Spotlight indexing my computer?

When trying to run spotlight search, there is a drop down box stating "indexing my computer"...45 minutes left.
What is going on with this??  I have never seen this??
Thanks for the help

Spotlight runs in the background, and you wouldn't see this message unsless you accessed spotlight while it was indexing. 

Similar Messages

  • With Maverick does Spotlight index keep indexing even when you have not done anything with your computer?

    I have had lion and in lion the spotlight did not index all of the time like it does now.  It seems like it index's every hour.  I have gone through the forums and have deleted and rebuilt the index but it always seems to index and take 20min to do so about every hour, even if I have not download anything.  Is this a new thing in Maverick or is it something I should worry or do something I have not already done.  I have like I said deleted and rebuilt it.  I also put my hard drive in and out of private.  I have just done a clean install of Maverick and just wondering if this is part of maverick, never did this in lion.  It seems to interrupt my TM Backup and yes I have put my external TM hard drive in the private section.
    Thanks for any help,
    Christopher Malaney

    You can force quit Spotlight indexing.
    Open Activity Monitor located in Applications > Utilities
    Select the CPU tab.
    Type mdworker in the search field top right corner of the window.
    Select mdworker then click the force quit button top left side of the window.

  • Spotlight Indexing, Systemstats, Missing File, All After Mavericks Upgrade

    Dear Mac Support Communities,
    The upgrade to OS X 10.9.4 has crippled my computer.
    My main question is: should I reformat, or should I wait for a patch to come out to solve whatever is wrong with Mavericks? I explain below.
    Spotlight is constantly indexing. The mdworker is all over the place on the Activity Monitor—4% and then it explodes to 85% of CPU usage. Systemstats kicks in randomly (connected to spotlight perhaps?) and eats up 90% of my CPU and 3gigs of RAM. Time Machine takes AGES to backup.
    I have not been able to stop Spotlight's endless indexing. I have moved my hard drive and my Time Machine backup into the 'private' filter in 'Spotlight Preferences.' I have also tried the "sudo mdutil -a -i off" trick to stop indexing altogether. But Spotlight Indexing goes "off" and then automatically turns "on" in Terminal. Spotlight carries on, and the computer performance is choppy.
    I've run disk repair. First, I repaired permissions. Then I verified and attempted to repair the the hard drive. There is a missing file apparently, and I therefore must reformat. This is very first issue I've ever had with the hard drive since I bought the computer. Considering how awful Mavericks has been—I have been reading other Support Communities posts—I'm nervous about something going wrong, or that all these problems will persist after the reformat.
    All of this has occurred three days after my upgrade to to OS X 10.9.4. I have heard of numerous people having problems with Mavericks. All similar problems concerning missing files, haywire spotlight, systemstats devouring any remaining CPU power and memory space, and slow Time Machine back-ups.
    Anyone with the same problems? Care to theorize some solutions?
    I have a late 2008, 15inch MacBook Pro., 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, running OS X 10.9.4 (13E28).
    Cheers! I appreciate the help.

    Older Macs have more troubles under Mavericks. Considering the age of your Mac, it's not uncommon to start have hardware issues like drive failure.
    To repair the drive you must boot from the Recovery Drive.
    Boot into the Recovery Drive by holding down Command R when restarting.
    Run Repair Drive and Repair Permissions using Disk Utility in Recovery.***
    Next Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs following directions here This will serve two purposes. It will reset YOUR permissions. Not the same as Disk Utility reset permissions and it will cause Spotlight to re-index your drive when restarting.
    Restart
    Download and run the combo updater to refresh your OS X files.
    OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 Update (Combo)
    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1755
    MORE INFO ON WHY RUNNING COMBO FIXES ISSUES
    Apple updates available from the Software Update application are incremental updates. Delta updates are also incremental updates and are available from Apple Downloads (software updates are generally smaller than delta updates). The Combo updates contain all incremental updates and will update files that could have become corrupted.
    Combo updaters will install on the same version as they're applying--no need to roll back or do a clean install.
    "Delta" updaters can only take you from one version to the next. For example: 10.9.3 to 10.9.4. If somehow the 10.9.3 is missing something it should have, and that something isn't changed between 10.9.3 and 10.9.4 it will still be stale after the delta update.
    ***If Disk Utility is unable to repair you will have to copy your data to an external drive first. Reformatting will erase the drive. You should have a backup regardless, if your data is important to you. Just like a seat belt and an air bag protect you in different ways when driving, you need both Time Machine and a clone for full protection. If you don't have an external drive for backup, I can give you some suggestions to get you started.
    Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.
    SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
    CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

