Location Services part of the Apple Operating systems.
What happened when you did turn it off?
Yes, disabling Location Services for DEVONthink should inhibit it from indexing geolocations. However, you would need to quit and relaunch DEVONthink as well.
I have the same issue, and reported this bug via Help+Option > Report Bug.
If it matters, I am running macOS 13.2.1 on an Intel iMac.
The problem started just now, when I updated DevonThink to version 3.9. Prior to this update all was fine.
Upon first launch, the main window did not open, but instead it showed the Activity window with a single item (Indexing Geolocations) and a progress bar that was not moving. I tried to open a new window, but no joy.
I was unable to quit DT, so I force quit. Upon relaunch I was able to open a main window, which seems to be behaving well.
However the Activity window still shows “Indexing Geolocations”, with a progress bar that is not moving.
After reading this thread I checked System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > DEVONthink 3 and found it was disabled. It must have been disabled for quite some time, yet this issue did not appear. So I enabled it. Once again I had to force-quit DT. Upon re-launching, the problem persists.
When I try a normal “Quit”, the Activity Window shows two tasks, “Indexing Geolocations” followed by “Quitting DEVONthink 3 Completing synchronization”. The progress bar for the first seems stuck partway through, the progress bar for the second shows a blue line moving back and forth.
Once again I force-quit DT, then disabled Location Services for DT. When I re-launched DT the Activity window showed only the “Indexing Geolocations” task. But strangely, the window showed a succession of files, and the progress bar was moving.
Until it wasn’t.
It got stuck partway through, and stalled as before.
As another poster mentioned, if I click the “X” in the Activity Window, the “X” disappears but nothing further happens.
You have already opened a support ticket on this matter. Please respond there. Thank you.
Of course - and I responded to your support email.
I posted here initially in hopes this would help someone else.
V/R
Jim
No worries! 
Are there any updates on this issue? I’m having the same problem and it’s causing some major headaches. DT is running on my Mac Studio 24/7 and is supposed to be handling things like keeping indexed folders updated for DTG3. It can’t do that though because it keeps getting stuck on Indexing Geolocations. Because indexing is part of the sync, new syncs can’t happen until the geolocation indexing finishes, which it never does.
I disabled location services for DT but files created in DTG3 still bring in geolocations, which still ends up locking up my sync. With the bandaid not working, are there any updates to the root issue of it hanging on indexing geolocations?
Edit - I forgot to mention, I can’t even close out of DT without Quitting twice. The first time it tries to finish the sync before quitting, which again never happens. I have to quit it again to get it to stop trying.
I forgot to mention, I can’t even close out of DT without Quitting twice. The first time it tries to finish the sync before quitting, which again never happens. I have to quit it again to get it to stop trying.
This is not a bug and DEVONthink has done this for years, completing outstanding tasks before terminating. You’re likely only noticing it due to the geolocation issue.
Do you have a support ticket open?
If not, hold the Option key and choose Help > Report bug to start a support ticket.
Also, do a Spotlight search for Activity Monitor . Select our application in the list of processes and press Command-Option-S to run a sample on it. When the sample window opens, press the Save button and save it to your Desktop. Please attach this text file to your Support Ticket so we can inspect it.
Had the exact same issues that jwarthman described. Location Services was disabled so I enabled it and restarted DT3. Did not work and DT3 was still trying to index geolocations. I went back into Location Services and disabled it again and restarted DT3. Confirmed my database is now syncing. Hopefully this helps someone out there.
Correction: After the database synced, DT3 went back to trying to index geolocations.
Can’t you just fix this? It’s been a few months and it’s still doing it, as numerous users have reported.
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I’m having this problem too – indexing hangs on geolocations. And, updating to the latest version of DT seems stuck too because DT can’t complete a sync due to this issue. Seems like there should be a way, in the future, to turn off geolocation indexing with the app. I didn’t even know it has been doing this, and it offers no value to me.
Thanks - just to say that due to another essential piece of software that is not yet updated for Ventura, it is not possible for me to update the OS yet. Please be aware that not all your customers may always be able to install the latest OS updates.
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Please launch Apple’s Activity Monitor application (see Applications > Utilities), select DEVONthink 3 in the list of processes while it’s indexing geolocations, choose the menu item View > Sample Process and send the result to cgrunenberg - at - devon-technologies.com. Thanks in advance!
This might help (or not, but offer it anyway).
I recently noticed Indexing Geolocations entered my life. On the iMac, the progress bar would go about 1/2 way and stop … Frankly, I don’t want Geo locations.
A few days ago looking into it:
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iMac: System Location Services for DEVONthink turned OFF. Yet DEVONthink persisted in attempting to locate geo stuff
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macBook: System Location Services for DEVONthink turned ON. Why? Dunno. Had I known I would have turned it off. So I turned it off.
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iPhone iOS: Location services for DEVONthink turned on for “While Using”. Why? Dunno. Turned it off
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iPad iOS: Location Services turned off.
Shut down DEVONthink on all devices, restarted. Had to Force Quit the iMac as it was stuck in geolocations and would not quit. Allowed all syncs to complete on all devices.
Result: while I can’t prove the negative, I have not noticed anything getting stuck on Geolocations.
Hypothesis. Having Location Services for DEVONthink turned “on” on any devices in the “sync family” triggers something in DEVONthink. When databases synced to a machine where Location Services are “off”, then makes DEVONthink do something it isn’t permitted to do by the operating system. So … it stalls. Evidence for this is on the iMac which stalled on indexing Geolocations but System level Location Services for DEVONthink turned “off”. I also suspect that in this state of a stalled “geolocations indexing” it interferes with completing a sync, hence the need for a force-quit which I had to do and is reported above by @jwarthman
Possible fix for all: check all devices for system Location Services to be set as you want and make them all the same. And perhaps in DEVONthink there has to be some sort of check but that fix above my pay grade.
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The next release won’t attempt this anymore (and also won’t block the sync anymore). By the way, is the option to automatically tag imported items using the geo location enabled (see Preferences > Files > Import)?
No. On neither the iMac nor the MacBook is this setting checked “on”. And I do not recall ever deliberately fiddling with it. I could not find that setting on iOS devices, so I presume that detail not there.
Thanks for your attention.
Good to hear! I was/am also having this problem. (Permissions granted, geolocation → tags OFF).
Is System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > DEVONthink also disabled?
For me System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > DEVONthink was and remains ON.
See my post above. When I checked all devices in the “sync family”, the problem went away. Whether that works for all I don’t know, but I suggest you at least try that until such time as DEVONtechnologies releases an update as mentioned above.