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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Mds Taking Up 65% + of the Cpu

skunkworker - Aug 9, 2005 - 12:27 am

mds takes up 65% + of the cpu im on a powermac G5 dual 2.0

kethraal - Aug 9, 2005 - 12:31 am

Hi John,

mds is the back-end software for Apple's Spotlight feature. In order for me to diagnose your problem, could you please tell me a bit more information?

1) How recently have you installed Tiger?
2) What is/are the size(s) of the drive(s) attached to the machine?
3) How much space is used on the drive(s)?
4) When did this problem start?
5) When you click on the Spotlight tab in the menubar, does it display 'Indexing..."?

Thanks,
--------
Rob, MacOSX.com Tech.
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skunkworker - Aug 9, 2005 - 6:09 pm

1. The day after it came out
2. a 160 GB and a 250 GB HD
3. about150 GB total
4. about 3 weeks ago
5. only if i force quit mds then it does then it stops

kethraal - Aug 10, 2005 - 1:07 am

Hi John,

Thanks for that information. If the menu tab in the upper-right corner of the menu says 'Indexing...', than it is indeed indexing your drive. You should let it run until completion, i.e. until Spotlight allows you to search. Force-quitting the process may cause problems with Spotlight's database, possible ones that will require manual command-line repair. Try leaving it to index until it claims that it's done, and then see if the problem recurrs.

Note: Indexing may take a long time, especially considering that you have over 400GB of total storage space, and 150GB of files. The indexing process for that amount of information can very well take several hours, if not more.

Best of luck,
--------
Rob, MacOSX.com Tech.
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skunkworker - Aug 10, 2005 - 8:43 am

I don't do anything but it starts indexing then will stop. So i need to see if its corrupted at all.

kethraal - Aug 10, 2005 - 2:26 pm

Hi John,

Spotlight is supposed to start and stop the indexing process on it's own. Try waiting like I said, and see if it finally ceases on it's own. If, after a day or so (try not to use the Mac during that time) it doesn't stop, then I'll talk you through rebuilding the database.

Thanks,
--------
Rob, MacOSX.com Tech.
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skunkworker - Aug 10, 2005 - 3:26 pm

its a little hard to not use it can u help me rebuild the db?

kethraal - Aug 10, 2005 - 5:31 pm

Hi John,

To rebuild the database manually, follow these steps:

1) Open the Terminal. It can be found in 'Applications -> Terminal'

2) To erase the index on the startup volume, type the following command (minus quotes): "sudo mdutil -E /" You will need to type in your password for the command to complete.

3) If you have more than one volume (disk), you will need to run the command: "sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/NAME" Replace NAME with the name of the other volume. Repeat each additional volume... do not do this step for the startup volume.

4) You will now need to wait for Spotlight to rebuild/re-index it's database on it's own. This _will_ take alot of CPU time, and there is no way around it. DO NOT force quite (kill) the 'mds' process. Doing so will corrupt the database, and force to you repeat the procedure. Try not to use the machine during this time, although you can if necessary. It is not advisable to create, or use applications that create a lot of new files during this time. Once the re-indexing is complete, you should be good.

Best of luck,
--------
Rob, MacOSX.com Tech.
Helpful? Let me know... give feedback!