I do not know, if that matters, but maybe I should mention, that my ~/home is on an encrypted filesystem (dm-crypt, luks).
It is a SSD, and the filesystem is formatted with ext4. However, the same construct is made on my 64-bit system, where baloo is working like a charm (also SSD drive, and also encrypted). Both systems are identical, except one is 32-bit, the other 64-bit. Hans