The workflow does not work

[chumido]

Please check

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Thank you for opening an issue. I'm not quite sure what's wrong here, but I have some ideas if you wouldn't mind a bit of troubleshooting.

1. Firstly, if you put /usr/local/bin/fd in the Path to the fd command in the configuration section (thank you for including that screen shot, by the way), does it work?
2. Secondly, does the command /usr/bin/env python3 --version produce output? (At the moment, mine displays "Python 3.10.10".)
3. recent_files can also be run from the command line. If you cd ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows you should be able to search (e.g., /usr/local/fd recent_files) for the recent_files Python script. cd to the directory indicated by that search and try executing recent_files directly with a simple command line, such as ./recent_files -d ~/Downloads (or some other directory that has files created in the past 7 days--the default). Do you get any output? If you get an error message, it would help to know what it is.

Thanks again, and sorry that the workflow didn't work for you out of the box.

-jy-gh

[chumido]

Thank you for replying

1. I tried but it did not work. Everytime i run command, one more python and fd process run:

2. mine displays "Python 3.11.2"
3. yeah i see the output. it runned when use command line

[jy-gh]

chumido,

What OS version are you running?

-jy-gh

[chumido]

I'm running Ventura 13.3

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Let's try this.

1. cd ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows

2. From there, find the RecentFiles workflow directory with something like this:

fd recent_files

cd to that directory. It will be something similar to this:

user.workflow.8A578702-C505-5035-8314-3FFF70C72130

from there, execute this command:

./recent_files --fd-command /usr/local/bin/fd -d ~ -i example_ignore_file.txt -c 7d -t fd

This should be the exact command that gets executed when you trigger the workflow with your configuration. If you get results back, that means that the problem is in the Alfred workflow itself, not the recent_files Python script. (If this is the case, save the directory and the above command to a file that's handy somewhere and I'll walk you through creating a workflow that uses the command.)

If you get an error message, send me the error message.

Thanks!

-jy-gh

[chumido]

I got this error

[jy-gh]

It looks like the command wasn't entered quite right. Notice the "--fd-commannd /usr/local/bi/fd", above. That should be "--fd-command /usr/local/bin/fd".

You should be able to copy/paste this directly--as long as you're in the correct workflow directory:

./recent_files --fd-command /usr/local/bin/fd -d ~ -i example_ignore_file.txt -c 7d -t fd

[chumido]

my bad. i got this error

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Wow. My guess is that your fd binary either has a bug or is corrupt or is for the wrong architecture.

You can test this by running fd directly with a command like this:

fd --changed-within 7d

You should get a similar error. (And if that binary is bad, for whatever reason, you might consider renaming it or deleting it altogether.)

If the problem is with fd, there are a few options (and these are all from the official repository of fd:

1. If you use Homebrew:

brew install fd

2. If you use MacPorts:

sudo port install fd

3. I'm guessing you have an M2 Mac, not an Intel Mac (you can check by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left of your menubar and then clicking on "About This Mac"). If you have an Intel-based Mac, there's a pre-built binary for fd at the Releases page of the official fd repository that you can download and put in /usr/local/bin or somewhere else in your $PATH. (Be sure to have either renamed/moved/deleted the existing /usr/local/bin/fd command so as not to accidentally run the bad version of fd.)

4. If you have the Rust programming language compiler installed you can do this:

cargo install fd-find

I don't know how involved it is to set up a Rust programming environment if you're not a HomeBrew or MacPorts user. (If you don't use either MacPorts or HomeBrew, you might consider installing one of them--I personally prefer MacPorts but it's up to you as there are pros and cons to each--as it makes installation of tons of useful programs as easy as the commands in Option 1 or Option 2, above.)

Let me know what you find out.

-jy-gh

[chumido]

i runed this fd --changed-within 7d but it worked :v it displayed a list of files
i'm using Intel Mac 😅

[jy-gh]

Ah. Maybe I was too quick to blame fd.

