Spotlight Oddity

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

gtr - 28 Feb 2008 16:09 GMT

A few days ago i heard the fan on my iMac G5 go into overdrive. I hold
the power key down until it shuts down. And Reboot it this happens
every 3 months or so. Big deal.

After I'm up and running for a while I do a spotlight search and see
that the system is re-indexing both my internal and external dries.
fine.

I've noted in the past few days, though, that spotlight searches are
not finding anything which I KNOW is on the external drive. What's up
with this? My spotlight preferences indicate no limitations on that
drive

Finally: How do I initiate spotlight cataloging on that drive so that
all is well again?

Signature

Thank you and have a nice day.

Reply to this Message

Jolly Roger - 28 Feb 2008 17:45 GMT

> A few days ago i heard the fan on my iMac G5 go into overdrive. I hold
> the power key down until it shuts down. And Reboot it this happens
> every 3 months or so. Big deal.

Did you check to see if it was frozen first? If the computer was
responsive with the fans running, then there's no need to do a hard
shutdown like that. I advise you to hold the power key to shut down
(hard shutdown) only as a last resort, because it can cause file
corruption.

> After I'm up and running for a while I do a spotlight search and see
> that the system is re-indexing both my internal and external dries.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> with this? My spotlight preferences indicate no limitations on that
> drive

It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
settings files to be in a bad state.

Signature

Note: Please send all responses to the relevant news group. If you
must contact me through e-mail, let me know when you send email to
this address so that your email doesn't get eaten by my SPAM filter.

JR

Reply to this Message

gtr - 28 Feb 2008 18:22 GMT

>> A few days ago i heard the fan on my iMac G5 go into overdrive. I hold
>> the power key down until it shuts down. And Reboot it this happens
>> every 3 months or so. Big deal.
>
> Did you check to see if it was frozen first?

Yeah, everytime this has happened (to my knowledge) it was accompanied
by a freeze.

> If the computer was
> responsive with the fans running, then there's no need to do a hard
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
> settings files to be in a bad state.

Do you know how to initiate a new indexing?

Signature

Thank you and have a nice day.

Reply to this Message

Jolly Roger - 28 Feb 2008 18:41 GMT

> > It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
> > settings files to be in a bad state.
>
> Do you know how to initiate a new indexing?

I haven't ever done it myself, but you might give this a shot:

<http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050424201429961>

Signature

Reply to this Message

gtr - 28 Feb 2008 21:41 GMT

>>> It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
>>> settings files to be in a bad state.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050424201429961>

Excellent, I'll give it a shot. Many thanks!

Signature

Thank you and have a nice day.

Reply to this Message

gtr - 29 Feb 2008 02:50 GMT

Worked like a charm:

Deleted the invisible folder on the external drive named
".Spotlight-V100", incidentally, unlike my internal drive, there was
nothing in this folder. I then attempted to umount, it didn't want to,
as apparently there was an application engaged with it. I saw none. I
logged out and in again. Same thing: it thought it was involved with a
process.

I rebooted and could then unmount and remount the drive. Immediately
upon remount it was re-indexing. Cool.

Thanks for the pointer.

Signature

Thank you and have a nice day.

Reply to this Message

Jolly Roger - 29 Feb 2008 14:18 GMT

> >>> It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
> >>> settings files to be in a bad state.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Worked like a charm

Great - thanks for reporting back. : )

Signature

Reply to this Message

Fred Moore - 29 Feb 2008 16:21 GMT

In article
<jollyroger-4447DA.12414528022008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,

> > > It's possible those hard shut downs you are doing are causing Spotlight
> > > settings files to be in a bad state.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> <http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050424201429961>

This tip is very easy, but it does require unmounting/remounting the
disk. If you don't want to do that, say you want to reindex your boot
drive without restarting, try this easy terminal trick:

sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/<hard drive>

It also deletes the index folder. Since the system can't abide an
unindexed volume, unless that volume is explicitly excluded from
indexing, the system will immediately start re-indexing the volume.

--Fred

'And it's just that easy.' --Red Green

Reply to this Message

Jolly Roger - 29 Feb 2008 18:19 GMT

> In article
> <jollyroger-4447DA.12414528022008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> unindexed volume, unless that volume is explicitly excluded from
> indexing, the system will immediately start re-indexing the volume.

Yep. BTW, mdutil is mentioned in a comments on that tip web page.

Signature

Reply to this Message

Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / February 2008

Spotlight Oddity