OS X Lion Spotlight continues to index after every bootup

My Spotlight continues to index itself after every restart or bootup. I have had OS X Lion installed for over 3 weeks already, why does this continue to occur? Also I have removed the option to "Reopen windows when logging back in" through the system preferances but yet it continues to give me that option whenever I Shut Down my Mac and to add to that the option is always checked. Shouldn't it been removed when I removed it from my system preferances?

I am having the same issue. This is a real pain in the butt. Really eats up system resources while I am trying to get started doing work.

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Spotlight starts indexing after every restart and there is a scrolling delay with both mouse and track pad.

I had to restart my MBP three time, two after it crashed. Every time Spotlight starts to index the content on my Mac
which takes two hour. Then there is a delay when I start scrolling, both with the mouse and with the track pad.
I also notised that after changing the icons with Candybar they still appear unchanged in Launchpad, which makes
it confusing. Launchpad isn't consitent when putting the apps in aphabetic order, but jumble up some of the apps.
i don't get back the wab sites after restart as i was to believe I would.
As Jobs sez; And more thing.
Well one more might OK, there are more bugs then that, but I to tired to tell them all.
I have never found so many bug in such a short time (only in two hours with Lion now) with any other OS and I have worked with Macs since -91.
God help us.

Hi, me again, more data.
I have found that some plugins are accessing the internet without my permission.
And when I went into the plug in menu via the addons options through the Tool Menu option, I found the plug ins there.
BUT I never installed those plugins, and now they are there and they are accessing the Internet. Here are two images to show the plug ins disabled and yet another image showing them still accessing the Internet even when disabled.
I then removed them from the system (I did back them up first, just in case).

Spotlight indexing after every turn turn on

Every single time this machine is turned on spotlight begins to index, slowing the performance for the first couple of minutes.

In total first time it can take several hours to index. It's usefulness is in searching for a particular document you have written something in when you can't remember where - as well as other searches. The searching is quite fast once the indexing is finished. If you are already able to search using Spotlight then the initial indexing has been completed. If not yet able to use it, it's because this initial indexing is not yet complete.
After the initial indexing is done incremental indexing is done any time the computer has free processing capacity and will not be noticeable at startup.
Neville

Mountain Lion Spotlight no longer indexes "codecs" for Apple Lossless files?

Hi, I was recently trying to find some Apple Lossless files stored on my hard drive, and I tried searching using Spotlight's "codec" option (by typing "lossless" into the search field in the Finder). However, nothing came up. Upon further investigation (by looking at the info windows for various Apple Lossless files), it appears as though Mountain Lion no longer indexes the "codec" for Apple Lossless files, and therefore doesn't let you search by it. (Although I haven't tried this recently on at least Lion or Snow Leopard systems, I can verify that on OS X Leopard, which I still have running on an old machine, both the description "Apple Lossless" next to the codec field in the Info window came up, and it would also let you search by it.)
I was just wondering if anyone else might have experienced this on their Mountain Lion systems? Thanks!

I regret to inform this still has not been solved, though deleting the externalrecords helps purge those remnants away.

Spotlight mysteriously re-indexes after some failed searches?

