Reindexes entire Vault every time on Obsidian startup

Steps to reproduce

Problem began after updating to v1.8.3 with a new installer.

Exit Obsidian. Open Obsidian again. Then I get the popup in the upper right corner: “Obsidian is indexing your vault… This should only happen once.” Obsidian proceeds to index the entire Vault.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Y

Expected result

After opening Obsidian, I don’t expect it to index the entire Vault.

Actual result

Obsidian indexes the entire Vault.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.3
Installer version: v1.7.7
Operating system: Windows 11 Home 10.0.26100
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: Minimal v7.7.18
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on


Additional information

Thank you for the help Obsidian team.

The update may have corrupted some cache files. Can you try this?

  • Backup your vault
  • Uninstall Obsidian from your device. (This will not affect your vault’s settings or files.)
  • Head over to this folder and delete everything inside. (Again, this will not affect your vault’s settings or files, nor will it affect your remote vault.)
    • Windows: %appdata%\obsidian\IndexedDB or AppData\LocalPrograms\obsidian\IndexedDB
    • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/IndexedDB/
    • Linux: ~/.config/obsidian/IndexedDB
  • Reinstall Obsidian.
  • Relaunch the vault and try again.

Does this still happen?

Thank you for the response, much appreciated.

I’ve tried this process, and unfortunately I’m still having the same issue.

I’ve also tried the following:

  • System reboot
  • Downgrading to 1.7.7
  • Removing the .obsidian folder in the Vault

I have found, however, that this problem affects only my largest and most frequently used Vault. This Vault has ~23k notes.

I’ve also tried splitting the Vault into parts, and then adding notes back in again. The Vault does not reindex if I keep it small. As far as I can tell, as soon as this Vault exceeds somewhere around 2k notes, it reindexes whenever it’s loaded. I don’t think it’s related to a particular note – I’ve tried loading all notes that start with a thru d, and then s thru z, or removing recently edited notes, and all of these approaches trigger the reindexing behavior so long as the Vault is sufficiently large.

Is there anything else that might help us identify what the issue is? Thank you.

Hmm, what are the specs of your device? It getting better when you keep your vault smaller suggests that active memory may be an issue.

Does disabling graph and/or backlinks core plugin help?

My device has 16GB of RAM. More broadly, I wasn’t having this problem earlier today, before installing the 1.8 update – but I’m also confused by why reverting to 1.7.7 didn’t help, if that’s the issue.

I’ve been keeping graph / backlinks plugins off through all of my testing.

Beyond being a little annoying, does reindexing create any other issues in Obsidian, or create issues with Obsidian Sync?

Beyond being a little annoying, does reindexing create any other issues in Obsidian, or create issues with Obsidian Sync?

So a reindex once, or twice, in a blue moon is okay. If it reindexes every startup, then something is happening.

My device has 16GB of RAM. More broadly, I wasn’t having this problem earlier today, before installing the 1.8 update – but I’m also confused by why reverting to 1.7.7 didn’t help, if that’s the issue.

When you downgraded, I assume you also removed:

  • Windows: %appdata%\obsidian\ or AppData\LocalPrograms\obsidian\

?

Yes, that’s right, I removed that folder.

I just tried the reinstall process again, which didn’t fix the problem. I did notice this: the first time Obsidian reindexes the Vault (when I just opened the Vault in Obsidian) is slow. Whenever I close Obsidian and reopen that Vault, it still reindexes everything, but it’s faster and takes only two or three minutes. Not sure if this is meaningful.

Can you open, and leave it open for 5 or so minutes after it’s finished indexing. Then close Obsidian fully (not force quit or killing), and see if it reindexes again?

Also, moving this to help until we confirm it’s an Obsidian bug to keep the bug tracker focused. We can move it back if it turns out to be an Obsidian-specific issue.

Tried this, still the same issue :frowning:

I’d love other suggestions if there’s anything that comes to mind.

Also, I use Obsidian Sync – my primary concern is that the prior times I’ve seen Obsidian reindex my whole Vault, Obsidian Sync had some issues and copied some of out of date files down. How valid of a concern is this?

Obsidian Sync increases the amount of memory the application needs to use.

Obsidian Sync had some issues and copied some of out of date files down

This would mean what is in the remote vault is out of date.

So next question, does it get better if Obsidian sync is disabled?

I’ve had Obsidian sync disabled through this process – I was just wondering, since one option for me is to ignore this issue and carry on.

That is telling in and of itself.

It’s getting near the end of my shift, so we may need to wait until others can help chime in.

In the interim, the only thing I can think of is… do you have any very large markdown files in your vault? 1 or 2 MB or greater?

I just tried it, and unfortunately Obsidian is still reindexing the whole vault.

Thanks for all the help – I’d welcome any more ideas!

This issue has gone away. Unfortunately, I have no idea why. I had made no recent changes.

I don’t know how Obsidian works, but I could see that each time I opened Obsidian, how fast the system reindexed the entire Vault kept changing, and this usually got faster. Therefore, my best guess is that Obsidian needs some time or just many tries to get a large Vault indexed properly.

For other users with this reindexing issue, I’d recommend living with the issue for a few days and just using Obsidian and seeing if it goes away.

This is what is needed. Waiting. Or working in the vault for a while. Then the indexing sticks.

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The indexing process can take a while. When you start obsidian the popup message should tell you how many files are left. And if you close and reopen that number should be lower, until it gets to zero.

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