Spotlight has stopped working !!! PLS HELP : (

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decoySA

Registered
Hi

For some reason spotlight has stopped working. im running 10.4.3 on a dual 1.8ghz G5. It used to work fine but i hadnt used it in a while and now it doesnt work at all.

It always shows "no results found". also when i type in the name of something it doesnt actually do anything at all...it doesnt even show the "no results found" message, its only when i deselect it and then select it again that the "no results found" message apears.

I have re-indexed both internal drives and it hasnt done anything. I found something on another site which said to open Terminal and put in "sudo pico /etc/hostconfig" and to see if it said "SPOTLIGHT=-NO-" and if it did to change it to "SPOTLIGHT=-YES-" .....but it said "SPOTLIGHT=-YES-" so that obviously wasnt the problem.

This has really been annoying me and any help you may be able to provide would be REALLY apreciated


:o
 
ok so i just read on a forum that creating another account and logging into that and then loggin out and back into my normal account might solve the problem.

well i did that and basically it works...BUT when i restart my mac it no longer works and the only way to get spotlight to work again is to perform the above task again !!!

however spotlight alway seems to work in the new account !!?!?! so maybe something in my main account has got messed up somehow ? iv trashed the spotlight preference file but thats made no difference.

if anyone could help it would great :o

EDIT : i have now deleted the 2nd user account to test something :

I dont think the 2nd user account is relevant to this. Basically whenever i first start up the mac in either account spotlight doesnt work ["no results found"]. However if i log out and then back in to either my main account or this new account i created spotlight works as normal !!!!

surely this must mean something ? make it easier to figure out what the problem could be ? im no mac novice so im clueless im afraid :(
 
1) Using the mdutil command-line utility in Terminal, turn off indexing for each of your drives. Example:
• $ sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_1
• $ sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_2
2) Then use mdutil to remove the indexes from each drive
• $ sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_1
• $ sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_2
3) Physically remove the .Spotlight directories from the root of each drive.
• $ cd /
• $ sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100
(do the same for your second or third drive)
Make sure to carefully type the "rm" command -- a typo could result in deletion of critical files.
4) Use mdutil again to turn indexing back on for each drive
• $ sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_1
• $ sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_2
5) Spotlight will now re-index all drives and should behave in a normal fashion. (No longer uses 60%-80% of your CPU)
 
"3) Physically remove the .Spotlight directories from the root of each drive.
• $ cd /
• $ sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100
(do the same for your second or third drive)
Make sure to carefully type the "rm" command -- a typo could result in deletion of critical files."

im a little confused with this part.

1. How do i physically remove the .spotlight directories ? and what does "$ cd /" mean ? and where do i put it ? i tried pasting that into terminal but it didnt do anything as far as i can see. also do i just put in the "sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100" in terminal ? how do i do that for each drive...what is the rm command ?

sorry for the questions but i have never used terminal before and im generally a complete noob on macs.

cheers
 
The "$ " in bob's instructions is not supposed to be copied and pasted. That's just the command prompt. So you just type "cd /" into Terminal, not "$ cd /".

"cd /" sets the working directory to the root of your startup disk. "sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100" then deletes the invisible ".Spotlight-V100" folder that's located in that directory. "rm" is a very dangerous command; it deletes files and folders, and it's frighteningly easy to make a mistake and pretty much nuke your whole disk. So when you see instructions that tell you to use it, be sure to follow them perfectly.

A question to bobw: Is there a specific reason to use the -f option of rm here? I always try to use the -i option myself just to be careful that nothing gets deleted that shouldn't. Seems like a good habit to me (even if it means typing "y" a couple dozen times).


Decoy, have you tried repairing permissions yet? I'm not sure if that would help, but it's usually a good idea to try it whenever anything goes wrong. You can repair permissions on your startup volume using Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/).
 
cheers Mikuro.

it still hasnt solved the problem though unfortunatley. It never works when i first start up my G5..but when i log out and and back in it ALWAYS works which is really weird :confused:

anyoen got any other ideas ?
 
Same problem is happening to me.

I have two users on this Powerbook G4, OSX 10.4.3. Recently, Spotlight stopped working for my user. If I switch to the other user, it works. I created a new user and it works for that user as well.

Sometimes when I search, I get a flicker of the spinny thing that normally goes when it's looking. Other times I get no sign of life.

I tried repairing permissions, no help.
I tried the re-indexing steps provided by bobw, also no help.
 
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