Skip to main content

Common Issues

Issue 1: File Not Appearing in Results​

Check 1: Is the file hidden?

ag --hidden "pattern"    # include dotfiles

Check 2: Is it git-ignored?

ag -u "pattern"          # skip .gitignore
ag -uu "pattern"         # skip .gitignore + search hidden

Check 3: Is it in .agignore or .ignore?

cat .agignore
cat .ignore
cat ~/.agignore

Check 4: Is it binary?

ag -a "pattern"          # treat all files as text

Issue 2: Pattern Not Matching​

Regex special characters:

# BAD: dots and brackets have regex meaning
ag "price[1]" data.py    # [1] = character class

# GOOD: literal mode
ag -Q "price[1]" data.py

Case mismatch:

ag -i "pattern"          # case insensitive

Issue 3: "ag: binary file matches" message​

ag detected binary content in a file. Force text mode:

ag -a "pattern"

Issue 4: Very Slow on Network Mounts​

Disable mmap (sequential read is faster on NFS):

ag --nommap --workers 1 "pattern" /mnt/nfs/

Issue 5: Colors in Piped Output​

ag auto-disables colors when piping. Force color with:

ag --color "pattern" | less -R

Or disable for clean piped text:

ag --nocolor "pattern" | awk '{print $1}'