Spotlight Seems to Be Broken Again

May 15, 2022 Post a Comment

How to Ready: Spotlight Search Not Working in macOS Monterey, Broken on External Volumes, Network Volumes

ISSUE: Spotlight search not working on external volumes or network volumes fifty-fifty for the almost basic things, such as a filename. Another symptom is that calculation an external volume to the Spotlight Privacy listing will result in "unknown mistake".

This is a new issue, one that appeared subsequently updating the 2019 Mac Pro to macOS Monterey from macOS Catalina aka Crapalina.

More than one person is seeing the result; as it is discussed online.

Detecting the issue

For a volume in practiced working club for spotlight, examination the condition of a book (Main here), by using "mdutil -s", in Final. Here, the volume Chief above is working fine ("Indexing enabled" confirms that indexing is enabled and its state is valid).

diglloydMP:MPG lloyd$          mdutil -southward /Volumes/Main                    /System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Master:                      Indexing enabled          .

But for volumes Work and Archive, things are inoperable:

diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          mdutil -E /Volumes/Archive                    
/Arrangement/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Archive:
          Error: unknown indexing state.          
diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          mdutil -Eastward /Volumes/Work          
/System/Volumes/Information/Volumes/Work:
          Error: unknown indexing state.

Hot to set up Spotlight search not working

The fix can be disruptive, because sometimes "unkown indexing land" will still be erroneously emitted. Give it a take chances after following these steps—10 minute or then.

1. Remove existing Spotlight index

It's unclear if this step is required or not, just information technology makes sense to start fresh.

Remove the Spotlight index with " sudo mdutil -X ", and so information technology can start with a clean slate. Here, it is done for volumes Work and Archive, both of which were non working for search:

diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          sudo mdutil -X /Volumes/Archive          962 files/directories removed diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          sudo mdutil -X /Volumes/Piece of work          97 files/directories removed

2. Enable Spotlight on affected volumes

You might still get an erroneous fault, semi-randomly—ignore it, at least for 10 minutes or so. Ideally, you lot will run across "Indexing enabled":

diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          mdutil -E /Volumes/Piece of work          
/Organisation/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Work:
          Indexing enabled.
          diglloydMP:DIGLLOYD lloyd$          mdutil -E /Volumes/Archive          
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Annal:
          Mistake: unknown indexing state.

3. Confirm status

To confirm that things are working, check again:

diglloydMP:MPG lloyd$          mdutil -due south /Volumes/Work          
/Organization/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Work:
          Indexing enabled.          
          diglloydMP:MPG lloyd$          mdutil -s /Volumes/Archiv/
/System/Volumes/Data/Volumes/Archive:
          Indexing enabled.

With the alphabetize wiped clean and Spotlight told to re-alphabetize, Activity Monitor volition prove numerous worker threads going to town to alphabetize things. Your Mac might run slugglishly for a while until this finishes.

macOS Monterery: Spotlight indexing going similar crazy on newly-reset volumes

Reader comments

Eric B writes:

I received my new M1 Max MacBook Pro 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD, a few days ago and while information technology's quite the automobile, information technology has ane problem that has me frustrated.

In the calendar app, search does not work. I have the agenda app on my older (2016) MacBook Pro running Big Sur and on my 2020 iMac running Catalina and it works perfectly on those machines. Whether one searches for something from yesterday or 20 years agone (I have agenda events going back a long way), the search returns a bare field.

I may non be lone; there'southward a discussion on the Apple tree Back up word forum with entries as recent as Feb 15, 2022 almost this precise issue. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253354240?login=truthful. I've already spent over 3 hours on the phone with an Applecare senior counselor and it is not resolved. The advisor sent a message to the "engineers" and will be calling me tomorrow to report on what they say. Yous seem to have deep knowledge, I don't wait you to solve it, merely would appreciate your thoughts.

[a few days afterwards]

For some inexplicable reason, as of February 19, the search function now works in my calendar app! There accept been no OS updates of which I am aware and I take the "continue my Mac up to appointment" unchecked in the settings menu. Each morning I go up and check information technology but it however works!

MPG: I'd attempt signing out of iCloud and and so signing dorsum in. Information technology might force something down a different path that makes it work again. Or, it might but be broken. Also, with a new machine, information technology can take hours for Spotlight indexing to get the job washed, particularly for things like Apple tree Mail. Until that happens, no warning/notice is given, and all sorts of shit simply doesn't piece of work.

In general and from my direct experience, all sorts of search stuff doesn't work, and the problem is worse than it has ever been. Then are are stupid usability bugs: search now prioritizes non-existent crap that I am non searching for (eg searching for DoIt.java yields a Safari link which is garbage, rather than the source file on my local development volume). That and related bug impede my workflow each and every twenty-four hours.

simmonsoppithatione.blogspot.com

Source: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2022/20220205_2007-AppleCoreRot-Spotlight-FailedSearching.html

Simmons Oppithatione