Can you copy/paste this line into a terminal window? (Keep in mind that it's all one line, despite how it might look in GitHub.)

touch testfile; /usr/bin/env python3 -c 'import os; foo="testfile"; print(f"{os.stat(foo).st_mtime}")'; rm testfile

It should create a temporary file called "testfile" (you can change the name if you like), then print out something like "1670512374.69967" (it's a timestamp, so you won't get exactly what I show here), and then delete the "testfile" temporary file.

If it doesn't print out the timestamp number string perhaps the problem is with Python. The following command may be helpful:

which python3

-jy-gh

[chumido]

it printed out timestamp and already install python3. anything i can do?

[jy-gh]

Well, I did some more research on that error message, and I found this fairly recent bug report:

std::fs::Metadata timestamp methods will panic on files with invalid timestamp nsec values

If you check this report you'll notice that the error is the exact same one you're experiencing. I don't fully understand the issue--I don't know anything about the Rust programming language--but what it's appearing to say is that it's possible for a file to be created that has an invalid timestamp. The timestamp, which in Unix-like systems such as macOS is represented as a large number, has a definite limit, and if the number is larger than the limit, it crashes programs relying on the included Rust library code.

I'm guessing, still, that this has to do with the fd command, since fd is written in Rust, while the Python you are running is probably written in C (unless you have installed RustPython). None of the code for RecentFiles is written in Rust, or depends on Rust in any way that I know of beyond the use of the fd command.

Now, if there were only a few problem files with invalid timestamps we could use the ignore-file feature of RecentFiles as a workaround to avoid checking those files. But, there might be a lot of these files, and finding them sounds like a very difficult task.

I have a couple of suggestions. Before that, though, I didn't ask you how you installed fd. Was it installed from HomeBrew? (I don't think it's installed by default by macOS, but I don't have Ventura on my machine so I'm not sure.)

1. You could install fd from MacPorts--or try updating it from HomeBrew if that's possible. (A fresh installation of MacPorts that includes fd might fix this, but it will take a sizable chunk of disk space.) It might also be possible, if you installed fd using HomeBrew, to install an older version of it that may not have the problem.
2. You could try downloading the binary macOS version of fd from the official releases page. If you do that, don't overwrite your version in /usr/local/bin/fd. (You could rename it or back it up instead.)

If these don't work I'm not sure how to proceed. I would think that the Rust bug will be fixed, but I don't know how soon, and I don't know how long it will take a fix to be pushed to fd. This is not a great answer, and I'm sorry. (I won't forget about this, though, and if I have another idea I will comment on it.)

[jy-gh]

chumido,

I did make a minor fix to the workflow that I found because of your issue. You should re-download the workflow file (v0.8.4) and use it instead.

While it won't fix the issue you're encountering, it will make it easier to use an alternate fd command if you want to try that. (The configuration value for "Path to the fd command" wasn't correctly getting set, so if you downloaded a new fd command and tried to use it instead the newly-configured value wouldn't be used; you'd be using the /usr/local/bin/fd command anyway.)

-jy-gh

[chumido]

Thank you very much. I tried:

1. Reinstall workflow (0.8.2 & 0.8.4) + Reinstall fd by homebrew
2. Reinstall workflow (0.8.2 & 0.8.4) + Reinstall fd by Macports

But it still not work. Get the same error. So weird 😅

[jy-gh]

Just to make sure, you changed the configuration value for the "Path to the fd command" to each of the HomeBrew (probably /usr/local/bin/fd) and MacPorts (probably /opt/local/bin/fd) versions when you tested, right?

[Edited to put the full path to the MacPorts /opt/local/bin/fd command.]

[jy-gh]

There are a couple additional things we can try. One of them will take some extra work on my part, so I don't have it ready just yet, but if you're willing I'll code it up.

The other thing you can try is to try a similar workflow--in fact, it was this workflow that inspired me to write Recent Files--called Last changed files. That should work, and it will get you the feel of Recent Files even if it's not as speedy in all cases.

[chumido]

Yes. I changed the path everytime i re-install.
I already Last changed files, but it's a bit slow 😅.
Hope to see new version 😊

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Okay. I coded up a Ruby version of recent_files. It's attached.