Well here's an odd one:
About a week ago I had occasion to migrate a "standard" account from one Leopard computer to a fresh Leopard computer where it became the second account on the new machine (after the Admin account). This was done with Migration Assistant and completed without problems.
The original account was inherited from a Tiger 10.4.10 installation on the old machine via a default, "upgrade", install of Leopard.
Spotlight searches of the Home directory of that account worked just fine on the old machine. There is nothing in the Spotlight preferences Privacy list in either the old machine or the new machine. It may be relevant that the old machine was the Powerbook listed in my tag line below. The new machine is a Macbook. I've had no other Spotlight problems on either machine.
Today I had occasion to search for a folder in the Home directory of this account on the new machine. To my surprise, it did not show in the results. OTHER stuff showed up, but not this folder.
So I opened a Finder window and did a Command-f to bring up the search criteria and started playing around with search criteria (specifying "kind" = "folder" for example) to see if I could isolate the problem. Periodically I also retried searching in the regular Spotlight drop down to compare results. The upshot was that it seemed NOTHING in the Home directory of this migrated account had been indexed.
And then, for no obvious reason, and about 5-10 minutes into poking around like this, I discovered Spotlight was "indexing". It had about 20 minutes of indexing to do.
Again, I had not been doing anything in the Spotlight preferences -- just trying different search criteria in the Finder window. So why index now?
When it finished indexing, searches for files or content in the Home directory of this account, either via the Finder window or the Spotlight drop down, all worked fine.
NOW, why should Spotlight decide just at this moment to index this account? The account has been in heavy use on this machine for about week (although I had not had occasion to do searches in it).
And the indexing didn't start until about 5-10 minutes into the search and re-search process trying to explore the limits of Spotlight's "blind spot".
Does Spotlight fail to realize it needs to index a migrated account?
Does Spotlight have some sort of fail safe mechanism where it revisits the need to index things after so many repeated searches or searches with no results?
Mysterious indeed.
--Bob

Review the hits from a google search for socket(PF_ROUTE). IMO, something's blocking access, most likely mucked up permissions on the server; however, I don't muck with servers or AD and you might be better off perusing MS's forums for AD info.

Spotlight continually re-indexing

My iMac spends a great deal of time indexing Spotlight, especially when I start it up. It often estimates many hours of indexing though it rarely lasts that long. However, it slows my system down badly. It seems that Spotlight is losing track of the indexing that has occurred so it starts it all over again. How can I get this working correctly?

If you're working in ProTools odds are good you're creating/modifying quite a few very large files on a regular basis. I'd suggest adding the location where you save the majority of your project assets to Spotlight's "Privacy" list and see if it keeps happening.

Spotlight failed to index iWork documents

I have noticed that with Lion Spotlight was not indexing the content of iWork 09 documents. It does find the filenames, but if you search for a term that is inside the document, Spotlight will not find it. I've tested this thoroughly, creating specifc documents for the purpose, etc, and the result is clear, the content of iWork 09 documents is not indexed, only the filenames are.
I have tried forcing Spotlight to reindex the HD volume, but the problem is still there. Have run disk verification and persmisisons repaire and still no good. I can't say if the problem was there from day one I installed Lion (about a week ago) or if it is something that happened more recently.
Is anyone else having similar problems? Any idea of a solution?

Go to sys preferences / spotlight privacy tab and add your internal drive to the list there, then subtract it after a minute or so. you should see the spotlight indexing indicator after that and the machine will re-index. After that, try again and let us know!
Message was edited by: coocooforcocoapuffs: if your files are on another external drive, do that procedure for those drives as well.

Spotlight indexing after each new search

I'm using Spotlight to launch apps, that's the fastest way for me. However, Snow Leopard's version of Spotlight doesn't stop indexing after I selected needed item from the list and the search box is closed.
Example: to launch World of Warcraft I open search menu and type "wor" at which point Spotlight conveniently selects application for me in the list. I hit enter and the program is launched. Meanwhile *Spotlight is still searching* for every file that might contain "wor" character sequence, despite the closed search menu. Hard drive thrashing and painfully slow load times telling me as much. If I open search bar at that moment I can see "wor" I typed along with results list, which is still being needlessly populated. And it will be for a looong time.
The only way to stop the search is to clear the search field and then close Spotlight menu. I believe people on forums reporting Spotlight never finishes indexing might be having the same issue.
Is there a way to automatically clear search string when selecting a search result?

