my locate command says database is more than 8days old
 

Dear all,

I tried to use locate to search for a file, but the following replied came out:

warning: locate: warning: database /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db' is more than 8 days old

When I "man locate" it took me to the manual page of "slocate" and so I tried slocate to search for the file bu the same result came out.

I can use find -name xxx -print to search for files but its sometimes not qutie effective and slow.

any one knows the problem please correct me,

Thanks in advance

Re: my locate command says database is more than 8days old
 

Run updatedb as root.
I've created a cron job to run updatedb every twelve hours, so I never have a problem with an out-of-date database. You might consider doing something like that if you use locate frequently, and frequently install new programs/download stuff.

You must update the database which locate searches to find your files. Run updatedb to do this. It may take quite a while

Thanks
whipermr5 and drj000

Although I don't quite understand why but it worked, thank you very much for helping.

As I understand it, the locate doesn't actually search your hard-drive, but instead searches a database of all the files on your hard drive. If that database isn't kept up-to-date, it won't display accurate results, so occasionally you have to update that database by running updatedb.

Ohooook,

thank you veyr much drj000!

Re: Re: my locate command says database is more than 8days old
 

can anybody give any tips on how to do something of this sort?

Re: Re: Re: my locate command says database is more than 8days old
 

For me, I have it run at 6am and 6pm, so to do that, in the file /var/spool/cron/root, it says However, I don't edit the file manually. I just run kcron as root to set it up for me.