Attempting to use make search on FreeBSD results in an error

The make search command does not search for any abstract database - it is a wrapper for working with the ports tree, which must be locally deployed on the host where it is executed. And it will look for it according to the local version of the tree, and not according to the “last officially released ports” - if you haven’t updated the ports tree for half a year, the search will not show anything “new”.

In order for make search work the way you want, you must go to the /usr/ports directory before executing this command. If you do not have such a directory (or it is empty), you must first expand the ports tree. In short, this is done by the portsnap fetch extract command (the first time to download and expand the ports tree) and portsnap fetch update (each time there is a need to update the tree), both commands must be executed from the root. More information can be found in the documentation , as you have already pointed out a colleague in the comments to the question.

On the Internet, you can also find instructions for working with the ports tree using cvsup - ignore them, this legacy of the distant past and to do so today has become a move.