Application Search broken with unexpected non-whitespace character

I recently upgraded to release 8.23.1 from 8.22.1 and Application Search was broken with the following error. I attempted a re-install, but the issue has persisted, though I may not have been thorough enough in wiping previous config files and application data.

Relevant section from the debug log

2022-11-14T05:36:22.103Z error: Unexpected non-whitespace character after JSON at position 28825
SyntaxError: Unexpected non-whitespace character after JSON at position 28825
    at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
    at C:\Program Files\ueli\resources\app.asar\bundle\main.js:8:803400
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)
2022-11-14T05:36:22.104Z error: Unexpected non-whitespace character after JSON at position 10513
SyntaxError: Unexpected non-whitespace character after JSON at position 10513
    at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
    at C:\Program Files\ueli\resources\app.asar\bundle\main.js:8:890725
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)

[tkohlmeier]

This might be caused by a special character in a path or file name found by the Application Search plugin. To check this, please run the following command in a command window (cmd.exe):

powershell.exe -NonInteractive -NoProfile -Command "& { [Console]::OutputEncoding = [Text.UTF8Encoding]::UTF8; $ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; $applications = New-Object Collections.Generic.List[String]; $extensions = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.HashSet[string] ([string[]]@('.lnk','.appref-ms','.url','.exe'), [System.StringComparer]::OrdinalIgnoreCase); 'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs','C:\Users\Torben\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu','C:\Users\Torben\Desktop','D:\Dropbox\Tools' | %{ Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath $_ -Recurse -File | Where-Object { $extensions.Contains($_.Extension) } | ForEach-Object { $applications.Add($_.FullName) } }; $result = (@{ errors = @($error | ForEach-Object { $_.Exception.Message }); applications = $applications } | ConvertTo-Json); Write-Host $result; }" > applications.json

This will create a file applications.json in the current directory. Now open this file with Visual Studio Code and press F8 (or click on Go -> Next Problem in the menu bar). The cursor should now jump to the position which causes the problem and show the reason. If you provide us with the details we should be able to fix this.

[hanchenlu]

Yep, opening it up in Visual Studio Code and the error is just End of file expected at the end of the json file.