Some dash searches don't return application results, but retrying or toggling the 'applications' filter works

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I don't agree that this bug report is a duplicate of bug #1308037. The other bug reports no applications appearing in the applications scope. This bug report reports applications not anymore appearing in the home lens. The Applications lens still keeps working, though (but not, as I understand, in bug #1308037).

As a matter of fact, it is due to "Applications" being disabled in "Filter results" in the home dash at some time during the session, without apparent reason. Checking "Applications" back on again makes applications reappear in the home lens.

It is not possible to say what triggers this, and thus impossible to provide steps to "reproduce" this issue.

Switchin on "Filter results" reveals that searches for user files may disable the Category "Applications". The following time the dash is summoned, it will not find applications when typing in a new search term. Pressing "Escape" before entering the new search term will enable the Application scope, and again cause the Dash to find applications.

This is a bug, because the scope of the home lens should not change by itself. Again, this bug is NOT a duplicate of bug #1308037.

I should have added that this is a bug that exists for some time. It was reported for 13.10, I am currently running an updated 14.04.

Possible duplicate is also bug # 1239031 , but I am not sure.

Forgive me that I'm re-explaining the bug, but I just want it to be clear. When I see this (I agree it is certainly not #1308037 - when that happens [haven't seen it for a long time though], *no* searches ever give a result until Unity is restarted - this is about some searches not working & retrying being okay), it's like this.

  - Open dash, search for something.
  - Usually it works but sometimes I get "Sorry, there is nothing that matches your search." wrongly.
  - When that happens, I can open "Filter results" and select "Applications" to see the results.
  - It's easy to reproduce - just hit ctrl-backspace and type the same search term a few times. Soon it'll not work.

I can only get this to happen on one of my two machines. Perhaps the interesting difference is that the one which reproduces it has been installed for a long time and the other one is quite new.

Hm, I cannot reproduce it now on 15.10 even though it used to happen always. (I always do a clean isntall but my ~ directory is about ten yours old).

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. We have tried to recreate this on the latest release of Ubuntu and cannot reproduce it. This bug is being marked as Invalid. If you believe the problem to still exist in the latest version of Ubuntu please comment on why that is the case and change the bug status to NEW.

I am still seeing it intermittently on 15.10. See uploaded screenshot

Hey Colin,

I'm working right now to improve the reliability of dash and scopes. I marked this bug as a duplicated of the #1229370.

I don't see how this is a dup of #1229370 as that one refers to a solid failure of the home scope, whereas I am seeing an intermittent one. In fact that one looks like a simple problem to do with whether the scope is correctly installed.

Sorry you are right.

OK, keep up the good work :)

Bug #1526980 can be related.

Any news? This bug has been there since 2011.

Feel free to reassign yourselves to the bug just before starting working on it. Otherwise it's blocked for other contributors.