Spotlight fails to find existing files

?- why should spotlight sometimes fail to find files that are already on drives attached to our fileserver?
Is there anything I can do to 'force' a rigorous search?

Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

Similar Messages

TM: Spotlight Won't Find Deleted File

As a test, I created a file just before TM began an hourly backup. After the backup was completed, I deleted the file.
When I open finder and search for the file using spotlight, of course it doesn't find it. When i call up the TM display and click the arrows, it still doesn't find it. In fact, spotlight won't find the file in TM at all. But because I know the exact time and date of the backup that has that file, I can navigate to the exact directory and find it. The file is there, and it only exists in that one backup.
So TM is working, but this isn't exactly the most convenient if you've deleted a file a month ago, have no idea when it was backed up, and can't remember where it was located.
I've tried it with the TM drive both in and out of the spotlight privacy pane--doesn't seem to make any difference. Known issue?

Hmmm, it sounds like Spotlight's DB is corrupt or not functioning properly.
Might give a try with Spotless...
http://www.fixamac.net/software/spot/
For finding files by name you might like one of these...
EasyFind...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076
Or Find Any File...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/30079/find-any-file

Under Yosemite Spotlight doesn´t find my files

Under Yosemite Spotlight doesn´t find my files on the computer and connected hard drives. What can I do?

Try re-indexing Spotlight.
Spotlight – Re-index
See if you can find the file using this program
EasyFind – Spotlight Replacement

XML-25003: Failed to find config file 'XSQLConfig.xml' in CLASSPATH

I am getting XML-25003: Failed to find config file 'XSQLConfig.xml' in CLASSPATH in the employee information sample. I copied to 'XSQLConfig.xml' OC4J_HOME\j2ee\home\lib and still it not working.
Where do I need to put the 'XSQLConfig.xml' file?

Where did you put your 'XSQLConfig.xml'?

Spotlight fails to find files & folders

Spotlight frequently fails to find files or folders that I have created on my user. Some files and folders will show up, but perversely never the ones I want. For example, I wanted to locate a folder I have entitled "Business Card", so I entered "Business" into spotlight. I got a couple of "business" hits on my documents, and a whole slew of system ones and mail messages, but I had to shuffle manually through my files until I found it. And this kind of thing is happening all the time, to the point where I have virtually written off Spotlight.
I have all the options in the preferences list checked, and have placed files and folders at the top of the list.
Any thoughts as to why this is happening?
Thanks.

Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

Spotlight in "Open Dialog" fail to find "Numbers" file

Hi,
when i use the spotlight search tool inside the open dialog box from Numbers it seem to be unable to find "Numbers file".
Let say I have 4 files on my Hard Drive :
- FileName1.xls
- FileName1.Numbers
- FileName2.xls
- FileName2.Numbers
If I type "FileName" in Finder > Spotlight It get all the 4 files.
If I type "FileName" in Numbers > Open Dialog > Spotlight it get :
- FileName1.xls
- FileName2.xls
Either I check or not different search options (filename / content / Start / My iMac ...)
Any idea what's wrong ?
Thank you.

Bonjour,
Concernant votre dernier message :
oui, j'ai vu votre capture. C'est du Page, pas du Numbers :-) une différence serait possible, mais lire la suite ci-dessous...
La corruption d'index est une piste. Mais comme Spotlight trouve mes fichiers dans d'autres conditions, cela indiquerait un Index correct. Toutefois, ce point est très technique et je ne ferrais aucun pari sur la "mécanique" d'Index Spotlight. J'ai donc utilisé l'outils recommandé dans la discussion donnée en lien (je n'aime pas trop l'idée qu'un outil tiers bidouille les entrailles de l'OS d'Apple, mais bon). Apparemment l`'outils détruit l'index et Spotlight se met au travail et ré-index le disque.
Mais cela n'a rien changé.
j'aimerais approfondire un peu si vous le coulez bien. Avec 37 805 points vous devez avoir quelques ressources en réserves ;-)
Appelons ça le "bogue" ; même s'il peut s'agir d'un problème de paramètre quelconque modifié maladroitement dans mes préférences systèmes ... En explorant différentes pistes et en vous les soumettant je peux peut être vous mettre sur la voix d'une solution qui ne vous vient pas immédiatement à l'esprit car très spécifique à mon cas particulier.
Nous sommes d'accord sur ce point : la recherche dans Numbers > Ouvrir est une implémentation de Spotlight. Manifestement cette implémentation est pleines d'options et présente des différences significatives avec le Bureau.
Exemple 1 :
Dans Finder la recherche par type > autre est un champ vide.
Dans Numbers la recherche par type > autre est une liste de choix.
Il semble que Spotlight dans Numbers ne prennent en considération que les fichiers que Numbers peut ouvrir. Et pour cela il se base sur l'extension. Et le bogue fait penser que les développeurs auraient oublié l'extension ".numbers" !
------------ EDIT
J'ai effacé tout une série de tests tant la découverte finale est la plus importante ...
En modifiant l'extension d'une application en .numbers elle est apparue dans ma fenêtre Numbers !
J'en conclu que "mon" Numbers n'affiche via spotlight QUE les fichiers portant une extension compatible (xls, cwk, txt) ET que le fichier est de type "binaire / app / ???".
L'erreur serait sur ce dernier aspect : les fichiers numbers ne sont PAS des fichiers "binaire / app".
Ou orienter les recherches, puisque, manifestement, ça marche sur votre Mac ?
Merci d'avoir étudier cette longue réponse.
--Edit
Numbers trouve les .php (des fichiers text assimilable à des executables) mais ils sont grisés donc impossible de les ouvrir.
Là je dis, ça devient du n'importe quoi .... :-(

