Hey everyone. I’m having a problem with browsing my cards using the browse tab on anki. I can type into the browse tab but it wont search no matter how many times I smash the enter button. Also, after opening the browse window it prevents me from closing anki. I have to use task manager to even close the app. It does the exact same thing on both of my computers. I can search just fine on my mobile device without issues.
I have tried everything.
I have restarted the app multiple times
I have checked the data base
I have restarted in safe mode
I updated to the latest version
I restarted both computers
I changed the video driver
I reset window sizes
I created a new profile that fixed the problem for 1 day and then it happened again.
I’ve been doing all of my card creation on my mobile device and it’s been painstakingly slow. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I appreciate you being thorough with the Troubleshooting checklist. Since you already tried safe mode, it’s not an add-on. But since a new profile gave you a short reprieve – I wonder if it might be a note type?
When did this start happening, and what had changed recently?
You mentioned you’re using “the latest version” but not what OS you’re using – which is sometimes relevant.
It might help to have a sense of what your collection is like. Lots of decks, lots of note types – or maybe just a few? Are you using custom note types? Do they have a lot of scripting on them?
This started about 4 months ago. I didn’t make any changes as I’ve been using the same deck for over a year. I’m only using one note type, the Anking note type that most medical students use. The decs do get autoupdated by my Anking membership and their third party plug in. I’m running 24.11 on my windows desktop. Windows 11. I use just one deck, but it has 12k cards. I also add my own cards to the deck but I keep the same note type.
When you open the browse screen, if you avoid searching, and attempt to select a few different cards (one at a time), does the editing area update correctly, or does the browse window appear frozen? Does the same search-is-freezing behaviour happen whether you open browse with a deck selected or not? If you alter the search text in preferences>editing, does that alter what is shown when opening the browse screen?
It does let me click on the individual cards and the edit screen is appropriate as long as I don’t attempt to search first. It also will let me close it as long as I don’t attempt to search in the browser. It does do it even when I don’t select a specific deck. If I don’t select a specific deck it will not pop up in the edit window when I click on cards. It’s just all around frozen. When I change the search text it does change in the window.
Are you sure anki actually freezes? Does that mean it doesn’t react to mouse input or the keyboard (especially esc) at all?
Can you run anki in a terminal and send us the output? Maybe it shows something that helps in debugging this.
You said the following:
So that means you can type stuff into the search bar and you can see the text in the search bar. But you think the change does not get applied? If you hit Enter, the search happens almost without delay. Try searching for something that will 100% show only a hand full of cards. Does this work correctly?
You said you have to kill the anki process. On linux I can switch to Ankis deck overview without having to close the browse window. If you do that, is the main window frozen as well (so doesn’t react to mouse input or keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl+q or t)?
I can type in the browse interface but it won’t let me search. The letters will show up but I can’t click on anything after and it won’t search. It won’t let me close the application after I’ve attempted to search either. I can’t click still do cards in the non-browsing window but I cannot close either whndow and I have to use task manager.
Do you get the same results when you search for something like ‘a’ that will show many cards, and some random text like ‘usraocehuaroceuh’, which won’t match any cards? I’m wondering if it’s a particular card that’s appearing that’s triggering the problem.
After ensuring you’re in sync across your devices, please force a one-way sync on the computer version’s preferences, and upload to AnkiWeb, then let me know when you’ve done so. That will ensure the AnkiWeb copy is completely identical to your local version, and may help me reproduce the issue, assuming it’s something connected to the data in the collection.