  • Lost the ability to Spotlight Index my Time Machine drive

    I have an external, Firewire Time Machine drive which has been working without problems up to now. This evening I had a backup which hung up in the "preparing" stage (no file transfers begun yet). When I went to look in the console, there was a device error apparently related to trying to detect the powered-on state of my Time Machine drive. Apparently Time Machine did not handle this gracefully. In the course of trying to clear that I got into a state where I had to force shutdown of the system (holding the power button). (I accidentally clicked on the Time Machine icon which got hung up trying to display the histories, and left me with no access to the Desktop....)
    Things appeared to check out fine when I brought the machine back up (including Verify Disk of both the main and Time Machine drives and Repair Permissions of the main drive), and I finally did a Back Up Now in Time Machine. Due to the forced shut down, this became a "Deep Traversal" "preparing"stage. We'll I've seen those before, so no worries. However it lasted quite a bit longer than it should, at which point I noticed that Spotlight was indexing the Time Machine drive.
    So at this point I dragged the Time Machine into the Spotlight Privacy list. Rather than going away completely as I expected, the indexing of the Time Machine drive apparently went into some sort of clean-up phase that said it was still indexing for another 5 minutes (where it had, just prior, said it was going to be indexing for another 2 hours). The progress bar advanced normally as if it really did do 5 minutes more of indexing of the Time Machine drive. I've not seen this before
    When that finished, the backup which had been "preparing" during all of this also finished "preparing", transferred the several MB of files I expected, and finished normally. There were no errors in the console related to any of this.
    I rebooted, and once again did a pair of Disk Verifies and a Repair Permissions without problems. Opened up the console to track things, and poked around in the Time Machine. All was normal as far as I can tell. I also explored the Time Machine drive via the Finder. No problems.
    So I now went into Spotlight Privacy and removed the Time Machine drive from the privacy list expecting it to do the re-indexing I had stopped above. Spotlight started indexing the drive and a couple seconds later it stopped. I tried again -- into and out of privacy -- same result, a couple seconds of indexing and then it stopped.
    At this point I noticed the console was saying I had some bus errors in the I/O system, and that's what was terminating the md worker process and stopping the indexing.
    So I shut down, unplugged the Time Machine drive, and went through my maintenance ritual.
    I reset the PMU (this is a powerbook), reset PRAM, booted once in Safe Mode, booted normally, and ran Disk Utility again to Verify and Repair Permissions on the main hard drive. All of that went without a hitch. No failures, faults or funnies.
    I ran through the list of Applications I use, keeping an eye on the console. Again no problems.
    So I shut down, plugged the Time Machine drive back in and booted back up. I put the drive into Spotlight Privacy and turned off Time Machine backups. I then did a Verify Disk on that drive. No problems. I went into the Time Machine history display. No problems. And no problems looking at it in the Finder either. In particular, no bus errors or anything else funny in the console.
    I rebooted and did a new Back Up Now. It completed without problems. It was another Deep Traversal backup due to the Safe Mode Boot, but it went without a hitch. I rebooted and did another Back Up Now and got a normal speed incremental backup again without a hitch. The bottom line is that as far as I can see that Time Machine drive is working just fine.
    So I went into Spotlight Privacy and removed it from the list. Once again it started to index and stopped in a couple seconds. But this time there were NO Console error messages.
    I moved my main hard drive into Spotlight Privacy and removed it and it re-indexed from scratch just fine. Tried again with the Time Machine drive -- indexing stopped in a couple of seconds with no message in the Console. Spotlight searches find all the right stuff in the main drive. Spotlight and finder searches find only the top level Time Machine folders in the Time Machine drive.
    I also tried removing the Spotlight plist from my account's Library / Preferences. Spotlight created a new plist as expected but it still won't index that darned Time Machine drive.
    Apparently there is something left over from when I originally aborted the Spotlight indexing of that drive which is causing Spotlight to think it has no work to do. I'm not seeing any I/O errors of any sort any more (I think my maintenance pass took care of that) and Time Machine backups and history access continue to work just fine. And again, the Time Machine disk Verifies just fine.
    So I've run out of things to try.
    Is there a hidden file that I need to remove from that drive so that Spotlight no longer thinks it already has it indexed?
    --Bob

