Spotlight hung, displays "Estimating Indexing Time" indefinitely

After I used iPhoto Library Manager, Dup Annihilator, and Thumbnail Annihilator, I have seen Spotlight crippled with this endless "Estimating Indexing Time" message. I removed an external hard drive after seeing this message, but this didn't help. I re-installed Snow Leopard--likewise, no help. What can I do? Help Appleheads!

If the problem is indeed iPhoto, you can go to the Spotlight prefs pane, open the Privacy tab, and put the iPhoto Library into it. That will remove it from Spotlight's indexing attempts. If Spotlight is then able to finish indexing you will know for sure that the problem is iPhoto. If that turns out to be the case, follow Barry's advice and post about the problem in the iPhoto forum.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Similar Messages

Spotlight stuck at "estimating index time"

During normal work, Spotlight tries to build an index and remains stuck at "estimating index time". I have reviewed various threads about the problem but none solves my issue.
In my case the time machine volume is set as "do not index" in the privacy settings of Spotlight. Nothing else is there. Right in this moment no volume is connected and estimating index time remains there, at the cost of high CPU usage and fan noise.
What can I do?

Start time: 06:35:09 09/27/14
Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1
System Version: OS X 10.9.4 (13E28)
Kernel Version: Darwin 13.3.0
Time since boot: 1 day22:30
SATA
   WDC WD20EURS-63S48Y0
   WDC WD20EURS-63S48Y0
Thunderbolt
   Thunderbolt Station (CalDigit, Inc.)
   My Book Thunderbolt Duo (Western Digital)
USB
   USB audio CODEC (Texas Instruments Japan)
   USB Optical Mouse (Microsoft Corporation)
   ML-2855 Series (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.)
   MX920 series (Canon Inc.)
Diagnostic reports
   2014-08-28 Mail crash
   2014-09-01 OutBank crash
   2014-09-03 Control Center crash
   2014-09-12 coreaudiod crash
   2014-09-13 Control Center crash
   2014-09-17 Control Center crash
   2014-09-19 iTunes crash
   2014-09-21 mds_stores crash
Log
   Sep 26 07:08:47 process systemstats[25655] thread 166193 caught burning CPU! It used more than 50% CPU (Actual recent usage: 99%) over 180 seconds. thread lifetime cpu usage 132.965629 seconds, (128.676638 user, 4.288991 system) ledger info: balance: 90014462857 credit: 132900538991 debit: 42886076134 limit: 90000000000 (50%) period: 180000000000 time since last refill (ns): 90140654538
   Sep 26 08:48:27 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 26 10:48:37 IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 13 (rounded time weighted average 13)
   Sep 26 10:48:38 IOPPF: Sent gpu-external-plimit-notification last value 5 (rounded time weighted average 1)
   Sep 26 10:48:38 IOPPF: Sent gpu-internal-plimit-notification last value 5 (rounded time weighted average 1)
   Sep 26 10:50:00 wl0: Roamed or switched channel, reason #4, bssid 88
   Sep 26 12:34:36 Sandbox: mdworker(Sandbox: 92890) mdwdeorker(ny 9file-2889) redead-data /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CS6/Scripting.localized/Sample Scripts.localized/JavaScript.localinzedy file-read-data /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CS6/Scripting.localized/Sample Scripts.localized/AppleScript.localize/d/.l.lococalized
   Sep 26 14:02:37 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 26 17:15:28 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 26 19:15:38 IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 22 (rounded time weighted average 22)
   Sep 26 19:15:39 IOPPF: Sent gpu-external-plimit-notification last value 15 (rounded time weighted average 10)
   Sep 26 19:15:39 IOPPF: Sent gpu-internal-plimit-notification last value 14 (rounded time weighted average 9)
   Sep 26 19:16:28 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 26 22:54:21 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 26 23:22:10 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 27 01:22:20 IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 15 (rounded time weighted average 15)
   Sep 27 01:22:21 IOPPF: Sent gpu-external-plimit-notification last value 6 (rounded time weighted average 2)
   Sep 27 01:22:21 IOPPF: Sent gpu-internal-plimit-notification last value 6 (rounded time weighted average 2)
   Sep 27 01:23:10 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 27 03:23:21 IOPPF: Sent gpu-external-plimit-notification last value 7 (rounded time weighted average 2)
   Sep 27 03:23:21 IOPPF: Sent gpu-internal-plimit-notification last value 7 (rounded time weighted average 2)
   Sep 27 03:23:21 IOPPF: Sent cpu-plimit-notification last value 20 (rounded time weighted average 15)
   Sep 27 03:24:10 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
   Sep 27 05:25:00 process systemstats[54659] thread 1698933 caught burning CPU! It used more than 50% CPU (Actual recent usage: 50%) over 180 seconds. thread lifetime cpu usage 90.117847 seconds, (82.485215 user, 7.632632 system) ledger info: balance: 90001171320 credit: 90001171320 debit: 0 limit: 90000000000 (50%) period: 180000000000 time since last refill (ns): 178965635168
   Sep 27 05:25:10 AppleBCM5701Ethernet [en3]:        0      be0 mDNS_Callback - failed to flatten, likely too big.
Swap (MiB): 1562
Activity
   CPU: user 15%, system 4%
CPU per process: systemstats (UID 0) is using 99,3 %
I/O per process: kernel_task (UID 0) is using 10 MB/s
Memory: kernel_task (UID 0) is using 1199 MB
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Restricted files: 1511
Elapsed time (s): 306

