Troubleshooting

Ripscope says what went wrong in a message, in your terminal or in your editor. Each message below comes with its cause and the fix.

Command not found

ripscope: command not found

The directory Ripscope was installed into is not on your PATH. The installer puts it in ~/.local/bin on Linux and %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin on Windows. Add that directory to PATH and open a new terminal. The editor plugins find Ripscope there either way.

The full-screen interface is not supported

ripscope: cscope's full-screen interface is not supported; use -b, -L or -l

You ran ripscope without saying what to do. Search with -L, for example ripscope -L -1 main, or search from your editor.

No source files found

ripscope: no source files found

Ripscope found no C files to index. Check that you are in your project directory. Add -R when the sources are in subdirectories. When a cscope.files is present, Ripscope indexes only the files it names, so check its entries.

Cannot find file

ripscope: cannot find file src/old.c

A file named on the command line or in the file list does not exist. Ripscope indexes the rest. Remove or correct the entry. Names in a file list are relative to the directory you build the index in.

No index

ripscope: no index at ripscope.db

-d answers from an existing index and never creates one. Run the search without -d, or build the index first with ripscope -b. If your index has another name, give it with -f.

Not a ripscope index

ripscope: cscope.out is not a ripscope index; it was left unchanged

The path you gave with -f holds a cscope database or some other file. Ripscope keeps its own index and does not read cscope’s. Leave out -f to use ripscope.db, or name a new file.

A search prints nothing

A search that finds no matches prints nothing and exits with status 0. If you expected a match, check these in turn.

1. The pattern. A symbol pattern must match the whole name. -1 reet does not find greet, but -1 '.*reet' does. Use -4 to search for text inside names.
2. The files. ripscope -dL -7 . lists every indexed file. If yours is missing, build the index again with -R or with the file named.
3. The headers. A header is indexed when an indexed file includes it and Ripscope can find it. Add its directory with -I DIR.
4. Standard error. ripscope: invalid query pattern there means the pattern could not be used, which also prints no rows.

Invalid query pattern

ripscope: invalid query pattern: invalid syntax

The pattern is not a valid regular expression, or the search cannot take it. For example, a definition search takes a name or a pattern that matches whole names, not text with spaces. Queries lists what each search accepts.

The index is on a network or synchronised folder

ripscope: /mnt/share/ripscope.db is on NFS, where the index's write-ahead log is unsafe; keep the index in a local folder that is not synchronised

The index must be on a local disk. Your sources can stay where they are. Name an index in a local folder with -f, such as -f ~/.cache/project.db. The editor plugins already keep their indexes in your local cache directory. Where the index may live has the full list of places Ripscope refuses.

Damaged index

ripscope: damaged index: its name postings cannot be read; rebuild it with -bu and the options it was built with

Build the index again from the sources with -bu and the options you first built it with, such as ripscope -bu -R -k. To check an index, run ripscope --verify. See Check and repair an index.

The inotify watch limit is reached

A warning with a search result contains this text:

the inotify watch limit is reached; raise fs.inotify.max_user_watches

Linux limits how many files and directories one user can watch. Past the limit, a session checks the sources before every search, which is slower on a large project. Raise the limit, for example with sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288, and restart your editor.

The first search in an editor takes a while

ripscope: indexing /home/me/project for the first time...

The first search in a project builds its index, which takes a moment on a large project. Later searches reuse it and read only the files you changed.

The editor cannot find Ripscope

ripscope: the ripscope executable was not found; install it with :RipscopeInstall
Ripscope executable not found; install it with :RipscopeInstall

Vim prints the first message and Neovim the second.

Run :RipscopeInstall in Vim or Neovim, or M-x ripscope-install in Emacs. Each downloads the executable that matches the plugin.

Vim reports E609 or E259

E259 means the search ran and found nothing. E609 means the search could not be answered, or that its answer came with a warning. Results, warnings and failures explains each case in Vim, Neovim and Emacs and how to recover.

Still stuck

Open an issue with the command you ran, what it printed and the output of ripscope --version.