[Crash]: ancestor-sibling causes instant crash

[DerekZiemba]

Minimum case to cause crash:

ancestor-sibling:.git

NOTE: It may not be instant. On my "Actually Everything" profile (lacks Options/Indexes/Exclude & Options/Indexes/Properties entries & includes external drives & backups -instance "Actually") instantly crashes. But on my normal "User files" profile it takes 5-10seconds.

Background:
I'm trying to create a filter that only searches code repositories. The way I'm trying to go about it is if any ancestor folder has a .git folder, then include that folder & all its contents except the actual git folder. I've been struggling to figure out a way to do this so asked CoPilot:

I want you to keep these pages in mind for my next question, also feel free to search the entire forum.
- viewtopic.php?t=10176
- viewtopic.php?t=10099
- viewtopic.php?f=12&t=11949
- viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10860
- viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9795
- viewtopic.php?t=9787
In Voidtools Everything, I want to search all folder & all the items they contain, only if there's a parent folder that contains a .git\ or node_modules folder. But do not include results inside those 2 folders.

To which it answered

(ancestor-sibling:.git | ancestor-sibling:node_modules) !path:\.git\ !path:\node_modules\

.
When I pasted it into Everything, it crashed & didn't save my earlier queries where I was almost there but couldn't get it search files. It'd only just show the folders. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I was using 1.5.1402a, but came here and saw 1.5.1403a was out. I've updated but the behavior is still the same.

[DerekZiemba]

I asked for an alternative, but the alternatives it mentioned give zero results.

Including the full quote because there's some tidbits I found interesting. Is it acknowledged ancestor-sibling can cause issues? Is the "recursive traversal" actually on point?

Thanks for letting me know, Derek. I checked the support thread you opened, and it looks like this crash is tied to how ancestor-sibling: queries interact with certain folder structures in Everything 1.5 Alpha. The developer has acknowledged that complex combinations of ancestor-sibling with exclusions (!path:) can trigger instability in some builds.

Until the crash is patched, here are more stable approaches you can try:
- Use parent: instead of ancestor-sibling:
parent:.git | parent:node_modules
!path:\.git\ !path:\node_modules\
- This limits the scope to immediate parent folders, which avoids the recursive traversal that’s causing the crash.

This setup lets you, for example, search for all project files in repos that have initialized or Node.js dependencies, while skipping the clutter inside .git and node_modules. It’s especially useful for developers auditing source trees without drowning in dependency noise.

I get no results for

parent:node_modules

or

parent:.git

Also no results for

ancestor:node_modules

or

ancestor:.git

Checking the documentation, I see it mentioned they only work for absolute paths so that makes sense.
[So... [Feature Request]: Can those be made to work with non-absolute paths? Or some kind of "has-child-folder:"

This is different than

child-folder:.git;node_modules

which only shows the parent folders & doesn't search within or list items within.

[void]

Thank you for the bug report DerekZiemba,

It's a bug with ancestor-sibling: and handling files/folders changes.

I will have a fix soon.

For now, please pause indexing under the Index menu -> Pause Updates before using ancestor-sibling:
Then un-pause the index when done with the results.

[NotNull]

[...] so asked CoPilot: [...] also feel free to search the entire forum.

That is not up to you to say. Or did you ask @void for permission first?

Besides, with all the botnets hammering the forums, that extra load could just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

[void]

Asking CoPilot is fine.

CoPilot doesn't hit my site directly. It's most likely getting results from the bing index.

botnet is still active, but under control for the time being.

[void]

Everything 1.5.0.1404a fixes a crash with ancestor-sibling: when the results changed.

edit: there's more issues here..
folders are not showing in the initial search.
searching a root crashes.

[DerekZiemba]

Thank you! That seems to work for me with:

< ancestor-sibling:*.sln;*.editorconfig;*.vcxproj;*.vcproj;*.vbproj;*.csproj;package.json;.gitignore;.vscode;cmakelists.txt;.git;node_modules >|< *.sln|*.editorconfig|*.vcxproj;|.vcproj|*.vbproj|*.csproj|package.json|.gitignore|.vscode\|cmakelists.txt >

[void]

Everything 1.5.0.1405a fixes a crash with ancestor-sibling: when the results changed.

Everything 1.5.0.1405a fixes a an issue with ancestor-sibling:/parent-sibling: not finding folders.

Everything 1.5.0.1405a fixes a crash with ancestor-sibling: when searching a root.

Everything 1.5.0.1405a adds a ancestor-child: search function so you don't have to call the 3 slower methods: ancestor-sibling: sibling: and (self)