Investigating "EVERYTHING3_ERROR_IPC_PIPE_NOT_FOUND"

[Sillysaurus]

Hi everyone,

The developer of Windhawk asked me to post this here in an effort to get some more information regarding an issue (on my end) regarding the Everything integration within his app that I'm using.

(Windhawk is essentially a framework that enables little script mods within Windows Explorer.)

So, the mod I'm using basically enables Window Explorer to display folder sizes (like it does with file sizes) by fetching that info from Everything's database. Recently, it started showing "131,255 kb" as the size for all folders, which is obviously incorrect.

I initially of course submitted a bug report on the Windhawk Github page, assuming it was an issue on that end since the folder sizes in Everything are correct, as well as the sizes shown in the Everything integration within Directory Opus.

After submitting some logs, the dev found the error "EVERYTHING3_ERROR_IPC_PIPE_NOT_FOUND" in my logs, which he hasn't seen before and asked me to inquire here. We're trying to discern whether the bug is in Windhawk, or isolated in my Windhawk/Everything configuration.

Any information you can give about what the error code means, and how it could be related to queries of the Everything database would be great.

Thanks!

[void]

EVERYTHING3_ERROR_IPC_PIPE_NOT_FOUND: IPC pipe server not found (Everything search client is not running)

Are you running Everything 1.5 in an instance?

Everything 1.5 alpha runs in a "1.5a" instance by default.
Have you disabled the alpha instance under Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> alpha_instance ?
(try enabling this and restarting Everything)



Does Windhawk use the 1.5a instance?
Does Windhawk use unnamed instance?
edit: looks like Windhawk is using the "1.5a" instance.



Everything3_ConnectW Notes:

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// Connect to Everything
// connects to the named pipe "\\\\.\\PIPE\\Everything IPC (instance-name)"
// connects to the named pipe "\\\\.\\PIPE\\Everything IPC" when no instance name is supplied.
// Everything will try to host a few pipe servers so we should be able to connect immediately.
// keep polling for a connection if this fails with EVERYTHING3_ERROR_IPC_PIPE_NOT_FOUND.
// instance_name can BE NULL.
// a NULL instance_name or an empty instance_name will connect to the unnamed instance.
// The Everything 1.5a release will use an "1.5a" instance.
EVERYTHING3_USERAPI _everything3_client_t *EVERYTHING3_API Everything3_ConnectW(const EVERYTHING3_WCHAR *instance_name);

[Sillysaurus]

Have you disabled the alpha instance under Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> alpha_instance ?
(try enabling this and restarting Everything)

Wow, apparently I had that disabled – I don't recall doing that nor can I think of a reason as to why I would. I *think* I meant to click on Alpha Select when I was tinkering with the theme. (Yes I'm running 1.5) How did you pinpoint that right away? At least I was right that the issue was user error on my end!

Thanks so much!

So, can I ask why not being in an instance would mess with Windhawk but have no problem in Directory Opus? Are they each simply using different methods to query the Everything database?

Thanks for the help!

[m417z]

Thanks for the help @void.

Currently the code in Windhawk is:

Code: Select all

EVERYTHING3_CLIENT* pClient = Everything3_ConnectW(L"1.5a");
if (pClient) {
    // ...
}

I'll add an attempt to connect to an unnamed instance:

Code: Select all

EVERYTHING3_CLIENT* pClient = Everything3_ConnectW(L"1.5a");
if (!pClient) {
    pClient = Everything3_ConnectW(nullptr);
}
if (pClient) {
    // ...
}

Why would alpha_instance be set to false for some users? I assume that @Sillysaurus didn't change it manually.

Also, this only explains one of the two issues. Windhawk normally falls back to the WM_COPYDATA method, but it didn't work correctly. From the GitHub report:

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folder:wfn:"C:\Apps\Media - Video\VLC-MP"

What do you see when you type this query in Everything?

So, the exact query you mentioned above didn't do anything but scroll to a random file - however, when I removed the "folder:" prefix (leaving me with wfn:"C:\Apps\Media - Video\VLC-MP") then I get that single result of that folder, like you said. It shows both the correct path and size.

Why would the "folder:" prefix screw the results? Any idea?

[void]

Everything 1.4 runs in the unnamed instance.
Everything 1.5 alpha temporarily runs in a 1.5a instance to avoid conflicts with Everything 1.4.
This 1.5a instance will be removed once Everything 1.5 is in beta.

I recommend disabling the alpha_instance if you are not using Everything 1.4 and are trying to use third party tools.
A lot of third party tools will only work with the unnamed instance.

I'll add an attempt to connect to an unnamed instance:

I was going to recommend this.
I recommend connecting to the unnamed instance first.
(Everything 1.4 doesn't have a pipe server)

Why would the "folder:" prefix screw the results? Any idea?

Has the user created a custom filter with a macro named "folder"?

[Sillysaurus]

Has the user created a custom filter with a macro named "folder"?

This is it. My custom folder filter had the prefix in the macro field – after removing it, it is now behaving as intended. So we're good!

I knew it had to be something I did when I was migrating from 1.4 to 1.5.

Thanks so much for your help!

[m417z]

That also explains why importing @Sillysaurus's settings didn't work, it seems that filters are managed and can be imported separately.

Is there a more universal way to query for a folder that's agnostic to the settings of Everything?

[void]

::folder:

can be used to reference the built-in folder search modifier.

[m417z]

Thanks, it's truly amazing that Everything has an answer for everything! That means that the settings-agnostic query would be the following, right?

Code: Select all

::folder:::wfn:"C:\Windows"

[void]

Correct.

[m417z]

::folder:

can be used to reference the built-in folder search modifier.

I just discovered that this syntax works for v1.5 but not for v1.4. Is there an alternative syntax for v1.4 to achieve the same?

[void]

No, please just use

folder:

Even on Everything 1.5 I recommend using folder:
I will make it harder for users to overwrite existing functions and modifiers.