would take. I think one can opt to "recreate" prematurely--not allowing Evernote to "get there" on its own--and "recreating" just "resets the clock" on the (long) indexing process. I've never found anything (including the Activity Log) that gives a sense of how the process is progressing or when it's done, so the best solution is often probably just to wait a bit longer.

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At 4 pm (after approx five hours, with the computer being open and shut and rebooted once during that time) I clicked "recreate the full text search index" from the Troubleshooting menu, effectively "resetting the clock." I'm going to try to let it run un-molested for longer than five hours. User gazumped, above, suggests it might take around eleven hours for a database around this size to be fully indexed? 

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I'm amazed that this has not been rectified by Evernote, especially since it has been causing people problems for so long! I upgraded to 7.5.2 last week and after a week it seems that it is slowly regaining the ability to search, after initially yielding no search results at all...

Evernote's updates should come with a warning - you may lose functionality for a week or more!!

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2 hours ago, jbushnell1 said:

Fifteen hours in, and the search returns 10/56 notes. Not quite 20% of the way done? At that rate this'll be a 75-hour process.

I have no technical information on this but it seems too long for the reindexing process.

The other source for feedback is your Activity Log.  Entries are generated during the process.

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This process is maybe going to take even longer than I initially expected. I let it run all day Saturday, overnight and into Sunday (it's 6 pm now, so that's an additional 36 hours, for 65 hours total) and we've only reached 29/56. I've let it run almost uninterrupted for three days straight and we're still just over halfway to where we should be, which seems about in line with user Monique Reta's experience above, namely, that the process might take up to a week. Really exasperating. User DTLow says it shouldn't take this long--although I do note that the process hasn't stopped.  I can't tell whether there's some technical problem with my database specifically, or if this is just the norm for a big, text-heavy database... should I be expecting this level of lack of search access each time I upgrade from here on out? Time will tell, I guess. 

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