I do not understand why those "debtags" come up again and again in
conjunction with this package. They were removed years ago.
apt-xapian-index provides general support for indexing. After its sudden
removal synaptic had to remove its indexing function. The synaptic
version that re-implemented the indexing function provided by
apt-xapian-index was uploaded 2026-10-05. It sometimes happens that
packages "float in the void" while related upstream changes are waiting
to be consolidated into a new version. I do not see why this should be a
reason for removal.
The function apt-xapian-index provides for synaptic has absolutely
nothing to do with any "debtags" database or "debtags" in general. For
some strange reason apt-xapian-index seens to be eternally tied to those
"debtags" in spite of it providing just indexing functionality.
While apt-xapian-index was in testing it installed without problems and
it worked as expected in synaptic. People immediately started using it,
even in stable, and they reported positively.