    Well unfortunately the command
    sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/MyDiskName
    didn't help.
    The command itself echoed the name of the volume and then said "Indexing Enabled", which looked good. But the Spotlight indexing stopped after a couple seconds. The Console reported the Terminal sudo command and nothing else.
    I tried moving the Time Machine drive in and out of Spotlight privacy and once again the indexing started and stopped a couple seconds later with no Console messages.
    I then tried another trick I've learned to make Spotlight indexing happen which is to do a Finder search for, say, all folders (limited to the one drive) via Command-f and while Including both System Files and files both Visible and Invisible. And indeed Spotlight indexing started but again stopped a few seconds later.
    However, this time there were console messages and a crash report.
    The Console shows (with personal information x'ed out):
    12/31/07 1:30:38 PM mds[28] (/)(Error) IndexCI in openindex_filelazy:open file error: 2, 0.indexGroups
    12/31/07 1:30:41 PM ReportCrash[146] Formulating crash report for process mds[28]
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.metadata.mds[28]) Exited abnormally: Bus error
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10ba40.mdworker[96]) Exited: Terminated
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (0x1004a0.mdworker[108]) Exited: Terminated
    12/31/07 1:30:42 PM mds[147] (/Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF)(E rror) IndexCI in ContentIndexOpenBulk:Unclean shutdown of /Volumes/Xxxxxx Time Machine/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/80F3EC85-D77A-49FE-8BDC-BB7C3B3EC1CF/0. ; needs recovery
    12/31/07 1:30:43 PM ReportCrash[146] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mds2007-12-31-133038Xxxxxx-Xxxxxx-Computer.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
    The Crash Report reads as follows (again with personal information x'ed out):
    Process: mds [28]
    Path: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
    Identifier: mds
    Version: ??? (???)
    Code Type: PPC (Native)
    Parent Process: launchd [1]
    Date/Time: 2007-12-31 13:30:38.746 -0500
    OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.1 (9B18)
    Report Version: 6
    Exception Type: EXCBADACCESS (SIGBUS)
    Exception Codes: KERNPROTECTIONFAILURE at 0x0000000000000030
    Crashed Thread: 15
    Thread 0:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0000cfa0 0x1000 + 49056
    5 mds 0x00005580 0x1000 + 17792
    Thread 1:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 2:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 3:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 4:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 5:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 6:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda3ec _semwaitsignal + 12
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f16fa0 pthread_condwait + 1580
    2 mds 0x00009648 0x1000 + 34376
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 7:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ee0ea0 read$UNIX2003 + 12
    1 mds 0x000091b4 0x1000 + 33204
    Thread 8:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15438 kevent + 12
    1 mds 0x0007e584 0x1000 + 513412
    Thread 9:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 10:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 11:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 12:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 13:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00207f0c _handleExceptions + 208
    3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 14:
    0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92ed39d8 machmsgtrap + 8
    1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92eda8fc mach_msg + 56
    2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90214664 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 1828
    3 mds 0x00059ab8 0x1000 + 363192
    4 mds 0x0005987c 0x1000 + 362620
    5 com.apple.Foundation 0x969c5d9c _NSThread__main_ + 1004
    6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 15 Crashed:
    0 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x002046cc ContentIndexContainsContentByDocId + 204
    1 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00164358 QueryFunctionCallbackContext::findContent(db_obj*, __CFString const*, char*, int) + 244
    2 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001634d0 qpContentIndexMatch(datastoreinfo*, dblazyobj*, query_piece*, void*, int) + 328
    3 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0015587c comparefile_againsttree + 828
    4 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d30 comparefile_againsttree + 2032
    5 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00155d5c comparefile_againsttree + 2076
    6 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e307c -[SISearchCtx isObjectInQuery:withQuery:shortcut:] + 144
    7 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001fa268 -[SISearchCtx_FSWalk performSearch:] + 996
    8 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001e2cbc -[SISearchCtx executeSearchContextCracked_2:jobNum:] + 136
    9 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00177e80 siwork_queueprocess + 752
    10 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017811c sischeduleronce + 356
    11 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0017816c sischeduleronce + 436
    12 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x001784f8 sischeduler_run_waitingtimeout + 640
    13 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x0016529c runLoop + 72
    14 com.apple.spotlight.index 0x00165308 query_runLoop + 32
    15 libSystem.B.dylib 0x92f15bf8 pthreadstart + 316
    Thread 15 crashed with PPC Thread State 32:
    srr0: 0x002046cc srr1: 0x0200f030 dar: 0x00000030 dsisr: 0x40000000
    r0: 0x002046a4 r1: 0xf09a4380 r2: 0x00000000 r3: 0x00000000
    r4: 0xf09a43c0 r5: 0x00000000 r6: 0x000074d1 r7: 0x00000000
    r8: 0x003fc080 r9: 0x00000000 r10: 0x00000000 r11: 0x44000444
    r12: 0x92ede094 r13: 0x00000000 r14: 0x00000000 r15: 0x00373410
    r16: 0x00000000 r17: 0x00239e98 r18: 0x00000001 r19: 0x00227b9c
    r20: 0x00000000 r21: 0x00245554 r22: 0x00000001 r23: 0x00000001
    r24: 0x00000000 r25: 0x00000005 r26: 0x00000000 r27: 0x00000000
    r28: 0x00000000 r29: 0x00000005 r30: 0xf09a43c0 r31: 0x00204610
    cr: 0x24000444 xer: 0x20000004 lr: 0x002046a4 ctr: 0x92ede094
    vrsave: 0x00000000
    Binary Images:
    0x1000 - 0xc1ffb mds ??? (???) <af9cc958b4b030835101ff024186c7d3> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Support/mds
    0xde000 - 0xe0ffd com.apple.MDSChannel 1.0 (1.0) /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MDSChannel.framework/Versions/A/MDSChannel
    0x139000 - 0x23fffb com.apple.spotlight.index 10.5.0 (398.1) <5843125c709dd85f22f9bd42744beea5> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SpotlightIndex.framework/Versions/A/Spotlight Index
    0x1ca9000 - 0x1caaffc liblangid.dylib ??? (???) <5f078ac1f623f5ce432ea53fc29338c0> /usr/lib/liblangid.dylib
    0x2198000 - 0x22bdffb libmecab.1.0.0.dylib ??? (???) <cd875e74974e4ec3a0b13eeeb236fa53> /usr/lib/libmecab.1.0.0.dylib
    0x8fe00000 - 0x8fe309d3 dyld 95.3 (???) <a7be977c203ec5c76b2f25a7aef66554> /usr/lib/dyld
    0x90123000 - 0x9016effb com.apple.Metadata 10.5.0 (398) <b6bb1fd5a7a9135f546b2d8cbd65eafc> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Metadat a.framework/Versions/A/Metadata
    0x901ab000 - 0x902d0ff3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 6.5 (476) <9073c2bfdf6842562c8b7f0308109c02> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
    0x9060a000 - 0x90612fff libbsm.dylib ??? (???) <c1fca3cbe3b1c21e9b31bc89b920f34c> /usr/lib/libbsm.dylib
    0x90683000 - 0x90688ff6 libmathCommon.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
    0x90757000 - 0x907d2fff com.apple.SearchKit 1.2.0 (1.2.0) <1b448fbae02460eae76ee1c6883f45d6> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/SearchK it.framework/Versions/A/SearchKit
    0x9088a000 - 0x9090ffff libsqlite3.0.dylib ??? (???) <7b379cb4220346e99c32c427d4539496> /usr/lib/libsqlite3.0.dylib
    0x90aa7000 - 0x90ab5fff libz.1.dylib ??? (???) <1a70dd3594a8c5ad39d785af5da23237> /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib
    0x90b50000 - 0x90be2fff com.apple.framework.IOKit 1.5.1 (???) <591b8b0cc4261db98a6e72e38eef5f9a> /System/Library/Frameworks/IOKit.framework/Versions/A/IOKit
    0x91105000 - 0x9116cffb libstdc++.6.dylib ??? (???) <a4e9b10268b3ffac26d0296499b24e8e> /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
    0x9116d000 - 0x912b5ff3 libicucore.A.dylib ??? (???) <250daed2fb2e6bf114480e2e4da0728b> /usr/lib/libicucore.A.dylib
    0x91c3c000 - 0x91d32ffc libiconv.2.dylib ??? (???) <05ae1fcc97404173b2f9caef8f8be797> /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
    0x91d3a000 - 0x91db4ffd com.apple.CFNetwork 220 (221) <00b882d3d3325526b78ded74880759fe> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CFNetwo rk.framework/Versions/A/CFNetwork
    0x9236a000 - 0x92382ffb com.apple.DictionaryServices 1.0.0 (1.0.0) <fe37191e732eeb66189185cd000a210b> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/Diction aryServices.framework/Versions/A/DictionaryServices
    0x92383000 - 0x9238effb libgcc_s.1.dylib ??? (???) <ea47fd375407f162c76d14d64ba246cd> /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
    0x92742000 - 0x92769fff libxslt.1.dylib ??? (???) <3700d04090629deddb436aa2d516c56d> /usr/lib/libxslt.1.dylib
    0x92777000 - 0x92860fff libxml2.2.dylib ??? (???) <6f383df1e1e775be0158ba947784ae13> /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib
    0x928aa000 - 0x928b9fff com.apple.DSObjCWrappers.Framework 1.2 (1.2) <2411674c821a8907449ac741ce6a40c3> /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DSObjCWrappers.framework/Versions/A/DSObjCWra ppers
    0x92a17000 - 0x92afafeb libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) <4a90e315bd1718c3f5ae09ee6c23e36c> /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
    0x92afb000 - 0x92bc9ff7 com.apple.CoreServices.OSServices 210.2 (210.2) <bad4943629f870d305f2bc7c6dfffe2d> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/OSServi ces.framework/Versions/A/OSServices
    0x92bde000 - 0x92dbfffb com.apple.security 5.0.1 (32736) <15632bf9bbdb223194b3d79a2e48e02d> /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
    0x92e9a000 - 0x92ec5ff7 libauto.dylib ??? (???) <c1f2bd227817ad7c7bf29ec74729ac7c> /usr/lib/libauto.dylib
    0x92ed2000 - 0x9306bfe3 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) <8a6cd873dfa7ada786efac188f95ed1b> /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    0x931a7000 - 0x934a7ff3 com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore 783 (783) <fd2acaf23e95472f78b8a077fa039986> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CarbonC ore.framework/Versions/A/CarbonCore
    0x946f2000 - 0x9472afff com.apple.SystemConfiguration 1.9.0 (1.9.0) <d925dde7699e6231c88a41b0254a7591> /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfi guration
    0x94933000 - 0x9494eff3 com.apple.DirectoryService.Framework 3.5 (3.5) <3246a5d1c6a3d678798a90e8c5cd3677> /System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryServi ce
    0x9494f000 - 0x9494fffa com.apple.CoreServices 32 (32) <42b6dda539f7411606187335d9eae0c5> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices
    0x94c68000 - 0x94c9dfff com.apple.AE 402 (402) <a4b92c8ac89cc774b85fb44c48b9d882> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/AE.fram ework/Versions/A/AE
    0x96831000 - 0x9683afff com.apple.DiskArbitration 2.2 (2.2) <9c8f8ade43fa25b32109ef9dcc0cb5d5> /System/Library/Frameworks/DiskArbitration.framework/Versions/A/DiskArbitration
    0x9683b000 - 0x968d1ff7 com.apple.LaunchServices 286 (286) <a3a0b2af862e9a8945072f8cb523678f> /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchS ervices.framework/Versions/A/LaunchServices
    0x969bc000 - 0x96c00ffb com.apple.Foundation 6.5.1 (677.1) <4152239382fb0f48abbcbf35bd04afa6> /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation
    0xfffec000 - 0xfffeffff libobjc.A.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
    0xffff8000 - 0xffff9703 libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    Apparently the mdutil command didn't actually delete the Spotlight index file which is causing the problem, or at least didn't leave the indexing files in a consistent, empty state to start indexing over again. I may have to Erase this Time Machine disk and start over.
    I should point out that except for Spotlight indexing this disk is otherwise working just fine. It passes Verify Disk with no errors and both new Time Machine backups and viewing and restoring via Time Machine and Finder work without problem.
    Any suggestions before I just Erase the disk and start over with a new backup?
    --Bob

