Indexing Spotlight

Then I start my IMac (I have Yosemite 10.10.2) Spotlight then spends about about a hour re-indexing, During this re-indexing period I can use Spotlight and look for the items (indexed items) but afterwards (after that the indexing ends) it is still not able to locate any of the files on the disk.

Step 1
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -F '$Time $Message' -k Sender mdworker -o -k Message Rne Norm -k Sender mds | tail | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message. 
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.
Step 2
Enter the following command as in Step 1 and post the output:
mdutil -as 2>&- | pbcopy
You can then quit Terminal.
Step 3
Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Terminal. In the Console window, look under the heading DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION on the left for crash reports related to Spotlight. If you don't see that heading, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar. A Spotlight crash report has a name beginning in "mds" or "mdworker" and ending in ".crash". Select the most recent such report, if any, from the System and User subcategories and post the entire contents—the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post any other kind of diagnostic report, such as hang logs—they're very long and not helpful.

Similar Messages

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    Hi all,
    I recently updated to 10.5.6 and have been struggling with a constantly indexing spotlight ever since. I have tried the following:
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    Here is the repeated lines I keep seeing in the system logs:
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    Dec 19 09:11:21 marzuki mds[1970]: mds(1970,0xb071b000) malloc: * mmap(size=45056) failed (error code=12)\n* error: can't allocate region\n* set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Dec 19 09:11:21 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[1970]: * error: can't allocate region
    Dec 19 09:11:21 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[1970]: * set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Dec 19 09:11:27 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[1970]: terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
    Dec 19 09:11:27 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[1970]: what(): St9bad_alloc
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    Dec 19 09:11:42 marzuki ReportCrash[2104]: Formulating crash report for process mds[1970]
    Dec 19 09:11:42 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10dfd0.mdworker[2097]): Exited: Terminated
    Dec 19 09:11:42 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10e6e0.mdworker[2093]): Exited: Terminated
    Dec 19 09:11:43 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[1970]): Exited abnormally: Abort trap
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    Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately, none of them solved my problem. I tried:
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    2) repairing permissions
    3) restarting in safe-mode
    4) installing the combo update
    5) restarting normally
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    I am seeing this over and over again in my system log:
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki mds[2984]: mds(2984,0xb081f000) malloc: * mmap(size=45056) failed (error code=12)\n* error: can't allocate region\n* set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]: mds(2984,0xb081f000) malloc: * mmap(size=45056) failed (error code=12)
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]: * error: can't allocate region
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]: * set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]: terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
    Jan 5 08:37:13 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]: what(): St9bad_alloc
    Jan 5 08:37:14 marzuki ReportCrash[2988]: Formulating crash report for process mds[2984]
    Jan 5 08:37:14 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10d370.mdworker[2987]): Exited: Terminated
    Jan 5 08:37:15 marzuki ReportCrash[2988]: Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mds2009-01-05-083713marzuki.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
    Jan 5 08:37:15 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10d160.mdworker[2986]): Exited: Terminated
    Jan 5 08:37:15 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[2984]): Exited abnormally: Abort trap
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki mds[2989]: mds(2989,0xb081f000) malloc: * mmap(size=45056) failed (error code=12)\n* error: can't allocate region\n* set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]: mds(2989,0xb081f000) malloc: * mmap(size=45056) failed (error code=12)
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]: * error: can't allocate region
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]: * set a breakpoint in mallocerrorbreak to debug
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]: terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
    Jan 5 08:38:14 marzuki com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]: what(): St9bad_alloc
    Jan 5 08:38:15 marzuki ReportCrash[2995]: Formulating crash report for process mds[2989]
    Jan 5 08:38:15 marzuki mdworker[2992]: (Fatal) Import: Importer mach message failure on request work: (-308) (ipc/mig) server died
    Jan 5 08:38:15 marzuki mdworker[2991]: (Fatal) Import: Importer mach message failure on request work: (-308) (ipc/mig) server died
    Jan 5 08:38:15 marzuki ReportCrash[2995]: Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mds2009-01-05-083814marzuki.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
    Jan 5 08:38:16 marzuki com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[2989]): Exited abnormally: Abort trap
    Any other ideas?
    Thanks.

  • Continuing to "index spotlight search" in Lion?

    how do i help my MBP finish indexing the spotlight search now that i've upgraded to Lion?

    After Lion upgrade my TM took a long time and subsequent TM back ups should have been trivial but also took a long time.  I searched google and found this:
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  • Finished indexing spotlight and still very slow, what else can be?

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  • Spotlight does not stop indexing

    I need help: Just started the brand new MacPro 2x 2.66. The long desired spotlight (I run osx 1.3.9 before) does not work. Spotlight never stop to index. It runs and runs. If I add the hard drive to privacy in the system preferences it stops, but as soon as I get it back it just continues to index. So I've never been able to use Spotlight. Another harddrive in the machine (one without just data, no system) is swiftly indexed. But as soon as I have the main HD open for indexing, Spotlight continues to index for ever.
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    Hello,
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  • Spotlight not Indexing (or showing any results)

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    hi,
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    Same way.
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    sudo mdutil -E /

  • Can I save and replace Spotlight Index?

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    Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then try again to re-index Spotlight. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
    The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
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    Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
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  • Spotlight just stopped working.

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