STILL Estimating Indexing Time: Spotlight

Hi,
Spotlight is STILL "estimating indexing time". It's been doing this for weeks!
I have 175gb worth of sound effects (which live on an external hard drive) where I'd like to search for files via the Finder or Spotlight. However this "indexing" process is literally taking forever. As it is currently, the Finder or Spotlight is not locating / finder files that are clearly on the drive.
How can I speed up the indexing process or enable to locating of the files on the external drive?
Thanks.

I do not think it is true that TM requires Spotlight indexing of the TM (or any other) drive to work. (why should it? everything it needs to know is in the usual disk catalogues, it does not need to see/search the file contents). So you can put the TM drive on the private list in System Prefs/Spotlight and this should stop Spotlight pointlessly indexing the backup drive (which will still have the usual disk catalogues so you can examine it in the Finder or with TM).
Having said this there is a genuine problem here. My machine works fine with Spotlight and TM and even though it has not been manually excluded Spotlight does not, I believe, index the TM drive anyway, at all events it does not find all the backup near-duplicates of things on the TM drive. I think there is somewhere an invisible setting that ensures this. But on my wife's machine running the same system there was/is endless disk activity whilst Spotlight tries (apparently fruitlessly - the process seems to take forever without completing) to index the TM drive. I have tried excluding the TM drive as above but it still seem to try! One can manually kill the process using Activity Monitor but this may stop all indexing.
What I really want is direct control of the indexing process (clear include/exclude by drive, say) rather than having it hidden away somewhere - maybe Apple will provide this! I wonder whether indexing a TM drive presents problems because of all the similarly-named backup file copies....

Time machine preparing forever and spotlight estimating indexing time

hey guys,
Im having two problems that seem to be related. time machine gets stuck on preparing with the following error in console:
Jul 18 17:03:19 Macintosh-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[6926]: Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Spotlight is also acting up and freezes indefinitely whilst estimating indexing time with the following console error:
Jul 18 17:03:44 Macintosh-5 mds[94]: (Error) Server: mdsync launch failed: (ipc/send) invalid destination port
I have not been able to find much on this last error on support forums. Any ideas? I have erased all spotlight indices, reset PRAM, this problems occurs when indexing both the internal and external hard drives. (The drive i am using for time machine has worked in the past.) I have also repaired disk permission etc. Any solutions without reinstalling leopard as the reason why i am trying to back up is so I can do a reinstall then!
Thanks!

I had this exact problem yesterday (Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)). I rebooted with the shift key held down, rebooted again, and rebuilt my Spotlight index. Now there seems to be a conflict between Spotlight and Time Machine:
Aug 26 05:03:08 Musa /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[702]: Waiting for Spotlight to finish indexing /Volumes/Backup of Musa/Backups.backupdb
I thought of adding the backup drive to Spotlight's exclusion list, but doesn't the backup drive need to be indexed by Spotlight for it to work with Time Machine?

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!

Spotlight endlessly estimating indexing time

I see this has been an issue with several others. I've tried a few of the suggested UNIX commands in terminal, but no luck. This morning I reinstalled Snow Leopard plus the combo update and it's still "estimating index time" Prior to the reinstall, I did use Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner to delete the indexes, but I'm thinking it still shouldn't take hours to estimate the index time regardless. Any suggestions as to what I can do at this point?

Seems to be indexing now. Hopefully this will be the end of it!