  • A possible cause for the Lion freezes: Spotlight indexing

    Does your Mac freeze mysteriously after upgrading to Lion?
    Mine had that problem, but after troubleshooting, I seem to have identified the culprit (at least for my MacBook) and, after deleting the offending file, I have since experienced no problem.  Here, I will share a case report with the hope that it will help others troubleshoot their computers experiencing the same problem.
    The Problem: Mac (running Lion 10.7 or 10.7.1) freezes sometime after logging on.  The freeze begins by an inability to get a response to clicks.  The cursor is still active, but after a click or two the cursor turns into a spinning disc.  After some time, the clock stops updating on the menu bar.
    Mine froze consistently after about 15-20 min after logging on.  It happened regardless of which application I was using, it froze even if I didn't do anything after logging on.  It required a reboot (control-command-power button on a MacBook) everytime.
    Was Spotlight indexing active right before the freeze happened?  When Spotlight indexing is active, the magnifying glass icon on the upper right corner of your display will show a blinking dot.  Mine was.
    A Possible Culprit: Spotlight may have encountered a corrupt file on the hard disk during indexing.
    What you can do:
    Before you do anything, it is recommended that you have backed up all your files.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to back up now because the Mac may freeze during the back up process.
    1. Check the errors related to Spotlight by opening Console, which is an utility app that you can find in the Applications>Utilities folder.  Do you see error messages for "mdworkers"?  It does not always show up before the freeze, but this may indicate some problems during Spotlight indexing.
    2. Confirm the problem by turning off Spotlight indexing.  You can do this in a number of ways, but I will list two ways below:
    a) Go to System Preferences and click on Spotlight icon.  Under the Privacy tab, click on "+" icon and add the "Users" folder (or any particular folder that you may suspect).  The indexing will not happen to files in that folder.  Also, turn off Time Machine and disconnect back up disks, if you use any.  Apparently Spotlight indexes within the Time Machine backups.  OR
    b) For experienced users: Open Terminal and type "sudo mdutil -i off" without the quotes.  (To turn it back on, type "sudo mdutil -i on /" without the quotes)
    3. Try using your computer with Spotlight turned off.  Does it still freeze?  If it does not, you have confirmed that the problem is with Spotlight indexing.
    4. Find the offending file that causes problem by turning Spotlight indexing back on...
    a) Remove the folder by highlighting and clicking on "-" button under the Privacy tab.  OR
    b) For experienced users: Type "sudo mdutil -i on /" without the quotes.
    5. ...and then repeating steps 2a, 3, and 4a.  Try isolating different folders until you can narrow down the problem.  This process may take a while.
    6. Once you narrowed down to a few folders, try QuickLook through the contents of the folder while the Console is open.  To use QuickLook, highlight a file in the Finder and hit a space bar on your keyboard.  It is helpful to set the Finder in a column view so you can use arrow keys to navigate through the folders.  Does Console show you an error when you QuickLook a file?  Can you double click and open that file?  If not, the file may be corrupt.  Trash that file and empty trash.
    7. Now turn Spotlight indexing back on (step 4) and use your computer for a while.  Does it still freeze?  If so, repeat the process and find other corrupt files.
    For me, it was a single corrupt image file in the Documents folder that caused the freezing problem.  I deleted it and the problem went away.  Since that file had been untouched for years, and I did not experience the same freezing problem in Snow Leopard, I suspect that Spotlight in Lion is somehow less permissive of corrupt files assuming that the file did not corrupt after the upgrade.
    Steps 4-7 is cumbersome and it takes a long time to troubleshoot.  If you know of a faster way to identify corrupt files, please share in this thread.  Also, I think Spotlight should alert the users when it encounters a corrupt file and give us a choice to delete it on the spot.  Please join me by sending a feedback to Apple about this.