Here's how to install it:

First, find the directory where recent_files is located, using the procedure that you used before:

cd ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows

From there, find the RecentFiles workflow directory with something like this:

fd recent_files

cd to that directory. It will be something similar to this:

user.workflow.8A578702-C505-5035-8314-3FFF70C72130

Make a backup copy of recent_files, like so:

mv recent_files recent_files.python_version

Then copy the attached Ruby file into this directory, naming it recent_files. (I had to name it recent_files.txt in order to upload it, so make sure the name is specified exactly.)

It should be a drop-in replacement, and shouldn't need any changes.

Give it a try. I tested it, but of course there's the possibility that I missed a problem with it--and of course I make no guarantees about its suitability, etc. (My version of Ruby is 3.2.1, but I don't think the code depends on anything version-specific.)

If it works, that means the problem is somehow connected to your Python installation/version. If it doesn't work, it means that whatever version of the fd command is being used has a bug and we're stuck, since I don't know what to do about that.

If it does work, I will consider making it part of the repository here. (The Python version is a tiny bit faster, so that's still my preference.)

Let me know how it works.

-jy-gh

recent_files.txt

[chumido]

Thank you very much for your hard work. But can you guide me in more detail on this step "Then copy the attached Ruby file into this directory, naming it recent_files. (I had to name it recent_files.txt in order to upload it, so make sure the name is specified exactly.)"

This step is copy recent_files.txt to workflow folder. And rename it to recent_files (remove .txt), am i right?
If right, so this is workflow folder and debug after i do all that step

should i change language field of script filter from /bin/bash to /usr/bin/ruby?

edit: i tried. and this is debug mode

[jy-gh]

chumido,

I'm sorry, I left out an important step.

The recent_files Ruby file has to be made executable. Here's the command to execute:

chmod 755 recent_files

After that's done, ls -l in that directory should look like this:

total 112
-rw-r--r--@ 1 jygh     staff     80 Oct 15 13:33 example_ignore_file.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 jygh     staff  19035 Oct 15 09:16 icon.png
-rw-r--r--@ 1 jygh     staff   8811 Apr 12 08:27 info.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 jygh     staff    313 Apr 11 19:44 prefs.plist
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 jygh     staff   4412 Apr 12 08:25 recent_files
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 jygh     staff   7770 Oct 23 14:46 recent_files.python_version

Keep the language field in Alfred as /bin/bash.

The script itself has a pound bang line of #! /usr/bin/env ruby, which means that it will find the version of Ruby that appears first in your path. You can execute that line from your terminal to verify that you have Ruby installed, like so, and it should report something similar to the ruby 3.2.1 that my system displays:

/usr/bin/env ruby --version
ruby 3.2.1 (2023-02-08 revision 31819e82c8) [x86_64-darwin19]

That's why it gave you the permission denied error. Sorry, that was my bad.

-jy-gh

[chumido]

Still not work 😢 Did i miss something?
This is my workflow folder

Executable and Ruby version


Debug

Could it be in conflict with something else?

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Hm.

First, let's reset the workflow's arguments to the defaults. If you view the workflow in Alfred's preferences by clicking on the Workflow icon and then selecting the workflow you'll see the Configure Workflow button. Click that and then click on the Reset to Defaults button on the bottom left. Then click Save. (Note that this will still use the Ruby version of recent_files, as that's all it can find.)

Give the workflow a try then. (And, if it still doesn't work, choose a smaller folder to search, such as your ~/Desktop folder or your ~/Downloads folder, and perhaps also lower the Changed within value in the workflow configuration to 3d or even 1d.)

After that, how about this:

Go back to your workflow directory and execute recent_files directly:

PATH=${PATH}:/opt/local/bin ./recent_files --dir ~ --output-format json --max-results 20 --ignore-file example_ignore_file.txt --fd-command fd --changed-within 7d --filetype f

Do you get results? (It'll be a screen full of a JSON structure with a lot of filenames.) If you get an error, I'd like to see the error. If you get results, you don't have to send me those (they'll be your files and I don't need to see the filenames or anything), but I would like to know if this worked or not. (And FYI, I did try running the Ruby version of recent_files with the same Ruby version you have, 2.6.10, and it worked just fine, so I don't think the version of Ruby that you're using is necessarily the problem.)