TS4036 Can't find existed files at numbers and pages apps

Hello! I wake up today, and i can't find any file at my iPadmini at numbers and pages apps. But yesterday they were existed. Please back my files .Best regards Dmitry Kartashov..

Try looking for your files with Spotlight Search
1. From any Home screen page of iPad, drag your finger down anywhere on the center of Home screen.
2. Spotlight search will now appear and you can search for apps, texts, or any other content you'd like just as you did on previous versions of iOS.

Spotlight doesn't find invisible files in Yosemite

Spotlight, under Yosemite 10.10.2, does not find invisible files, even when specifically requested to do it. The results window is empty.
Besides that, the insible property has disappeared from the Finder information windows:

Open System Preferences > Spotlight. Under the 'privacy' tab, drag your HD into the list from a Finder window. As soon as it's in the list, remove it.
Spotlight will now begin to reindex your entire HD. You'll see a dot in the middle of the spotlight icon and clicking the icon will tell you that it's re-indexing.
Regards,

Spotlight doesn't find a file it should

When i do 'grep strahler *' in my ~/Mail directory, i find one file. However, when i search for "strahler" using spotlight, it doesn't turn it up (it finds lots of other files, but not that one).
How could that be?
[my trust in spotlight is in tatters -- i thought it finds everything]
Best regards,
Gabriel.

< wonder what apple has to say about that ...
spotlight seems to be one of their selling points for the mac, doesn't it?>
Unfortunately, after a year of yelping and squealing and countless emails from users, directly to Apple, asking them to fix Spotlight, Apple so far has had nothing to say. I suggest you add an email of your own, to Apple Support, as apparently nobody (who matters) at Apple ever reads these forums.
Spotlight, and Dashboard, were the two new "features" that, about a year ago, persuaded people that Tiger was better than Panther.
It isn't.

Tomcat can't find existing file

Hello,
unfortunately i keep getting the following error:
Servlet /tomcat-docs threw load() exception
javax.servlet.ServletException: Service not available (propertyFile not loadable:Can't find properties file /usr/share/tomcat4/webapps/tomcat-docs/../webapps/ROOT/conex/WEB-INF/properties/cp.xmlWhat annoys me about it is that the file cp.xml exists in the very directory. Any ideas how something like this can happen?

The best way to do it is to use the methods of ServletContext.
ServletContext.getRealPath("WEB-INF/properties/cp.xml")
This method turns a website relative url into a real file location on the disk. It makes your web app independant of where it is deployed.
The other useful method is ServletContext.getResourceAsStream("/pathtoresource") which returns an input stream to the resource. This call will succeed even if the application is in a WAR file, where the path returned by getRealPath() may not be as easily accessible.
ServletContext application = getServletConfig().getServletContext();
String filename = application.getRealPath("WEB-INF/properties/cp.xml")
File inFile = new File (filename);Cheers,
evnafets

Spotlight doesn't find html files

I'm a web developer. I have thousands of ".html" files, such as "india.html"
Spotlight won't find them.
It does find "india.cfm" files so I'll assume the problem is the html extension.
If I Show All in Finder it does them ... in a Find window section called "Developer" ... which doesn't appear in Spotlight, or is a choice in Spotlight Preferences.
This used to work. I'm now using 10.9.5. I don't know at which update it stopped working ... I don't perform this often but when I do it's critical.
I've repaired permissions and reindexed the drive (twice, by adding and removing the drive from Spotlight index preferences).
Thanks.

A test...
Made a plain text file, saved to desktop, apple.html. Spotlight doesn't find it. Duplicated it. Change the name to apple.txt. Spotlight immediately finds it.
Spotlight is having a problem with html.
Checked the Spotlight RichText.mdimporter and it has:
<array>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleTypeRole</key>
<string>MDImporter</string>
<key>LSItemContentTypes</key>
<array>
<string>public.rtf</string>
<string>public.html</string>
<string>public.xml</string>
<string>public.plain-text</string>
<string>com.apple.traditional-mac-plain-text</string>
<string>com.apple.rtfd</string>
<string>com.apple.webarchive</string>
<string>org.oasis-open.opendocument.text</string>
<string>org.openxmlformats.wordprocessingml.document</string>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
... so that's in there...