    My G5, PPC, came with Tiger installed and ran great. I decided to upgrade to Leopard (not snow leopard) and at first it seemed to work well.
    Here is where you should backup, reinitialize, and make sure you use retail 10.4 rather than any OEM DVD?
    After several days I noticed I have Permission errors that Disk Utility would not fix. (The only way to repair this was to insert the install disk and run Disk Utility from there: which means you have to reimport/install all the OS updates over again)
    Some real confusion. Permissions can and should be done while booted from your hard drive; never run from older version of OS X.
    Not all permission messages are errors.
    Bootable backups (clones).
    Invest in 3rd party repair programs.
    Eventually the OS was crashing and freezing so I went to a local Apple repair store to ask why. Apparently Leopard is unstable on some G5 towers.
    No, not really.
    But you do have to insure your hardware, your software, is also current.
    I decided to reinstall Tiger and still had problems. After about 5 attempts at reinstalling the OS I realized I was using a disk from a G4 tower that my kids use, so I found the disk that come with my G5 and the install worked perfectly.
    So it appears that not all OS install disks are the same:
    No secret there. NEVER use an OEM disc except your own; or, use retail full install versions is all. I guess you never came across that bit.
    Sorry you had to take so much time, but sounds like came away with some misconceptions.

  • Tried to fix spotlight indexing and lost my entire drive and backup; can you help me find them?

    Hi,
    I am in a complete crisis. If anyone can help me, I'd be very grateful.
    I tried to correct my Spotlight indexing by using a combination of the sudo mdutil -E / , sudo mdutil -i on / , and sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100 commands from the terminal.
    I am not sure what happened, but the computer went into an interminable color-wheel and, when I shut down and rebooted after an hour or two, I found that both my main drive and my backup drive had severe problems.
    DiskUtility volunteered to correct these. I ran it on my main drive and found that my entire directory appears to have been erased.
    Disk Warrior cannot repair.  Nor can TechTool.  Both declare that the directory structure is now beyond repair (which they also say of my former backup clone).
    My main drive now has barely nine files left - and a handful of empty folders:
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Library/Application Support/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Library/Keychains/System.keychain
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Users/ericcolvin/Library/Frameworks/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Users/ericcolvin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Users/ericcolvin/Library/Preferences/com.bittorrent.uTorrent.plist
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Users/ericcolvin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Users/ericcolvin/Library/Autosave Information/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Directories/System/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Directories/System/Library/Exten sions/KextPropertyValues_OSBundleHelper_i386.plist.gz
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Directories/System/Library/Exten sions/KextIdentifiers.plist.gz
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Directories/System/Library/Exten sions/IOKitPersonalities_i386.ioplist.gz
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.bootstamps/0E6271FF-3F33-3661-9B4A-38AFF32D4 860/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/Applications/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/net/
    file:///Volumes/Eric's HD/home/
    Though I did not run any file repairs on the back up drive, it has also lost all of its files (it shows just one remaining
    file:///Volumes/Eric's Backup/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi - whatever that is).
    FileSalvage is now beavering away, attempting to scavenge some 350Gb of applications, e-mails, photos, iTunes, and movies (most of which it is unable to name). But these will all be unlabelled and randomly organised by extension type. These could take months to sift through and the list is almost certain to be incomplete. I have no other backups of my system apart from a two year old clone.
    Please tell me. Is there anything I can do to get back my lost directory structure?
                           Might there be some use of an Undelete routine that might recover the directory alone and thus allow me to salvage either disk?
                            I don't even know what sort of extension to hunt for in order to attempt such a restore
                           - nor how I might drop it back into its correct spot on the volume.
    All suggestions gratefully received.

    Thanks, guys.
    Yes, FileSalvage seems able to retrieve a vast jumble of unnamed "junk files," a tiny percentage of which are probably highly valuable to me. The problem will be finding them amongst the jumble. It could take weeks. ITunes files and MP3s are more promising, as it seems to have been able to reconstruct the files' names - and even cover art - from their metadata.
    No. TechTool Pro wrote nothing at all. Sadly, though, I had allowed Disk Utility to reduce the number of threads or leaves or something in the volume directory, before I realised the gravity of the situation. It has thus made a very small alteration to my main drive (resulting, no doubt in the creation of those 9 system files and their containing folders). But the back-up drive had nothing further written to it since the apparent deletion of the volume.
    I downloaded a freeware program called TestDisk which claims to analyse drive partitions. The partitions on each of my two physical drives (the internal and the backup clone) were not apparently affected - just the total loss of the volume directory structure on the boot partition in each case. So, would this be the wrong tool for the job?  http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk  It does claim to be able to "Rebuild NTFS boot sector." I don't really know what that means. Can anyone tell me whether a rebuilt boot sector will enable me to recover a deleted volume directory structure?
    Meanwhile, I am also running a trial version of Stellar Phoenix, which claims to reinstate "lost/deleted volumes."  It claims to have "found 6 lost/deleted volumes" already - after five hours, during which it has scanned about 5% of my 1.5 T external drive. So I suppose it may well take days to finish scanning. Then, I expect it may ask me to buy a serial code in order to proceed.
    Does anyone have experience with Phoenix, or understand the jargon about lost/deleted volumes? Once I've bought the full version, is there a good chance it will actually reconstruct the whole volume as it once was - or is it more likely just to scavenge scores of thousands of nameless file snippets as per FileSalvage?
    I don't have a problem with paying the boffins at Stellar if they are actually able to save me months of sifting through random unnamed files in order to locate the ones I've lost.

