Search query seems broken when using stated examples

[kkathman52]

Greetings!
I have a rather large valut that I've migrated from NotePlan some time ago, and seem to be having issues with the Tasks plugin displaying data in queries.

For instance, when I put in a tasks query to try to display JUST those tasks that are not done using the - [ ] method I get a message that says Tasks query: do not understand query; Problem line: "- [ ]".

When I change the query to "not done" it returns every single tasks ever recorded (over 3000) whether the status is done or not done. (see two screenshots attached).

I am using Obsidian 1.5.1 on Mac and have Liam Cain's Periodic Notes and Calendar Plugins installed, which are the only community plugins I have installed beside Tasks.

Thank you for any help you might provide to help me solve this issue.

Korky

[claremacrae]

Thanks for using Tasks.

There is content in your screenshots that is not provided as text for me to copy, so for reasons explained in the following post, I am unable to investigate:

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Support+and+Help/Report+a+Bug

If you can provide full text, and full numbered steps for a reproduction, as per the above, I will willingly have a look when I have time.

Thank you.

[kkathman52]

Thank you- I thought I made it pretty clear. However, here is the exact query I tried:

```tasks
- [ ]
```

I hope that is explicit. This returns the following when executing:

Tasks query: do not understand query
Problem line: "- [ ]"

I don't believe there is a mass query that will mark multiple tasks "done" which is the root cause (the status of these items are set to "unknown"

I'm not sure how better to explain. The screenshot is illustrative, I believe. I do understand your need for text, however, and I hope this has provided you with some possible solutions. I have well over 3500 tasks that apparently have a status of "unknown" and right now I'm having set each, one by one, to DONE in order for them to be dropped off the list (when the query is "not done".

Thank you!

[claremacrae]

Thank you.

And please can you paste in a few lines of your tasks - anonymised if need be.

Cheers.

[kkathman52]

Yes. Here's a textualized version of a portion of the screenshot:

Continued Review of Ujwal's documentation 🔼 ⏳ 2023-12-09 (20231208 > Action Items)
Review Confluence document for AWS Bill Back System >2023-12-05 (20231204 > Action Items)
Infrastructure/External AWS Account - 4056-9655-8157 - Wasn't passed to IGA - remains tied to David - Fix after CT migration process >2023-01-18 (20230117 > Action Items)
Criteria for prioritization of Austin DC Workloads - factors and weight >2023-01-18 (20230117 > Action Items)
Update Account Creation Documentation to include tax exempt process announced by AWS on 1/12/23 >2023-01-19 (20230118 > Action Items)

As I indicated, it looks as if these tasks are set to a status of "unknown". I see that when I create/edit the task and look at the "status" field. I'm unable to copy/paste text from within that dialog to show this. I don't seem to be able to say "not unknown" in the query, as this reports a "do not understand query" error.

I'll be happy to provide any other visual, but I don't know how to take a GUI interface and show it textualized when it's in an Obsidian app.

Feel free to delete the screenshots - I can't find a way to do this here.

Thank you!

[claremacrae]

Thanks, but that text is copied from the Tasks query results.

What I was needing to see was your original Tasks lines in Markdown format - which I can now see are in files like 20231208.md under the heading Action Items.

They might look something like this:

- [ ] Continued Review of Ujwal's documentation 🔼 ⏳ 2023-12-09
- [ ] Review Confluence document for AWS Bill Back System >2023-12-05
- [ ] Infrastructure/External AWS Account - 4056-9655-8157 - Wasn't passed to IGA - remains tied to David - Fix after CT migration process >2023-01-18
- [ ] Criteria for prioritization of Austin DC Workloads - factors and weight >2023-01-18
- [ ] Update Account Creation Documentation to include tax exempt process announced by AWS on 1/12/23 >2023-01-19

---

In the absence of information about what you have put between your [ and ], I can only guess that you might be using status characters other than the statuses that are supported by Tasks, by default.

If so, your Tasks plugin Status settings would look like this:

If that is the case, please go to the settings, read the description, and follow the link to the starting point of the Statuses documentation.

Your search

```tasks
- [ ]
```

The above is a task checkbox, not a Tasks plugin query.

You can read about how to search for tasks with different statuses in the several sections starting here Filters for Task Statuses.

[kkathman52]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Here is a textual extract of the MD file from a daily note that should give you an idea:

# Action Items
* [>] Atlas 268975 - New Verizon 5g Hotspot for Pulin Bhatt >2023-11-27
	- M2100 no longer an option 
	- Investigating Inseego 5G or going with AT&T
	+ [>] Awaiting Noorali response to Verizon Quote
* [>] Review Confluence document for AWS Bill Back System >2023-11-27
	- [Log In - UTD Confluence](https://confluence.utdallas.edu/display/OPS/AWS+Bill+Back+Report+Automation)
	- [Log In - UTD Confluence](https://confluence.utdallas.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=144104733)
* [>] Session review for AWS Re:Invent Online Scheduling  Monday-Thursday (11/27-30) >2023-11-27

However, that last link did the trick!

If you check the documentation that comes with the plugin, however, it DOES specifically show the wrong syntax. The character inside the - [ ] was a space, which seemed to be what was mentioned in the documentation page of the plugin:

---begin documentation snippet
Here is an example that shows a few different features. View it in Reading or Live Preview modes to see the results.

Only tasks that are not done, that is, which begin like this (but without the quotes):

'- [ ] ' or

'* [ ] ' or

'1. [ ] '

Indented tasks are supported, but only single-line tasks.

not done

Tasks due today or earlier:

due before tomorrow

---end documentation snippet

What finally worked was to do this

```tasks
filter by function task.status.name === 'Todo'
```

This eliminated everything that had a task status of "unknown".

This seems to solve my immediate issues. Thanks for your patience.
Korky

[claremacrae]

I'm glad you got it working.

I doubt that documentation text is wrong, as (I think) it is talking about how one formats your task lines - it is nothing to do with how to write searches.

Sorry but I don't have time to go searching through the documentation to find the reference. If you would care to share the link, and how you feel it relates to searches, I will look when I have time.

[kkathman52]

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/About+Queries

None of those examples work for queries.
However since the tasks were basically the copied md files from Noteplan, I don't know how they did things with regard to tasks other than the example I shared.

I guess it's very confusing about status.name and status.type. I tried combining (in lots of ways) to get a filter that would show Todo and In_progress using the status.name filtering and got error messages each time I tried various combinations as it didn't seem to recognize the boolean:

This works:
filter by function task.status.name === 'Todo'

These do not:
filter by function ( task.status.name === 'Todo' ) OR ( task.status.name ==='In_Progress ) - returns error message
( status.type is TODO ) OR ( status.type is IN_PROGRESS ) returns every task in all vaults regardless of type/status
( status.name is TODO ) OR ( status.name is IN_PROGRESS ) returns
Tasks query: couldn't parse sub-expression 'status.name is 'TODO''
Problem line: "( status.name is 'TODO' ) OR ( status.name is 'IN_PROGRESS' )"

So, basically I have a functioning system or sorts, where I can always get a list of all todos that are open. Right now that's the main thing going forward.

[claremacrae]

None of those examples work for queries.

I am really puzzled by this statement. I am just not getting other reports of that.

Since your text above shows a custom status of [>], it is essential that you:

1. read the documentation on custom statuses to properly understand how they work
2. correctly set up this and any other non-standard statuses in the Tasks settings.

Can you please share a screenshot of your Tasks Core and Custom Status settings?

The only thing that I can think of is that perhaps your custom statuses are still not set up.

Thanks.