How to display estimated project time as min:sec

I know how to create an advanced action to display my estimated project time in minutes (thanks lilibiri!) However, it displays in decimal format. I want to convert the decimal format (example 16.79 minutes) to the Minute:Sec format (example 16:47)
I need an expression to isolate the decimal portion only (example 79). Any ideas?
Thanks,
Julie

Shilpa,
go to system administratioon-system configuration-support-support desk-browse deployment-check for com.sap.porta.navigation.masthead.par and download it to nwds.
when you import it to NWDS jar file will be missing so you need to manually add that to PORTAL-INF/private/lib.
once you do this go to HeaderiView.jsp in PORTAL-INF/jsp folder.
write
<%= new java.util.Date()%> after <hbj:form id="HeaderForm">.for that matter u can write this at any line after this statement
once you do that select qucik par upload from the tool bar and deploy it.
go to system administration-system configuration-support-support desk-administration console and upload the par file
before following these steps take a backup of par file
reward points if helpful

Spotlight - Estimating Indexing Time

If I don't exclude my RAID partitions with a privacy setting, spotlight never finishes indexing.
Unfortunately I want to spotlight search my RAID partitions. A few don't have Journaling, and a few do. Is Journaling a requirement for spotlight to work? Does anyone have any suggestions for how to get this to work?

Hi OS Lucinity;
Having never heard of the 3Ware Sidecar before, I went out and read the link you provided.
I then did some searching and discovered this link
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/external-raid-storage,1922-4.html
In this one it says this product is extremely slow when used in the Raid 5 configuration as you are. I would suggest talking to the vendor about your problems and seeing if they can help you.
Allan

Time capsule not backing up - spotlight doesn't stop indexing!

I have asked Spotlight not to index the backup drive however it ignores this and continues to try and do so. However it continues to estimate index time without providing a time, and hence the backup never proceeds.
Rebooting hasn't helped, and I'm even pluggintg the MBP into the TC via ethernet.
Any ideas please?

I'm having the same problem. Added the time capsule to the privacy list but this doesn't appear to prevent indexing. Basically every time time machine backup kicks off it indexes the time capsule, which is of no value to me. I believe this is a recent issue, but I can't say for certain what changed. Recent software update? Anyway, did you ever get to the bottom of it? My backups do complete, however it slows down the process and of course i can't use spotlight while its "estimating/completing" index of time capsule.

What has been your maximum spotlight indexing time?

Waiting for 10 days now. I put my computer to sleep to get him some rest...

MacFixit http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20061109235901299
Future creation/modification dates causing problems, workaround Certain iterations of Spotlight have some serious issues dealing with files that have creation dates in the future.
Finder.DAT files Spotlight may have problems indexing and searching for Finder.DAT files -- data files usually containing text created by an older Classic Mac OS application like ClarisWorks or spawned by another third-party application. Try eliminating these files if you are experiencing stalls or other problems with Spotlight.
Thanks! I think I'm going to look after this to cure my problem.
Message was edited by: Oki

SpotLight takes forever to index

I know there are a few questions with this title, but they are really about SpotLight taking forever to prepare the indexing. In my case, it takes forever to index. It starts, get a few pixels' worth of the progress bar done, and then stops forever. I've left my computer on for hours on end hoping SoptLight will eventually finish its job; it doesn't. (By the way, it also doesn't give me an estimated remaining time; I just get the progress bar.)
I'm running Mavericks (10.9.5) on a MacBook Pro from September 2014; my computer runs on a 2.2-GHz i7 processor and has 16 GB of RAM. I've got about 420 GB of data (recovered from a TimeMachine backup) split up as follows: about 200 GB is in the computer's 250-GB internal flash-memory "hard disk", and the rest of it is in an external SeaGate 2-TB drive.
For the sake of my battery (which is eaten up ridiculously quickly by SpotLight), I've turned indexing off with the terminal command sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist. However, I do want the indexing to get done so I can actually search my Mac for stuff. I've already run into one instance of the computer being unable to find a document which I know is there (I think it was in the SeaGate drive, but it was looking everywhere, not just in the internal disk); I don't want that to happen again. So how do I get the indexing to actually get done? (Oh, I have a STRONG preference for solutions which don't involve installing third-party software.)
I'd never had this problem before, and I've restored data from TimeMachine backups in the past.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Thanks for your reply, Linc Davis.
The first terminal command resulted in the following (not knowing whether they are privacy-related or not, I replaced the hex codes after MDSImporterProxy with Xs):
Oct 4 17:25:46 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
Oct 5 12:14:16 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
Oct 5 18:20:28 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
Oct 6 08:27:29 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
Oct 6 19:48:33 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
Oct 7 09:23:53 (Error) ImportServer: <MDSImporterProxy 0xXXXXXXXXXXXX shutdown:NO got shutdown notification:NO> still waiting for plug-in info from bundle finder
The second terminal command resulted in the following:
Spotlight server is disabled.
I therefore reactivated SpotLight indexing (with the same command as in my original post, only replacing unload with load), after which I immediately reran the second terminal command. I got the following:
Error: unexpected indexing state. kMDConfigSearchLevelTransitioning
/Volumes/SeaGate:
Error: unexpected indexing state. kMDConfigSearchLevelTransitioning
I then waited a few seconds so SpotLight would start "indexing" and ran the comman a third time, this time getting the following:
Indexing enabled.
/Volumes/SeaGate:
Indexing enabled.
In the console, under "Diagnostic and usage information", there are three sections: "Diagnostic and usage messages", "User diagnostic reports" and "System diagnostic reports". I wasn't sure which of these I should look under, so I selected each of them and searched for "spotlight" (searching for either "mdworker" or ".crash" produced 4 or 5 results, all unrelated to SpotLight, and searching for "mds" returned no results). Only the first section, "Diagnostic and usage messages", had results. At first there was a single result, which I am quoting below (again, I replaced the UUID with Xs); after I turned SpotLight indexing off again (using the command on my original post), I got a second message which was identical to the one below but had no date and had the then-current time. (Note that 10.07 is the date in the format I specified in the system prefs and 11:31:47.238 is, I suppose, the time in Apple's preferred format.)
10.07 11:31:47.238 SystemUIServer[185]: com.apple.message.domain: com.apple.batterymenuextra.signature
com.apple.message.signature: com.apple.metadata.Spotlight
com.apple.message.summarize: YES
Sender_Mach_UUID: XXXXXX