  • Weird issues with menu font, Spotlight indexing, etc.

    Hi all,
    About a week ago, my PB G4 was freezing a lot; I'd have to hold the power button to shut it down, and if I tried to start it up again, it would chime and the light would come on, but the screen wouldn't light up and there would be no disc/fan sound. Or sometimes the screen would light up and the disc would boot, but it would either freeze at the grey screen or just after getting to my desktop. This was all similar to some issues I had over the summer when my hard drive was getting too full, but now I've got 22GB free (out of 90GB), so that shouldn't be a problem. I have OnyX and have run it a couple times in the last few months for cleanup.
    So anyway, last week, I read what I could find on the forums here and in my user's guide. I tried resetting PRAM/NVRAM, but after the second chime sound (when it's okay to release the keys), it froze on the restart, so I wasn't sure if it worked or not. (I have since tried resetting this, and it's worked normally.) I booted from the Install DVD and reset the startup disk. I ran Apple Hardware Test, and everything checked out okay. My S.M.A.R.T. status was "verified." I also ran Disk Utility to repair permissions and disk, but got an error during disk repair that the repair could not be completed.
    Somewhere in all of this, on one of the restarts, all of the text in the menu at the top of the screen changed so that each character was replaced with a small square with a capital letter A in it. This is annoying, though I've mostly been able to get around it using keystroke commands or just remembering where things were in the menus. The same character display issue is also true of the text beneath every icon on my desktop and in Finder windows-- though if I click on those as if to rename those files, I can see the name in a regular font. In the Finder, if I switch it to list view rather than icon view, the texts for the file and application names appear normal. When dialog boxes (for errors or commands) come up, the text in those sometimes appears as these little boxed characters.
    Oddly enough, my computer's been working better since this happened... or at least, I haven't had any more restart issues. However, I've noticed some other weird things besides just the menu fonts. If I click the Spotlight icon to do a search, it always shows that it's indexing my computer. Yesterday I tried to print a Word document and just got an error simply saying "Word cannot print." I'm wondering if these and the menu font issues are all related to the disk errors that Disk Utility encountered, and what I should try next.
    Anybody encountered this before?

    Hi, rhiannon. Your hard drive's directory is seriously corrupt — so seriously that Disk Utility can't fix it. You have three choices:
    1. If your hard drive's contents are backed up in the form of an up-to-date bootable clone of your hard drive from just before your problems began, simply clone the clone from your external backup drive back onto the internal drive. This will erase the internal drive, including whatever is corrupt on it, and replace its contents with the contents of your backup. You will be back to normal quickly.
    2. Use a more potent disk Utility such as DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro to repair the hard drive directory. If you don't have all your data backed up elsewhere, this is the way to go.
    3. If you have your data backed up, but not in a bootable clone form, start up from your Tiger installer DVD, erase your hard drive, and reinstall everything on it from original software installer discs and from your data backups, afterward applying all the necessary software updates again. This is very time-consuming.

  • Spotlight indexing causing repeated error in console

    Hi,
    I just recently upgraded my mac to 10.6.8 from 10.5.8.  Everything is working fine, except for Spotlight.  I know that upon a new upgrade Spotlight will take a while to index the computer, but it has been hours and in console I am getting two repeated messages.  The first one appears every minute or so:
    Dec  5 15:45:58 marc-cutillos-macbook mds[43]: (/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/164ED999-5DAD-430E-8FD9-79661D539F03)(Error) IndexSDB in si_writeBackDBO:Error 2 storing dbo(c973f5,430,75,4d02111cfd3ea,0,65089c,30)
    Dec  5 15:46:22 marc-cutillos-macbook mds[43]: (/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1/Stores/164ED999-5DAD-430E-8FD9-79661D539F03)(Error) IndexSDB in si_writeBackDBO:Error 2 storing dbo(c973f5,430,75,4d0211343a689,0,65089e,30)
    I have literally hundreds of these messages with the only thing changing is the final numbers before the "30"
    The other message I keep getting every half hour or so is the following.  I am listing two of these such messages:
    Dec  5 13:46:29 marc-cutillos-macbook Safari[283]: Periodic CFURLCache Insert stats (iters: 412) - Tx time:0.005208, # of Inserts: 1, # of bytes written: 11474, Did shrink: NO, Size of cache-file: 8409088, Num of Failures: 0
    Dec  5 15:12:14 marc-cutillos-macbook Safari[719]: Periodic CFURLCache Insert stats (iters: 360) - Tx time:0.005909, # of Inserts: 1, # of bytes written: 86046, Did shrink: NO, Size of cache-file: 29925376, Num of Failures: 1
    Lastly, I am getting this error a few times also:
    Dec  5 15:18:21 marc-cutillos-macbook mdworker[750]: (Error) SyncInfo: Catalog changed during searchfs too many times -- falling back to fsw search /
    I have very few 3rd party apps.  I had McAfee but deleted it (although there seems to be some remnants as .plist files) Can anyone let me know of some advice?  I would just force quit the indexng through terminal, but I'm very curious what these constant error messages are.

