Obsidian Notes Not Discoverable via Alfred Workflow

[tommyrot10]

24th Sept 2024 – Update: This initial hurdle has been overcome, but issues remain. Please scroll down. Thread title updated.

Hi Shimmering-Obsidian Enthusiasts,

I'm new to Obsidian and need some help getting Shimmering-Obsidian to work with Alfred. I've installed enabled the two Obsidian required: Advanced URI & Metadata Extractor. I've set the vault path to the Obsidian folder containing my vaults. (I have three, so I've used the parent Obsidian folder.) However, when I issue the osetup command in Alfred I receive this error:

"No plugins found in the selected vault. Please install & enable the "Metadata Extractor" plugin & the "Advanced URI" plugin, restart the vault, and run osetup again."

For testing, I also tried using the path to a specific vault, but I received the same error.

System details: Alfred 5.1.2, macOS Monterey 12.7.6, Obsidian v1.6.7

Can anyone help me please?

Thank you.

[tommyrot10]

24th Sept 2024 – Update 1: Some progress.

It seems the workflow was hitting two problems finding my vaults:

1. It wasn't able to find the vaults when pointed to the vault parent directory, named 'Obsidian'.
2. macOS, is using (I think) a symbolic link to make the path to the Obsidian iCloud Drive more accessible e.g.
   {user-home}/iCloud Drive/Obsidian/Delphi
   When I switched this to the actual (proper) path e.g. /Users/{username}/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloudmdobsidian/Documents/Delphi location, it worked when I ran 'osetup'.

OK. Next problems.

Problem 1 – The search function only finds some notes

If I create new notes, it won't find them at all unless I run 'osetup' again. Then it finds them. That isn't an option.

24th Sept 2024 – Update 2: Closing the vault and re-opening it again makes it discoverable to Alfred, but this isn't an option either. One cannot close and re-open Obsidian just to make one's recent notes discoverable again.

Problem 2 – It Doesn't Open Found Notes If Obsidian Is Running
If Obsidian is closed and I search for a note and press return, it'll open Obsidian to the correct note. But if Obsidian is already running, it may find the note (see above), but pressing return won't actually open it.

I'm not sure if there's something specific about my setup or whether these issues are affecting others. Please comment / help if possible. Thanks.

System details: Alfred 5.1.2, macOS Monterey 12.7.6, Obsidian v1.6.7

[tommyrot10]

25th Sept 2024 Final Update: I believe it was the developer of this great workflow that helped me on the AlfredForum where I had also posted this issue. For those who're interested, the issue was that there's a setting in the Metadata Extractor plugin in Obsidian – 'Configure frequency for writing the three JSON files'. This is defined in minutes. By default this seems to be set to 30. I suppose this means that the metadata is updated every 30 minutes. Extraordinary. I changed this to 0.08 (~5 seconds). Now, new notes in Obsidian are discoverable 5 seconds after creation. Much better! I'll mark this issue as 'resolved'. Thank you to the workflow creator.