Spotlight not working :(

D

dustynus

Registered
Ok, I just got my very first mac. Coming from the linux/windows world.
When I re-installed Tiger because I thought that would fix spotlight, it worked. I could search and find all the files on my computer. But then, after I rebooted/shutdown, all of a suddon spotlight won't find ANYTHING! It doesn't matter what I search for, it just doesn't find anything at all. How can I fix it. It worked after the Tiger re-install but has now stopped after I rebooted ???

Thanks,
Michael
 
Try adding your entire hard drive to the "Privacy" pane in Spotlight's System Preference pane, quit System Preferences, reboot, then take the hard drive out of the "Privacy" pane.

This will cause Spotlight to re-index your entire drive (which can sometimes take hours, and runs in the background so you'll notice a performance hit while this takes place... you also can't use Spotlight at all during this time).

I had some minor glitches with Spotlight when I first installed, but I'm sure my treatment of the system shortly after installing had something to do with that. I had a stack of 20 or more application CDs and DVDs with me, and I was re-installing program after program after program (Adobe CS2, Macromedia Studio MX, Office 2004, etc.). Spotlight probably farted somewhere during all this, since it was trying to index the hard drive and the files on the hard drive were in constant flux for a while. After stabilizing and not installing like a maniac, I allowed Spotlight to reindex my drives and all is wonderful -- even faster than before.
 
Strange... maybe you should try repairing permissions first (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility). Click on your hard drive on the left, then click "Repair Permissions," and finally try to add your hard drive again to Spotlight's "Privacy" pane.
 
dustynus said:
i did that, and nothing shows up in the privacy pane. Do I just have to sit and wait or what?

cheers
Click to expand...

First of all, check the Spotlight symbol in the upper right corner of your screen. If you see a pulsing red dot in the middle of the magnifying glass, Spotlight is busy indexing a drive, and can't be used at the moment. This is most likely the cause of your problems, from what you described.

If there is no pulsing dot, try a search. If that doesn't produce any results, then read on.

Open System Preferences and click on Spotlight, and then Privacy.

Your Privacy pane is empty from the start, since Spotlights default is to index everything on your start up volume (system directories and some invisible directory trees excluded). Try clicking on the plus sign, and add your drive. Then restart your computer, open the Spotlight preference pane, and remove your disk from the Privacy pane. Restart again.

Another (quicker) method is to use mdutil in the Terminal. Start Terminal, and check the names of the volumes you have mounted on your system:
Code: 
cd /Volumes
ls
Remember the volume name for your start up volume. :D

Before you go on, check what mdutil does, by issuing the command "man mdutil". This will give you a short description (less than a page) of what it does. You will also see references to mdcheckschema(1), mdfind(1), and mdimport(1). Try "man" on these to, for even more info on dealing with Spotlight.

Then, use mdutil to check the status of your startup volume. As mine is called "MaxPB", I use this command:
Code: 
sudo mdutil -s MaxPB

This will tell you if Spotlights indexing is enabled or not. If it is, then there might be a problem with the index.

To reindex the drive, issue this command:
Code: 
sudo mdutil -E MaxPB

Substitute "MaxPB" for the name of your volume.

This will take a while, and you will see the pulsing red dot in Spotlights magnifying glass. Wait for it to disappear before you search again. That took three hours on my drive (40+ GB of documents, most of it text).

Don't bother with "repairing permissions". That only affects restoring the original permissions on files and folders that where installed by Apples Installer.app. Every installation with Installer.app leaves a file in Receipts, that details the permissions to be used on the stuff that gets installed. Disk Utility checks the receipts and tries to restore the permissions accordingly. This almost never solves any problem anymore, it's more of a voodoo thing people resort to when they don't have a clue as to what is wrong.
 
Alright. I just added it by dragging, and nothing showed up. Then I quit and re-booted, and spotlight just started indexind :)
I don't really know why. And the privacy tab still doesn't show anything.

Thanks everyone :)
 
Problem. Reinstalled tiger again. And then I tried to follow this to make spotlight work...
but it didn't. :)
here is what i get when....

dustynus'-Computer:~ dustynus$ sudo mdutil -s Macintosh HD
Macintosh:
Error: Could not get indexing status for volume.
HD:
Error: Could not get indexing status for volume.
Michael-Stockermans-Computer:~ dustynus$ sudo mdutil -E Macintosh HD
Macintosh:
Error, no index found for volume.
HD:
Error, no index found for volume.
Michael-Stockermans-Computer:~ dustynus$
 
Hey there!

May I join the group of desperate people with the above problem, crying for someone to add suggestions?

I did a few installations of semi-exotic applications (a dutch program called "work pace" for instance), and I was forced to hard reset my Mac a couple of times, but could it have caused the above problem?

Sincerely,

Frank
 
Help... I'm having the same problem, that is neither Spotlight nor Find no longer produce any results whatsoever.

I've run the suggested commands in Terminal:

sudo mdutil -E Neptune (which is my HD)

The result is as follows...

Neptune:
Error, no index found for volume.

Previously, I did this and got a different result... it started to re-index the computer. However, once it finished, Spotlight still didn't work and terminal gave the above results.

This began when I installed Deja Vu to run some backups this morning. It locked up so I terminated the backup, and removed the program.

Any suggestions?
 
Further update:

I dragged the hard drives on, and then off, the Privacy Pane. They began to re-index. However, following the re-index Spotlight and Find still wouldn't work. Terminal reveals that indexing is enabled, but running sudo mdutil -E Neptune produces the following:

"Volume index removed. Index will be rebuilt automatically."

I certainly didn't remove the index... why is this happening, and how can I stop it?
 
Okay... continuing my running monologue. :) Forgive the stupid question in the last post.

So, I see... "-E" removes the Volume and forces re-indexing. But the newly created index STILL doesn't show up and work in Spotlight/ Find. That's the problem. How can I get Spotlight to work again?

Sorry for the multiple posts. I'll shut up now and wait for advice.

TIA,

Robert
 
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