    BTW, I went off some terminal commands that I saw in another discussion thread by Linc Davis:
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3185946?start=0&tstart=0
    I typed in the commands and this was my result:
    Last login: Wed Dec  5 14:33:34 on console
    marc-cutillos-macbook:~ yankee119$ kextstat -kl | awk ' !/apple/ { print $6 } '
    marc-cutillos-macbook:~ yankee119$ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk ' !/0x|apple|edu\.|org\./ { print $3 } '
    Password:
    com.vix.cron
    com.adobe.versioncueCS3
    marc-cutillos-macbook:~ yankee119$ launchctl list | sed 1d | awk ' !/0x|apple|edu\.|org\./ { print $3 } '
    com.adobe.ARM.ad895013aeb33ea6e968d9fdc06c0eb42c7c2a5229d98d64ad002716
    com.adobe.ARM.925793fb327152fd34795896fa1fb9ffa268b2a852256fe56609efa3
    marc-cutillos-macbook:~ yankee119$ ls -1 /Library/{InputManagers,StartupItems}
    ls: /Library/InputManagers: No such file or directory
    /Library/StartupItems:
    cma
    marc-cutillos-macbook:~ yankee119$

  • Can I save and replace Spotlight Index?

    Spotlight has been playing up recently. Several times a week it won't Find, so I have to use the Software Preferences/Spotlight/Privacy trick to re-index. That involves a half hour or so, plus a restart. (I suspect I need to reinstall my OS)
    Now, as most of the files I want to Find have been on my system for years, I thought if I could just save the Spotlight Index on my desktop, then replace the faulty index with the saved version whenever Spotlight plays up, then I have temporarily solved the problem. (I could re-index Spotlight at a convenient time)
    Does anyone know how to do this?
    Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
    Guy

    If you're asking if you can archive your text messages, you can email the text of your text conversations by opening the conversation, tapping Edit, tap all the parts you want to email, then tap Forward and enter an email address.  If you want to save the entire conversation as it appears on your phone you'll have to either take screenshots and email the photos to your computer or use 3rd party software such as PhoneView (Mac) or Touch Copy (PC or Mac).

  • The never ending spotlight indexing

    I upgraded to Snow Leopard three days ago and have a problem that spotlight indexing never seem to stop. There are regular spikes in processor usage caused by the two processes "mds" and "mdsworker32" (the can be up to 80% of CPU usage), causing the fans on my MBP to run way too often (it's starting to get quite annoying).
    I've tried to fix this by turning of indexing for the whole disk and then turn it on again, but this doesn't seem to help. I've let the computer be turned on since I installed SL but it just continues.
    I've tried to find a way to see how far the indexing has progressed but the hints I've found online doesn't see to work (hover over the spotlight icon in the menubar to see a tooltip).
    I'm getting quite desperate and would really appreciate if someone could help me fix this.
    I'm using a 2.33 GHz MBP with 10.6 (installed over a 10.5.8 installation). I've got 120 GB disk with approx 22GB free, I'm running as a non-privileged user.
    Any idea what could be causing this?

    Carolyn Samit wrote:
    delete the Spotlight preference file.
    com.apple.spotlight.plist
    /Users/YourName/Library/Preferences.
    I'll do that. But I don't believe this would help. Because on my machine are five user accounts and non of them has a working Spotlight index. So I think there's something wrong in outside one of the user accounts.
    Also... could you please click My Settings on the right side of this page and tell us which Mac you have and select 10.6. Thank you.
    Done.
    Kind regards, Friedrich

  • Endless Spotlight indexing

    My Mac Pro 8-core has been indexing for the last 3 days or so non-stop. At least every time I go to use it, I get the "Spotlight will be available as soon as the contents of your computer have been indexed." I've never seen indexing take this long before -- in fact I've never even noticed it for more than a minute or three. Anything I can do to abort this index process? -- I have a feeling it's hung somewhere.

    Hi gimbo70 & welcome to forums
    Go to System Preferences/Spotlight and add your iDisk to the exclusion list/window.
    Close prefs, then re-open and remove your iDisk from the exclusion window. This should stop and restart normal indexing on that particular volume.
    See these articles/links for more info:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22902?viewlocale=en_US
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1635504&tstart=795
    http://www.wwco.com/~wls/blog/2007/08/29/rebuilding-spotlights-index-on-os-x-man ually/
    If it were me, I wouldn't entertain an indexed iDisk...

  • How can I determine if Spotlight indexing is running?

    I am having occasional severe slowdowns, during which the machine becomes extremely unresponsive. Attempts to switch to a different app can take minutes, even clicking in the menu bar can take more 30 seconds to bring up the menu.
    Most of the time this happens, in fact probably all the time, is when I return to the machine after it's been "inactive". My energy saver settings are "never put the computer to sleep when it is inactive" and "put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for 15 minutes". Screen saver is set to "never".
    I believe the cause could be spotlight indexing, but how can I verify that? Occasionally when this happens I've gotten into the terminal window and run "top", but I don't notice anything unusual (but I may not know what to look for). Once, I brought up the spotlight window and it had a line that said something like "indexing in progress". Or perhaps I imagined that, because I haven't seen it since.
    I am also using Time Machine, but TM never claims to be doing anything during these slowdowns. TM backs up to a 500G external drive, and I have three drives that I rotate through monthly. At one point I added the top directory on the external drive to Spotlight's privacy list, hoping this would prevent it from indexing the backup. That didn't seem to solve my problem, and in any case the three external drives have different names, and spotlight doesn't seem to remember them. And trying this today spotlight won't let me add the top level folder (Backups.backupdb) but instead forces me to go one layer deeper and add all the folders in that folder (one for each machine I backup).
    It would be rather annoying to continually tell spotlight about the backup folders. And I don't even know that spotlight is really the problem.
    I've found this thread:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8977265
    but I'd like to verify that spotlight is indeed the cause, and that the solution mentioned there is indeed a proper solution.
    Thanks for any help,
    Bob H