You can, if you like, repeat this experiment with the Python version:

PATH=${PATH}:/opt/local/bin ./recent_files.python_version --dir ~ --output-format json --max-results 20 --ignore-file example_ignore_file.txt --fd-command fd --changed-within 7d --filetype f

Now, after doing that, we could test your theory about a conflict. It's possible, from the Alfred Workflow screen (the screen that shows all your Alfred workflows) to disable all the installed workflows except for the Recent Files workflow. If the problem still persists after that I think that proves that there's no conflict.

If, on the other hand, it starts working, then what you can do is to re-enable each workflow, one at a time, and try Recent Files after doing that. By going one at a time, if there's a conflict, Recent Files will stop working at some point. Whatever the last enabled workflow was would seem to be in conflict with Recent Files. We can look at that in more detail if you find this happening. (Make sure you remember to re-enable your workflows after this experiment so that we don't leave something disabled that you rely on!)

If we get to this point and things aren't working I should have you double check some ordinary Alfred settings. From the Alfred preferences, click on the General icon. From there, click on the "Request Permissions..." button.

1. Make sure you have enabled Accessibility by clicking on the "Open macOS Accessibility preferences". There should be a checkmark next to Alfred 5 in the "Allow the apps below to control your computer." pane.
2. Similarly, if you click on the "Open macOS Full Disk Access preferences" you should see a checkmark next to Alfred 5 in the "Allow the apps below to access data like Mail, Messages, Safari, Home, Time Machine backups, and certain administrative settings for all users on this Mac." pane.
3. Lastly, click on the "Open macOS Automation preferences" button. Alfred 5.app should have multiple apps listed, including Finder and System Events.app (your list may be different than mine here, but as long as those two are checked I think it's fine).

Next, click on Features (on the left, under General--the Alfred hat icon).

Here's what mine looks like:

From there, click on Universal Actions. Here's what mine looks like:

Let me know what you find out--and thank you for your persistence and your patience.

-jy-gh

[chumido]

Give the workflow a try then. (And, if it still doesn't work, choose a smaller folder to search, such as your ~/Desktop folder or your ~/Downloads folder, and perhaps also lower the Changed within value in the workflow configuration to 3d or even 1d.)

I just want to let's you know when i tried this. It worked. I keep 7d but change the directory to ~/Downloads. And it worked. Both ruby and python version worked. The root directory (~) has a lot of files, so is it possible that the workflow is still running but returning slow results?

Edit: I keep the root directory (~) in Configure Workflow, and tried to ignore other folders, but it not worked

[jy-gh]

chumido,

I saw that you edited your response--and you are totally on the right track by changing the example_ignore_file.txt. (I suspected that there were a ton of results when I saw your previous post, as the timestamps were 30 seconds apart.)

You are saying here that what's going on is that you are seeing results from (as an example) the Pictures folder even though it's in your example_ignore_file.txt file?

How are you editing the example_ignore_file.txt file? (I'm wondering if it's something like line endings; fd probably expects Unix line endings, so depending on what editor you're using you might not be putting in Unix-style line endings.)

Check this post, especially the top two answers, to find out what line ending characters are being used in the example_ignore_file.txt file.

This article, in the Git Ignore Patterns section, gives a lot of examples on how to create entries in a .gitignore file (which is what fd uses, so the example_ignore_file.txt above is really just a Git .gitignore file-format file).

I do notice that the Applications (Parallels) and Calibre Library directories aren't correctly listed. They'll either need to be enclosed in quotes, or any spaces need to be escaped with a backslash "\" character, such as shown in this post.

-jy-gh

[chumido]

I'm sorry for replying late

You are saying here that what's going on is that you are seeing results from (as an example) the Pictures folder even though it's in your example_ignore_file.txt file?

