"search entire message" button in mail is sometimes grayed out

Hi, Recently I've noticed that sometimes when I do a search in mail the button to search entire message is grayed out and unclickable.  This started happening in the last few days.  Just a minute ago I tried to do a search and the button was gray, then I went to Safari and logged into Apple support, went back to mail and typed a new search, and all of sudden the button is clickable again.  Any ideas?  Running 10.6.7 on a 15" Macbook Pro.  Thanks...

Ernie,
I collected the info you require - see below. Along the way I deduced that the problem may be a corrupted Spotlight index. As you'll see below attempting to remove Library or Mail from the index failed. I am currently rebuilding the entire volume index...
Repair permissions - log shows no fixes. Search still fails...
POP-<email> varies from 14.7MB down to 120kb.
Typically the root level of POP-<email> is
Deleted Messages.mbox
Sent Messages.mbox
Drafts.mbox
INBOX.mbox
Junk.mbox
Some account also have "MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2"
The root level of INBOX.mbox is typically:
Info.plist [not always]
Messages
POP-steve%[email protected]
has top level
Deleted Messages.mbox
Drafts.mbox
INBOX.mbox
Junk.mbox
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded
MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2
Sent Messages.mbox
with INBOX.mbox top level of
content_index
Info.plist
mbox
mbox.SKindex
mbox.SKindex.isValid
Messages
tableofcontents
I deleted the out of date indexes, etc.
Spotlight prefs, Privacy, add ~/Library/Mail
"Privacy List Error
The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error."
Same Mail operation worked on MBP -- also on MBP Library folder.
Try MacPro Library - same error.
Delete entire MacPro index. More to follow on whether this is the fix...

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