    There are several background operations and actions taking place in the system
    and at various levels, too; you may have noticed them in Activity Monitor utility,
    and by clicking once to highlight an active one in the list, you can further look into
    any one of particular interest to see what else it may have going on.
    However, some of these layers of function are rather cryptic to the casual user
    who may not get around to learning about their usually hidden reason for being.
    You may spot something or another in Activity Monitor's list of All functions, and
    depending on how that list is ordered or preferences set to be viewed, more or
    less information may be available immediately.
    And then, there is the Console utility, where you can see what may have been
    going on at or near a specific time; since the reports and logs are time dated.
    Sometimes, when my computers (no more than two at a time, are on) seem to
    be running something or another, but I haven't a clue exactly what, I will look
    into both of these utilities to see why; or what it was busily doing.
    In Console, you can sometimes see groupings of messages that repeat and
    they can appear to be commands that failed or were ignored by the system;
    and it still works just fine, at least for the most part. If you find a list of odd
    long log messages that are about the time you hear the machine working, it
    may be worth a try to discover what the process is, that is running that long.
    {It is possible to force spotlight to re-index, and some other things, too. But
    the need to do so should be researched before doing that. A tool such as
    OnyX can do more than most users would need, outside of its Automation
    selection of most common maintenance chores. Be careful if you use it.}
    You may have to check into the functioning of the computer to be sure
    the system and hardware are OK.
    Good luck & happy computing!

  • Isn't the Spotlight Index File a Massive Security Threat?

    I'm wondering about the concept that Spotlight makes a really deep search -- and record -- of all user-created text files on your computer.
    In order for Spotlight to know that a file called "My Personal Stuff.rtf" contains the words "bank", "account", "number", "1234-567890" it needs to copy each of those keywords into the Spotlight index. That means in effect that Spotlight is making a *complete copy* of *all words* in *all text documents* ever on or temporarily connected to your computer, except for un-searched words like "the", "and", etc.
    If you've ever plugged your thumb drive into a public Mac somewhere, Spotlight got to work and copied all the (key-) words in every file on your thumb drive into the Spotlight index on that computer.
    If you're happy that at least you had Filevault turned on when your laptop with the big corporate secrets and list of thousands of people's personal info got stolen -- there was also a non-Filevaulted Spotlight index on that computer with all the contents of every document extracted as keywords, for the sophisticated cyber criminals to pore over.
    Of course, you can turn off Spotlight indexing -- if you never want to be able to find a file on your computer even by file name... on your own computer at least. Not on that other computer you're plugging your drive into.
    Is there something I'm missing here?
    I'm not the first to wonder this -- see this archived, and cluelessly unanswered and unconcluded -- post from last year:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1390619

    glkdfhgkdfjghdfkgjhdfkgjh wrote:
    I'm wondering about the concept that Spotlight makes a really deep search -- and record -- of all user-created text files on your computer.
    In order for Spotlight to know that a file called "My Personal Stuff.rtf" contains the words "bank", "account", "number", "1234-567890" it needs to copy each of those keywords into the Spotlight index. That means in effect that Spotlight is making a *complete copy* of *all words* in *all text documents* ever on or temporarily connected to your computer, except for un-searched words like "the", "and", etc.
    If you've ever plugged your thumb drive into a public Mac somewhere, Spotlight got to work and copied all the (key-) words in every file on your thumb drive into the Spotlight index on that computer.
    If you're happy that at least you had Filevault turned on when your laptop with the big corporate secrets and list of thousands of people's personal info got stolen -- there was also a non-Filevaulted Spotlight index on that computer with all the contents of every document extracted as keywords, for the sophisticated cyber criminals to pore over.
    Of course, you can turn off Spotlight indexing -- if you never want to be able to find a file on your computer even by file name... on your own computer at least. Not on that other computer you're plugging your drive into.
    Is there something I'm missing here?
    yes, you are. spotlight index for a drive is kept on that drive. it's not copied to any other drive. that also applies to virtual volumes contained in disk images like a filevaulted home directory. that is, spotlight index for a filevaulted home directry is stored inside the sparse bundle with that home directory. nobody else has access to it and when you are not logged into a filevaulted account there is no trace of the spotlight index for it on the system.
    I'm not the first to wonder this -- see this archived, and cluelessly unanswered and unconcluded -- post from last year:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1390619
    Message was edited by: V.K.

  • Spotlight indexing making macbook unsusable

    Spotlight spends several hours a day indexing my macbook. While it is indexing my computer basically slows down to the point that it is not usable. What can I do to turn this feature off or at least make it stop indexing?

    Open System preferences then Spotlight. Go to the Privacy tab and click the Plus ( + ) sign and include your whole hard drive, the Macintosh HD. Then highlight that entry and click the Minus ( - ) sign to remove it. Spotlight will then Re-Index the drive. Once that completes it shouldn't re-index again like it is now.

  • Spotlight index unreliable on removable volumes

    I have a removable drive that I want to index with Spotlight. As long as the drive is connected, Spotlight indexes the drive correctly.
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    AFAIK the hidden Spotlight folders (.DS_Store and .Spotlight-V100) still exist on the volume. It's just that Spotlight does not reintegrate the index into its master index.
    I can fix the problem by either going to System Preferences, and adding the volume to the Privacy list, then removing it; or by using the CLI command sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Name followed by sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Name (which does the same thing).
    Is this a known bug? Is there a workaround?

    Dave Rahardja wrote:
    I have a removable drive that I want to index with Spotlight. As long as the drive is connected, Spotlight indexes the drive correctly.
    If I unmounted the drive, disconnected it, and reconnected it, Spotlight will not "see" the index in that volume any more--none of the hits in that volume will be returned by the Spotlight search.
    AFAIK the hidden Spotlight folders (.DS_Store and .Spotlight-V100) still exist on the volume. It's just that Spotlight does not reintegrate the index into its master index.
    I can fix the problem by either going to System Preferences, and adding the volume to the Privacy list, then removing it; or by using the CLI command sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/Name followed by sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Name (which does the same thing).
    Is this a known bug? Is there a workaround?
    That could be a bug. You might file a bug report with Apple about it. If others have same issue they will let you know.
    File here:
    https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/RadarWeb.woa/wa/signIn
    If you reconnect the external drive and then reboot, does Spotlight pick it back up?
    If so, what happens if you simply reconnect the drive and logoff and back on?
    Spotlight is supposed to automatically access any attached drive not in the exclude list.

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