Estimating Delivery Time

I am trying to run a formatted search to display a simple estimated delivery time for each line item in my sales order. My query is as follows:
SELECT (CASE
          WHEN (T0.OnHand - T0.IsCommitted) > 0
               THEN (DocDate + T0.LeadTime)
          WHEN (T0.OnHand - T0.IsCommitted) <= 0
               THEN (DocDate + 5 + T0.LeadTime)
     END)
FROM OITM
WHERE T0.ItemCode = $[$38.1.0.0]
This query errors out, any ideas?

Actually, I think we get 1 row with a NULL value. My bet is that we have NULL in T0.LeadTime.
Try this:
SELECT (CASE
WHEN (T0.OnHand - T0.IsCommited) > 0
THEN dateadd(Day, COALESCE(T0.LeadTime,0), GetDate())
WHEN (T0.OnHand - T0.IsCommited) <= 0
THEN dateadd(Day, (5 + COALESCE(T0.LeadTime,0)), GetDate())
END)
FROM OITM T0
WHERE T0.ItemCode = $[$38.1.0.0]
If you want to read more about nulls then check this:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/mcoles/fourrulesfornulls.asp
HTH
Juha

Spotlight doesn't stop indexing

Hi guys,
Every time I start my iMac (everything up to date, Mac OS X 10.8.2) Spotlight starts calculating the time it will take to complete the indexing. And it takes many, many hours until it actually starts indexing - today I waited 15 hours, then shut the indexing of, restarted the SystemUIServer and waited again maybe 6 hours of calculating the time. Now Spotlight actually startet the indexing; I had that one or two times but then shut my computer off since I had to go to bed, now I'll keep it on to see what happens. I'll post tomorrow what happened, but that Spotlight takes so long to start indexing is a problem that shouldn't be and that should be mentioned and fixed.
Greetings,
Jannis

Please read this whole message before doing anything. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it. The purpose of this test is to determine whether your problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Shut down your computer, wait 30 seconds, and then hold down the shift key while pressing the power button.
When you see the gray Apple logo, release the shift key.
If you are prompted to log in, type your password, and then hold down the shift key again as you click Log in.
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs. The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Spotlight does not complete indexing