Spotlight doesn't find all files.

Hi guys,
i just installed Snow leopard on my old iMac that was running tiger before. With tiger i never had troubles like this and the same files im looking for now were always found. However spotlight doesn't seem to find them now. They are located in HD/library/.... anything in there cant be found and i didnt enable privacy for it.
After i moved one application out of there and dragged it on the desktop it was instantly found. Doesn't seem like a big deal since i know where the app is and i have it in the dock anyways, the problem just is that i am looking for other files that im not sure anymore if they are on the computer and if spotlight just doesnt find them it would take me a lot of time searching for them manually.
My question is, besides if you have a solution to fix this, if its due to snow leopard. Does it not look in the library anymore?
Thanks in advance folks,
P.S. i already re-indexed.

Spotlight does not search system folders by default. See,
Get Spotlight to search system files (and more)
Enter the search term in the Finder window's search field.
Click the [+] button in the search bar to add a search option.
In the first drop down menu choose Other.
Choose “System Files” from the list that pops up (and check the box to place in drop down menu to avoid this step later,) click on the OK button.
Now back in the Finder choose Include from the second drop down menu.

Multicast fails: Cannot find the file specified

I have a deployment share that works great for unicasting, and I've now tried enabling multicast in preparation for a big rollout. The namespace was created successfully in WDS, and I've made sure my switches have IGMP snooping enabled, (multicast
with Ghost works), however the process always falls back to unicast.
LTIApply.log has this to say
<![LOG[------ Applying Windows image using ImageX.exe ------]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[LTI applying image \\DeployShare\DeploymentShare$\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage\ReferenceImage.wim using ImageX]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Event 41023 sent: LTI applying image \\DeployShare\DeploymentShare$\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage\ReferenceImage.wim using ImageX]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Property SourcePath is now = \\DeployShare\DeploymentShare$\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Multicast transfer to directory: C:\MININT\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[<Message containing password has been suppressed>]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Command has been started (process ID 1672)]LOG]!><time="10:59:58.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ZTI Heartbeat: command has been running for 0 minutes (process ID 1672)]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Event 41003 sent: ZTI Heartbeat: command has been running for 0 minutes (process ID 1672)]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > Windows Deployment Services Multicast Client [Version 6.3.9600.16411]
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > Transfer Started.
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > Transfer Complete [0x80070002].
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > Operation Failed. [0x80070002].
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > The system cannot find the file specified.
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console >
]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[ Console > ]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Return code from command = -2147024894]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
<![LOG[Multicast transfer could not be completed, rc = -2147024894, falling back to using \\DeployShare\DeploymentShare$\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage\ReferenceImage.wim]LOG]!><time="10:59:59.000+000" date="07-23-2014" component="LTIApply" context="" type="1" thread="" file="LTIApply">
During the deployment, I checked C:\MININT\Operating Systems\ReferenceImage, and sure enough the folder was empty. Any thoughts on why this process would be failing, or why it needs to even transfer the image file locally in the first place?
Gracias

Not sure what is going on here, not enough logging. Have you tried enabling WDS logging on the server side?
The WDSMCast.exe tool can't find the file on the server side, you might want to verify that the namespace was created correctly. The "DeploymentShare$" namespace should point to whatever local directory is on your machine.
wdsutil /get-allnamespaces
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742155.aspx
Keith Garner - Principal Consultant [owner] -
http://DeploymentLive.com

Spotlight fails to find files with search items

I just did a Spotlight search on
Japanese English は
Spotlight found more than 3500 items, but the two sample Word files I looked at didn't have は in them.
This is really frustrating. Is there a way to ensure Spotlight only finds files with the input?

Spotlight is notorious for its weaknesses and erratic behavior. You might try reindexing your Spotlight. Open up Spotlight in Sys Prefs, go to Privacy and drag the HD Folder there. Leave it a minute then remove it by clicking on the minus at the bottom. This will force Spotlight to reindex the drive, which may take some time.
I mostly use EasyFind (free) instead of Spotlight.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/freeware/

Migration Assistant fails on non-existent file

Here's an interesting one. I made a bootable clone of my harddrive (with SuperDuper) that works like a champ. Bought a new (much larger) hard drive for my Macbook, installed OS X with no problem, got it all updated. Then went to use Migration Assistant to import my user from the clone, and it fails on trying to copy an invisible file (begins with .) that actually doesn't exist (I have Finder set to show hidden files). This causes the whole import to fail and MA says the user can't be created. Is there any way to tell it to skip this "file"? Other suggestions welcome.

Yeah, that didn't work so well since SuperDuper ran across repeated errors trying to do so; I suspect it's something to do with the drive. (SuperDuper complains about WD's MyBook, which is what the drive is.) Because SD stops the entire copy operation on single errors, it'd be a painstaking process.
Besides that, I like doing fresh installs of all the bits.

Spotlight fails to find existing files

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