How are you editing the example_ignore_file.txt file? (I'm wondering if it's something like line endings; fd probably expects Unix line endings, so depending on what editor you're using you might not be putting in Unix-style line endings.)

No. I mean i tried keep the default Configure Workflow but change the example_ignore_file content to exclude the other folder i don't want to show in result and to reduce a ton of file to filter. But seem like i did something wrong. I'm using textedit app because i see it txt file. I'm sorry but i can't understand how to deal with Unix line endings. Can you check my file

[jy-gh]

I would guess at some point that line endings will cause you confusion if you exchange files between a Windows system (including Parallels) and a Mac, so it's worth a little discussion. Basically, Unix/macOS and Windows text files use slightly different characters as end of line (EOL) characters--and you don't normally see them. DOS/Windows uses two characters, the Carriage Return and the Linefeed characters. Unix--and macOS since OS X--use (only) a Linefeed. These will be invisible in editors such as TextEdit and it's possible to interleave the two line endings in a file, so what you don't see can confuse you by producing garbled output.

Now, on to creating a file that has what you need.

Try copy/pasting this entire command below into a zsh terminal window in the Recent Files workflow directory (the one with recent_files.python, etc.). Note that this command will overwrite the contents of the example_ignore_file, but that's okay if everything I have below is what you need in it:

echo '
Library
Icon?
~*
*.history
*.indexes
*.photoslibrary
*.musiclibrary
*.tvlibrary
.android
.anydesk
.cache
.config
.dropbox
.local
.logseq
.oracle_jre_usage
.pyenv
.zsh_sessions
Applications
"Applications (Parallels)"
"Calibre Library"
massCode
Pictures
Public
raycast' > example_ignore_file

There's a command, file, that will tell you the line endings of files if they're different than the regular Unix/macOS end of line character convention.

As a test, I created Unix/macOS and DOS/Windows files, and a file with both kinds of line endings. Here's what file reports:

% file example_ignore_file example_ignore_file_dos_version interleaved_eol
example_ignore_file:             ASCII text
example_ignore_file_dos_version: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
interleaved_eol:                 ASCII text, with CRLF, LF line terminators 

Notice that file reports the example_ignore_file as "ASCII text"? That's what you want.

The other two files show end of line characters that may present problems to any number of Unix/macOS programs if they're not specifically prepared to handle different line endings. (And by problems, I mean also that the program could work as intended, but not as expected by you.)

One last thing: when you create this file you should make sure that the Recent Files workflow refers to the correct ignore file. (I'd get rid of example_ignore_file.txt just to prevent any confusion later.)

If all this works for you I'm going to close this issue, but I'll leave it open for awhile just to make sure that you're up and running.

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Are things working?

--jy-gh

[chumido]

Really sorry, i missed the noti/ email of this.
I tried but still not work, i don't know did i miss something
Terminal

Folder after run command above

Configure Workflow

Debug

Activity Monitor - Everytime i run command, there is another process python and fd run

[jy-gh]

chumido,

First, maybe either kill all those fd and python processes--as long as they aren't something different that's important!--or reboot. Then, try the Ruby version in place of the Python version.

Does the Ruby version do the same thing?

--jy-gh

[chumido]

I tried, but not work
Terminal

Workflow Folder

Debug

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Okay. We're going to try something different. There's an easy, but limited way to do what I'm suggesting, and then there's a more complicated, but potentially much more useful way to go about this.

The easy way is just to change the Top-level directory used by the workflow to a specific directory and see how things go. I'm thinking that will work, but it means that you'll only get results from that specific directory (such as your ~/Documents directory).

The harder way involves more steps, but you could end up with Recent Files being able to search most, if not all, of the directories that you really wanted.

Here's how to do things the more complicated way:

I will attach modified version of both the Python and the Ruby recent_files scripts. The thing that's different about them is that they will follow symbolic links. (I'll explain what I mean by that in a bit.)

