When I search for newly installed applications in krunner or the menu, I get no results. Sometimes it says "run program" but that doesn't help if I don't know the binary name for launching it. Some programs show up after awhile, but some only show up after logging out. Obviously logging out and back in is not a viable solution after every newly installed application.

I've experienced this same problem on Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE, over several versions of KDE. Every time I've tried KDE, I hope this has been fixed, but no dice. I searched for it on Google and this forum using every search term I can think of, but found nothing. Certainly I'm not the only one experiencing this. This feature works flawlessly in Unity and Gnome. You install an application, type a few letters, and there it is. I'm just amazed this still isn't working in KDE. I don't get it. I get all kinds of search results I don't need, but no application.

I can browse through the menu, and find the application, but then what's the point of having a search box.

I really like KDE, but this one is a deal breaker if I can't get it working. If I wanted to browse through a labyrinth of nested menus every time I want to open something, I could use Windows. Is there something I'm missing? Sorry if I seem frustrated, but I've invested quite a bit of time already trying to figure this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Search applications is not related to Nepomuk. There is a runner called Applications responsible for this search developed by the Plasma team.

Does running "kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental" cause the newly installed applications to show up?

bcooksley wrote:Does running "kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental" cause the newly installed applications to show up?

No, that doesn't change anything. Maybe I don't understand the complexity, but I'm so used to this simply working in every other desktop environment I've used, I just don't get why it still doesn't work. I expected it to work even better in KDE, because most other things do. But it seems to have gotten so little attention.

I'm looking at using the Homerun Launcher app instead. Do you know if that uses the same backend for indexing? I'm working on building the RPM for Fedora. I don't like messy tar installs.

The non-appearance of these new applications after running a non-incremental rebuild of the Sycoca is concerning.
After doing so, do the new applications show up in the menu editor?

With regards to Homerun, I am not entirely sure (one would need to check the code) but it is probable it uses the same data source.
As a core component of KDE, inconsistencies and problems in the Sycoca may indicate other greater problems however.

I have the same issue and it is the only reason I keep the kicker plasmid/widget around--because only it finds newly installed applications. Runner finds them only after relogin.

Does the menu editor find them without requiring a logout / login cycle?
This could be a bug in KRunner only, or it could be a bug elsewhere, but unless a test in another application (such as the menu editor) is conducted, it is impossible to tell.

New apps show up in the menu editor without re-logging in. Looks like it might be a bug with krunner. It should be tapping into the same "resource" as the kickoff widget.

Okay, that means the Sycoca is fine - which is a relief. This means that Homerun should be finally hopefully (I think it does use some parts of KRunner internally as well though).

Are you using KDE 4.10? If not, which version of KDE are you using?
This may be a already resolved bug.

I'm using KDE 4.10.2, so it looks like it's not been resolved.

Please file a bug report against KRunner, particularly the "Applications runner" if such an item exists.

bcooksley wrote:The non-appearance of these new applications after running a non-incremental rebuild of the Sycoca is concerning.
After doing so, do the new applications show up in the menu editor?

With regards to Homerun, I am not entirely sure (one would need to check the code) but it is probable it uses the same data source.
As a core component of KDE, inconsistencies and problems in the Sycoca may indicate other greater problems however.

I'm using 4.10.1. I've used KDE on Fedora, Suse, and Ubuntu, and seen the same behavior in all, over several releases. So I'm surprised I couldn't find anything on Google. I've tried searching in krunner, kickoff, and homerun launcher, and none of them find the new apps. So they must be using the same source. By search, I mean using the search box. I can always find them by browsing the menus. Tedious though.

I noticed that, on Ubuntu at least, sometimes the apps would show up after a little while with no logout, but some never show up. The fact that the app shows up in the menu indicates that the information is stored somewhere. The question I have is, why isn't the search source accessing that information. Homerun launcher supports writing your own sources, so I might give that a try.

I did find a bug report over a year ago along these lines, but I can't remember where I saw it. No solution was found. This is probably the feature I use the most in Unity and Gnome, and I'm hoping to have it in KDE as well. It's just so much faster than menu browsing.

In this case, all three you mentioned use "runners" which are shared between them. The bug is very likely to be in the Applications runner, which is responsible for providing application name based search.

If logging out / restarting the application does not fix the issue, it appears under a new user as well, and it is being shown in the menu system then it could very well be a bug in the search algorithm (in the Applications runner) you have encountered.

bcooksley wrote:In this case, all three you mentioned use "runners" which are shared between them. The bug is very likely to be in the Applications runner, which is responsible for providing application name based search.

If logging out / restarting the application does not fix the issue, it appears under a new user as well, and it is being shown in the menu system then it could very well be a bug in the search algorithm (in the Applications runner) you have encountered.

It looks like the thing to do then, is to submit a bug report for application runner, unless one has already been submitted. Considering the longevity of the problem, I imagine it's already been reported several times though. I was hoping there was a configuration setting that would fix it. It may be that the devs on that project aren't interested in fixing the problem, so I may look at writing my own homerun source. I'm all for a practical solution that works now, rather than a "purer" solution in a year or two.

Thanks for your help.

If you're interested in fixing the issue yourself, the correct place to start looking is the sources for the Applications runner - which all three affected areas (KRunner, Kickoff Search and Homerun) share.

You can browse this at http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=kde-workspac ... 2Fservices
If you would like to download the source to work on it (and possibly submit patches) you can clone the git repository from git://anongit.kde.org/kde-workspace.