Can't search for containing text on Linux partition

Help & Support
#1

I have noticed that in one particular directory on my system (and all subdirectories), the find feature is not returning any results when I try to search for files containing a specific string. If I copy the entire folder over to a different place, and run the same search on it again, it works as normal.

Searching for file names works as expected; it's only when using the "containing text" feature. I've no idea why this is happening. I'm using Windows 10.

The search doesn't even run (there is no green processing bar): it opens a new tab to show the search results, but just silently refuses to run the search, and shows no results.

In the screenshot I've attached, I can say 100% there are multiple files within this tree that contain the the string "team".

Can anyone suggest a reason why this might be happening?

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#2

What is special/unusual about that A:\ drive?

Is it a local HDD/SSD, or something else? What filesystem is it using?

#3

Thanks for the quick reply. A drive is a partition on my main SSD. The only things of note are:

  • I use Windows Linux Subsystem, which mounts onto this drive
  • I use a virtual machine (Vagrant) which maps onto the folder in question, A:/local

In other subdirectories of A, the search works fine; it's only A:/local which has the issue.

#4

Can you open one the files there with a Windows plain-text editor and see the word "team" in them?

The Linux subsystem does some strange things when working from one side of it to the other, by the way. Although I don't know a reason why this shouldn't work, unless there's an issue with filename characters that aren't legal on the Windows side, for example.

#5

Thanks, Leo. To answer your question, yes 100% there are multiple files with the word "team" in there. As I say, if I copy the entire directory that I'm searching in over to, say, C:/Users/{me}/Documents/ and run exactly the same search on it, then it works correctly and pulls up all the files with "team" in them.

WSL doing weird things sounds like the most plausible culprit (I've had problems with permissions / write access when using Git) though as I say, it's only A:/local which has the issue, not any other subdirectories; yet WSL maps the whole drive.

Thanks for your time anyway.

#6

It might be worth making a Process Monitor log of what happens. Maybe from that we can see where it's going wrong.