I disagree, I think it was specially designed to quickly launch apps.
By default, the first category that appears in search results in the menu is applications. In Tiger the default highlighted item was "Show All", and if I wanted to run the application that was located I had to press down key to highlight it and then press enter. In Leopard highlighting changed switched to the application itself, so all that is needed is to press a keyboard shortcut to open spotlight, type 3-4 letters from the application name and press enter. This takes about 2-3 seconds. It works the same way on SL of course, only this time it looks like spotlight is trying to re-index everything when there's something typed in. I wonder if something wrong with my system. Don't have another SL machine to compare.

Spotlight re-indexing after AppleCare Display Repair

I just got my PowerBook back this afternoon from Apple Care. I had the display replaced, as the bottom half of the display failed.
Does anyone know why spotlight is re-indexing my entire hard drive after having work done only on the display?
15in Titanium PowerBook G4 1GHz, 20in Cinema Display Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1GB RAM

So... I had the same problem. In fact, I noticed that the Spotlight utility re-indexed several times per day. I read many articles that stated maybe my index files themselves were corrupt. So I:
$> sudo rm -rf .Spotlight-V100 in all of my volumes
Removed just about everything from the Spotlight preference categories.
Removed and Added my volumes under Spotlight preferences privacy (triggers a rebuild)
Then, I came across a few articles explaining why the Spotlight utility re-indexes. They stated that this behavior can be caused by programs like .RSS feeds, Entourage, etc which change large numbers of files by nature. Then, I remembered -- Eureka !! -- I had turned on the option to have Spotlight search my Entourage emails.
I promptly opened Entourage, Preferences, Spotlight and unchecked the "Include Entourage items in Spotlight search results" check box. Guess whut!!! the indexing ceased. Viola! my MBP is now faster than ever.
Be sure to look at all of your spamware to ensure that re-indexing only happens when you want it to .
Hope this helps,
Johnster Monster

Spotlight not indexing after hard drive replaced

Hi all
Just wondering if anyone knows how to encourage Spotlight to re-index? Just had my hard drive replaced as part of the recall, and now Spotlight wont index anything.
I've tried previous suggestions (adding and removing hard drive to privacy list, commands through terminal etc), but it's still not working. All the software is up to date (10.7.5).
Any ideas? It's incredibly annoying, and making working on this computer virtually impossible at the moment.
Cheers

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console 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. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter "mdworker" (without the quotes) in the Filter text field. Post the most recent 50 or so messages that appear in the Console window — the text, please, not a screenshot.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.
Step 2
Do the same with the search string "mds".

Spotlight failing to index all items after 10.5 upgrade

I have found an issue (at least on my computer) where Spotlight does not index all items (in this case folders) on the local hard drive. I confirmed this by searching for a known folder and having Spotlight produce no results when searching for it. I then renamed the folder with a name such as "folder_old" and then created a new folder under 10.5 with the original name. I then moved the contents of the previous folder to the new one and then Spotlight successfully finds the folder. Here's the problem...I am a long time Mac user and I have thousands of folders. Has anyone else experienced a similar problem?
I also feel Apple should allow users to select if they are searching for a file name or contents prior to the start of the find in the spotlight menu bar. Give the users some options.

solution over here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5687094#5687094

Lion spotlight issues

Hi,
I've seen a few related issues in the forums. Here's my problem:
I have a MacBook with 3 partitions. One partition has Lion, one has Snow Leopard, one has Leopard. I need it like this for certain reasons and normally all works fine. But everytime I boot into another partition and come back to Lion it starts reindexing for about 10-15 minutes and slows the computer down significantly. In my Lion partition I have the other 2 partitions added to the privacy tab in Spotlight prefs so it shouldn't matter what changes I make in those partitions right? I have read some posts about Lion reindexing the entire drive after booting up but I don't think it's that extreme for me since it would take hours to reindex the entire drive and my slowdown is about 10 - 15 minutes. I have tried to rebuild my Spotlight index and redo the privacy tab and so far same results. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
rc

You didn't mention if you disabled the Lion partition in Spotlight whe using SL or Leopard. That should be why the re-indexing occurs when in Lion. The Lion filesystem gets modified by the other two OS X versions.

