lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm      | 1 -
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiStore.pm | 5 +----
 t/indexlevels-mirror.t      | 4 +---
 t/replace.t                 | 3 +--

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
index 320a2bfc28695e9f513a8bcb85a438ebdf4b90f7..2bc4a9169b2ac1311126b4a47195bf5db1e35afc 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
@@ -453,7 +453,6 @@ 	my ($self, $creat) = @_;
 	my $cfg = _lei_cfg($self, $creat);
 	$cfg->{-lei_store} //= do {
 		require PublicInbox::LeiStore;
-		PublicInbox::SearchIdx::load_xapian_writable();
 		my $dir = $cfg->{'leistore.dir'};
 		$dir //= _store_path($self->{env}) if $creat;
 		return unless $dir;
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiStore.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiStore.pm
index 7c62ffea0900155b72348eede2287ba599340c28..a3decf5fe74e67be609320250718c9949808454f 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiStore.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiStore.pm
@@ -24,10 +24,7 @@ sub new {
 	my (undef, $dir, $opt) = @_;
 	my $eidx = PublicInbox::ExtSearchIdx->new($dir, $opt);
 	my $self = bless { priv_eidx => $eidx }, __PACKAGE__;
-	if ($opt->{creat}) {
-		PublicInbox::SearchIdx::load_xapian_writable();
-		eidx_init($self);
-	}
+	eidx_init($self) if $opt->{creat};
 	$self;
 }
 
diff --git a/t/indexlevels-mirror.t b/t/indexlevels-mirror.t
index a2afbd74c9776f302558ef40cc0b3642be7bd652..53826aef2e0523e7f45b4e0076e2c0d612f68cfe 100644
--- a/t/indexlevels-mirror.t
+++ b/t/indexlevels-mirror.t
@@ -172,9 +172,7 @@ # we can probably cull some other tests
 $import_index_incremental->($PI_TEST_VERSION, 'basic', $mime);
 
 SKIP: {
-	require PublicInbox::Search;
-	PublicInbox::Search::load_xapian() or
-		skip('Xapian perl binding missing', 2);
+	require_mods(qw(Search::Xapian), 2);
 	foreach my $l (qw(medium full)) {
 		$import_index_incremental->($PI_TEST_VERSION, $l, $mime);
 	}
diff --git a/t/replace.t b/t/replace.t
index 7135c863d3287980f2254c3f762893e4d62376f2..51bdb964dd3a05ca51578514d1de831b660e7b4b 100644
--- a/t/replace.t
+++ b/t/replace.t
@@ -186,8 +186,7 @@ test_replace(2, 'basic', $opt = { %$opt, post => \&pad_msgs });
 test_replace(2, 'basic', $opt = { %$opt, rotate_bytes => 1 });
 
 SKIP: {
-	require PublicInbox::Search;
-	PublicInbox::Search::load_xapian() or skip 'Search::Xapian missing', 8;
+	require_mods(qw(Search::Xapian), 8);
 	for my $l (qw(medium)) {
 		test_replace(2, $l, {});
 		$opt = { pre => \&pad_msgs };