Firstly, make a directory somewhere--your $HOME directory is fine. I'll call it example_dir for this, but you can call it whatever you like, and it doesn't have to be in your $HOME directory (or ~, which is the same as $HOME). Just keep it consistent for the rest of this.

mkdir ~/example_dir

Now, instead of having recent_files try and traverse your $HOME, we're going to point it to this directory, only. In the Configure Workflow screen, change the Top-level directory to the new directory you just created.

If you ran the Recent Files workflow now, you'd see nothing, since there's nothing in the directory--but it should run correctly.

Now, what I'll have you do is to create symbolic links to whatever directories you want to search in the example_dir directory, one at a time. Let's start with your Documents folder.

cd ~/example_dir
ln -s ~/Documents .

What that does is create a symbolic link to the ~/Documents folder inside example_dir. So, from example dir, you could cd Documents and it would change directory to the ~/Documents folder. It's like a shortcut, or sometimes it's called an alias. Don't create multiple symbolic links just yet--let's keep it simple with just a single one.

Right now, the version of the recent_files Python and Ruby scripts that you have won't correctly handle following symbolic links, so I have created new versions that will. (I think that's a useful feature, and I'll add it to the upcoming version of the Recent Files workflow that I will soon be preparing for release.)

After you download them, you'll have to rename them in order to use them. (I had to use .txt extensions as only some file extensions are allowed.) Of course, you can only use one of them at a time. Also, you'll have to keep straight which one of the now 4 files that you have is named recent_files--the current Python version, the experimental Ruby version, and now these two:

recent_files.python_linkfollower.txt
recent_files.ruby_linkfollower.txt

After downloading these files, pick one of them and copy it to your workflow directory, being careful to preserve the other existing recent_files versions in some fashion. (I guess you can always re-download them if you need them, so it's not the end of the world if there's some confusion.)

Now, after renaming, say, recent_files.ruby_linkfollower.txt to recent_files and putting it in your workflow directory, try running the Recent Files workflow. (You may have to create a new file in your ~/Documents folder in order to get some results.) Hopefully, you'll see results.

If that works, you can add some additional directories to the example_dir directory, such as these:

cd ~/example_dir
ln -s ~/Downloads .
ln -s ~/Desktop .

Here's what an ls -l will look like:

ls -l
total 0
lrwxr-xr-x  1 jygh  staff  10 Apr 20 20:46 Desktop -> ../Desktop
lrwxr-xr-x  1 jygh  staff  12 Apr 20 20:46 Downloads -> ../Downloads

Notice the initial lowercase 'L'? That indicates that the file is a symbolic link.

It's probably best not to add too many directories at once. (I still feel like there's something in your filesystem that is causing this weirdness.) If you use the workflow, and it works, then you can add another directory. Sooner or later my guess is that you'll find a directory that makes the workflow fail, and you'll want to carefully delete that symbolic link from ~/example_dir using the macOS Finder, not the Unix rm command.

I want to stress that you should use the Finder to delete things, as you can always restore a deleted file or directory from the Trash, but if you use rm, or the ultra-dangerous variant rm -rf it's easily possible to delete something important. (Also, please backup your system regularly, not specifically because of this, but because backups will turn disasters into inconveniences.)

The rationale for doing all this is that previously, we tried to blacklist directories using an ignore-file. Now, what we're doing is the reverse, whitelisting directories that you want to search.

Again, I'm sorry that this has been so difficult. I still have no real idea what is going on with your system to cause this behavior.

--jy-gh

[chumido]

I thought of this workaround but i'm not sure to suggest. And finally, it worked. Thank you very much. Add this features in next release is good idea. Much appreciate for your hard work to help me out. 😊

[jy-gh]

chumido,

Thank goodness. I'm very happy that this is working for you.

I will think about how best to support this in a future release. The follow symbolic links part is easy, but what would really be nice would be a directory-picker feature in Alfred's configuration that allowed multiple selections. Then, instead of having to create a directory and put symbolic links in it, you'd simply use the directory-picker to choose as many directories as you like.

Unfortunately, Alfred's file/directory-picker only allows a single selection. I'll look into this a bit.

--jy-gh