About 2 months ago I noticed two unusual things on my wife's MBP (see specs below). The first was that the spotlight kept indexing and it did not end regardless of how much time I allowed it to run. On the other hand, time machine backups would start when the external Time Machine HD was connected but it would stall before completing the backup to the point that I would have to cancel the backup completely. I noticed these two conditions basically at the same time, and at first I thought they were unrelated.
Regarding the spotlight indexing I tried several remedies I found on different forums, but none worked for my particular problem.
Tried several times to rebuild the index by adding and then removing the Macintosh HD into System Preferences/Spotight/Privacy/ panel.
Repaired disk using the [Disk Utility on] install disk. No problems were found. Also repaired permissions just in case, but no luck either.
Tried resetting the PRAM.
Tried resetting the home folder permissions and ACLs via reset password utility on the OSX Install disk.
Tried to index the HD from another user account (which had also Administrator privileges).
Using the Console and the Activity Monitor I noticed that when the indexing started, I would see the mds, mdworker and mdworker32 processes running. Also I would see disk activity and if I clicked on the spotlight icon I would see that the time remaining to complete the index would decrease. However, at some point both mdworker processes would halt (disappear from the activity monitor), and then the mds process CPU usage would jump to 98% or more. At this point the spotlight indexing time remaining would start to rise gradually. I remember seeing indexing completion times as high as 52 hours. The only way to get out of this was to exclude the Macintosh HD from the spotlight and then reboot the machine. I am aware that this would also delete whatever progress was made with the index file and that future attempts would need to rebuild the index from scratch.
After making several attempts to rebuild the index and having the same result, I though that there was a maybe corrupted file or folder that would be causing the problem.
In an attempt to isolate the problem, I made the following:
First I had the Macintosh HD excluded from the spotlight search and rebooted the machine.
I added all the folders under Macintosh HD (e.g. Applications, Library, System, Users, etc.). After adding the folders, I then removed Macintosh HD. This would have the same effect as adding the Macintosh HD excluded, but with the flexibility of being able to build the index by adding folders one by one until the problem showed up again.
I started removing folders from the Spotlight privacy panel until the problem arose. I noticed the problem had occured when the mds process would reach 98% or more AND the mdworker processes had disappeared from the Activity Monitor.
Once I found the folder where the problem was (in my case was the Users folder), then I would add all the folders under the Users folder and repeat the process again.
After several iterations, I found that the folder causing the problem was ~/Library/Application Support/Mobile Sync/Backup/<UDID>; where <UDID> corresponds the my wife's iPhone's UDID number as seen on iTunes. By excluding the <UDID> folder the spotlight would run without problems. If I added this folder, then the problem would reappear.
Turns out that the folders that is causing the problem is the backup folder for my wife’s iPhone. I don’t mind this folder being indexed, however I also discovered that the Time Machine problem I mentioned earlier would be resolved by excluding this same folder from the TM backups; and THIS concerns me.
I though the problem was a corrupt backup folder so in an attempt to solve this I deleted the backup from iTunes and made a full phone backup. Unfortunately this did not solve my problem. I am still not able to include the iPhone backup folder as part of either spotlight or TM.
Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated.
MacBook Pro 13in. Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz (mid 2010)
4GB RAM
OSX 10.6.8
iTunes 11.4
iPhone 5 (model MD641LL/A), iOS 6.1.4

Hello,
I'm seeing the same kind of problem. Here are the symptoms:
-Some or all data from a Mac previously running 10.3, is migrated to a Mac using 10.4. The Migration Assistant is used.
-Spotlight will continuously re-index, stop for a brief period, and repeat, either by itself, or when a search is attempted.
-Erasing the indices with mdutil -E, running fsck, fixing permissions and stopping/starting Spotlight doesn't resolve the problem.
-Excluding the migrated user directory will stop the madness. I.e., other users and shared directories like Applications, are searchable, and Spotlight will stop the continuous re-indexing.
-Recreating the user directory from scratch, and then copying in data from a backup, may once again start the madness.
The big question is, what, exactly, causes the indexing cycle?
The client affected by the problem is very disappointed, and had cause to wonder "how is this any better than Vista? I would have been better off with a Windows PC". I really need to resolve this, but I'm not sure of the best way to get Apple Tech involved with this bug.
Many Macs Mac OS X (10.4.8)

How can I display the elapsed time of the course using Advanced Actions in Captivate?

I have a Captivate course which is approximately 35 minutes in length. On each slide I would like to display to the user, the current elapsed time.
EXAMPLE:
25/35 minutes complete
The 35 would remain static, so I have been working with the elapsed time system variable in CP: elapsed:$$cpInfoElapsedTimeMS$$
I can't seem to get the variable to properly display the elapsed time in minutes, rather than miliseconds. Attached is a screen shot of my advanced action.
Can anyone provide guidence regarding how I should structure this differntly?

I talked about that Timer widget in that blog post and pointed to another one:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/timer-widget-to-stress-your-learners
If you are on CP7, you'll have this widget also as an interaction, which means it is compatible with HTML5 output. Amd there is also an hourglass interaction, with similar functionality but... did not blog about that one
PS: Check Gallery\Widgets to find all widgets. Default path is set to Interactions

Spotlight hung, displays "Estimating Indexing Time" indefinitely

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