While intending to perform a clean install of Mountain Lion while continuing with old apps and files, is it a waste to restore a backup that was made while running Mountain Lion as an UPgrade from Lion?

While intending to perform a clean install of Mountain Lion while continuing with old apps and files, is it a waste to restore a backup that was made while running Mountain Lion as an UPgrade from Lion?
Originally I was running Mountain Lion as an UPgrade from Lion. I created a backup in Time Machine, performed a clean install of Mountain Lion, then I proceeded to use Time Machine to restore the back up.
When thinking about the essence of a back up restore, it occurrs to me that for all I know, I may have just wated my time IF Time Machine also restores all the old unneeded files that remain from Lion after an upgrade.
Since the backup was made while running Mountain Lion as an upgrade from Lion, did restoring this backup defeat the purpose of a clean install by reinstalling old Lion files?
If so, how can I re-do the last portion of the process so that I get all my home-folder files and apps back without the full bulk of old Lion files? Migration assistant I'm guessing?
-Chris

Hello John!
Thank you for your response which solved my problem. For other users who may stumble upon this, I'll clear up the confusion and share how I solved the problem with your help; When looking for answers to my computer problems, finding unresolved questions where person B offers a solution and person A never comes back and says "That worked, thank you.", it demonstrates a "k-thnx-bye" user mentality that leaves others with the same problem lost. Without further ado:
It is not clear what you did because the meaning of "clean install" is vague. You can erase a volume and install an OS which leaves none of its previous content intact,
This is what I did: I erased the volume leaving no previous content intact, while then installing OS X Mountain Lion.
or you can upgrade an existing OS (or reinstall the same one) which does not alter your user - installed files.
An upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion is what I started with initially before erasing anything. This was undesirable. Since this can cause Macs to run slower (especially whereas I'm using a mid-2011 Mac Mini), my goal was to go from operating within an upgrade to Mountain Lion, to operating within an installation of Montain Lion that was not preceded by any other oprating system.
Hence a "clean install of Mountain Lion while continuing with old apps and files" is confusing.
Well put and understood. What I should have said was:
1.Erase the volume
2.Install Mountain Lion clean
3.Confirm that Mountain Lion is functioning properly
4.Proceed to use either Time Machine or Migration Assistant to Import/Migrate/Copy over only two things; My old apps (That had been stored originally in the designated Applications folder) and all files and folders originally stored in the home folder under users.
If you restore from a Time Machine backup then all modifications that occurred subsequent to that backup become erased. It renders moot any OS X upgrade performed subsequent to that backup.
That makes sense and is just as I later suspected.
If so, how can I re-do the last portion of the process so that I get all my home-folder files and apps back without the full bulk of old Lion files? Migration assistant I'm guessing?
Yes.
This is what I did and everything works perfectly. Thank you so much once again!
-Chris

I am on Lion (10.7.4). After a recent upgrade my iWork 09 does no longer function. Any explanations?

I am on Lion 10.7.4. After a recent my iWork does no longer function Any solutions?

Found out that if I did a PRAM reset at this point when restarting after the Kernell panic, the installation continues without problem. Previously i was doing the PRAM reset prior to starting the install process and that did not help. Problem solved

Spotlight is "estimating indexing time" forever.

I just got this late 2010 Macbook Pro from a friend of mine after I broke my Macbook Air. I restored from Time Machine to get all my settings and files from the Air. Since I started up the computer two days ago, it has been "estimating indexing time" on spotlight search. I use spotlight search often so I really need to know how to get it unstuck from this loop! There was a CD in the computer, but I took it out and now I don't see what could be causing the problem.
I tried using sudo mdutil -a -i off and on, It still appears to be estimating forever.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Ok so turns out it was a special case, someone did something to this Macbook at some point in its life that kind of messed up the hard drive and then spotlight could not index it. Apple Support helped me and now all is well!

OS X Lion Spotlight continues to index after every bootup

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