Spotlight does not search or calculate anymore

Hi,
Spotlight stopped working. I'm not sure what caused it. It could have been a system update but I did not use it for a while so I couldn't say for sure. I have tried suggestions I found in the forums. None worked for me so far. I have tried trashing the plist files and the command below:
killall SystemUIServer
Still not working. Short of a clean install any ideas on how to get it working.
Thanks,
Jon

I looked for the:
/Users/user_name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.spotlight.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.spotlight.plist
and they do not exist.
I used mainMenu to clear system caches a little while ago and it did not work. I'll try it again. Is there a manual way to do it that's easy enough?
Thanks for your help!
Jon

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I figured out how to get it working while retaining your data.
Connect your phone and perform a full backup.
Erase all data/media or restore the phone
Select setup as a new iPhone when prompted in iTunes. Give it some other name (i.e. "New").
Grab a copy of iBackupBot from here http://www.icopybot.com/itunes-backup-manager.htm
Run iBackupBot and select the new backup
In the file list, locate the file name SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
Open the plist be double-clicking on it.
Copy the contents of this file to clipboard.
Select the full backup of your iphone under it's original name (make sure to grab the one with the latest date).
Locate SystemConfiguation/preferences.plist
Scroll to the bottom and note the Hostname for your phone.
Replace the contents of this file with the that from the "New" backup making sure to change the hostname and phone name in the last section of the plist.
Save the changes to the plist.
Connect your iPhone to iTunes
Right-click on it and select "Restore from backup"
Locate the latest backup under your phone's original name
When it's done restoring and reinstalling your applications, you should once again have push notifications that work over the cellular network.

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Can anyone please help me or at least explain to me why this is happening to my Messages app
1. This image shows my Messages Inbox. Note that I have messages from Mike De Castro, Sandy Layug and Chris Santos.
2. Problem is when I search using Spotlight within Messages. In most cases, Spotlight does not behave correctly. I am able to type in the word i want to search but it doesn't seem to search the Contacts -- only the content.
(a) tried searching for "Sandy", it didn't give any search results;
(b) tried searching "Mike", it gave me a message from Mike De Castro (contact search) and a message from Khai (content search);
(c) tried searching "Chris", it only gave me messages that contains the word "chris" in the message but no contact named "Chris".
This has been a pain in the *** since I search messages by Contact and not by content. This works fine before.
I hope you could help me find a solution to this. Tried the search on my wife's 4s (5.0.1) and it works properly.
I am using a 4s on IOS 6.0.1.
On Spotlight Search under General Settings, Contacts has a check mark.
This happens in Messages only. Searching by contact in Mail works fine.

I had this same problem. Called apple and no fix. I completely reset my phone (erased everything) and set it up as a new phone again. Works perfect now. Go to Settings- General - Reset - Erase all content and settings.

Spotlight does not search the notes field in contacts

I can't get spotlight to search the notes field in a contact. I think that this used to work a short while ago. Am I missing something here?

That's just how iOS is right now. You should try out the "Contact Notes" app. It's just $0.99 (in the US), and lets you display and search all your contact notes, all from one page. Here's a link to iTunes page: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contact-notes/id396281211?mt=8
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Can I get spotlight to find stuff that is in a .webarchive (saved web site in Safari)?

It should just do that. Anyway, mine does. You just need to make sure the folder where the webarchive is stored is in a folder that is indexed, and not excluded from showing results (for instance, if it is in your home ~/Library folder results won't be shown unless you explicitly request results for "system files" be shown).
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Francine
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MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)
2,6 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB
OS Yosemite,
Finder versión 10.10.1
Mail Versión 8.1 (1993)
In OS Yosemite the search function in Mail, Finder, Spotlight… does not work. Messages or documents with the search criteria are there and one could find them manually, but the search function fails to find them. Following advice from Apple Support (728965377):
1. I applied an Apple protocol for adware removal (Remove unwanted adware that displays pop-up ads and graphics on your Mac); I had none, because I had formally utilized a similar protocol that I had found in Internet, actually an app that implemented automatically Apple's adware removal protocol.
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3. I re-install the System (OS X Yosemite: Reinstalar OS X); It took about 4 hours but there was no problem whatsoever with the installation.
Afterwards I searched for messages in Mail, and documents in Finder and Spotlight, without any difficulty. The search function in all of them was working properly. But the next time that I needed to search messages or documents, an hour later or so, the problem reappear and a couple of new issues occurred:
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2. after reading an e-mail in Mail or copying an address, this is seeing as a floating object in the finder and over every application. There is no logical way to get rid of the floating object and neither copying or deleting or cutting it. It is not a big issue but nonetheless bothersome.
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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 and start typing the name.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
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.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

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Dear Folks:
Searching in Mail does not reveal BCC recipients. I found a post pointing this out from 2006. There were no replies and you cannot reply if you try, it been "archived."
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Thanks!

Yeah and even worse, Spotlight does not store Cc mail adresses, too.
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Spotlight does not find files with "_" (underscores), but only for certain file types

Hey Folks,
this is strange, maybe someone has an idea.
I already searched the internet for a while, nothing found so far.
I have a file "calc_mean.m" on my desktop.
When I type "calc" in spotlight, it shows the file.
But when I type "calc_" it suddenly does not show the file anymore. Nor does find the file, when I enter "calc_mean.m" in spotlight.
When I enter "calc mean.m" in spotlight, it finds it (using space instead of the underscore).
Now comes the real surprise:
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I recreated this "feature" with other files, copying and renaming ".txt" files to ".m" files, and if there's a underscore in the file, spotlight wont find it.
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.pdf
.doc
.txt
.xls
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.mp3
.m
.k
.a
.ka
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All of those have meaning in various database search syntax (not sure if it matters).
_ usually means any character.
% usually means any run of characters.
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Hi,
maybe you guys can help me.
Spotlight does not find any of my iPhotos attached with keywords.
My System is: Mac OS 10.4.4 and iPhoto 6 (5 did not work either).
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I also had this happen to me several times. Once when I first moved to OS X 10.4 and again when I had to reload my computer. Each time I had archived my iPhoto library to a second drive, installed the OS on a clean formated drive and then copied the iPhoto Library back into my home directory.
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There are scripts available that can actually put the iPhoto keywords into the photo file iteself. The one I am using also needs to have GraphicConverter installed. This way I can search either through iPhoto or Adobe Bridge for the Photos that I want to use.
PPC G4 1.4GHz Mac OS X (10.4.2) 1GB RAM, 120GB HD x2, SuperDrive, 128MB ATI Graphics Card

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Hello,
additional to my Apple-Mail i still use Thunderbird for my old PC-Accounts and the old mails.
Thunderbird runs quite well, but the Mac-OS Spotlight does not find anything within the Mails stored in Thunderbird.
The mdimporter from Mozilla is installed,
I made reboots, re-Index, Double-Clicks, added the thunderbird-Folder to the private and removed again and everything else i could find anywhere.
Nothing works.
Anybody here who might give me a useful hint?
Kind regards
Falk

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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301533
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'''''Email removed by moderator to protect you from spam'''''

Hey.
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Spotlight does not search or calculate anymore

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