Spotlight Library Searches incomplete

Leopard no longer makes it possible to EASILY search the LIBRARY. Everyone who has a problem with this (and I see it is a hot topic in these forums) should send apple a a note and tell them that we don't all stick to iLife and some of us go into the LIBRARY. Leopard is great, but Tiger let me efficiently find stuff in the library and I was always confident I'd find all I needed.
Send your comments here to apple feedback. http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html/

Ok... doing a search with smart folders including system files does look in the library. However, even if you save this search to include system files and then begin typing your search criteria, the window begins a new search and you must specify AGAIN that you would like to search the system files. So.. if i needed to search 3 different files in the library, I would then have to repeat the 3 or 4 step process 3 more times. I'm not opposed to taking steps that are necessary, but the fact remains that this was not a problem in Tiger. Could there at least be an option to toggle the searching of system files by default? Seems reasonable to me. So, this method of searching is as EASY as it was in Tiger where i was confident Spotlight and Finder searches would yield the appropriate results.

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Spotlight SOMETIMES searches mail, but mail.app shows no results

Hi folks,
I've been anxiously waiting for the Mavericks release, hoping it would, once-and-for-all, fix this aggravating issue I've had with spotlight mail searches.
I recently carried out a full wipe-and-reinstall on my iMac, by creating a bootable clone of my main desktop, then booting from that drive and using disk utility to erase my main hard drive, and selecting that drive in the Mavericks installer. This means that I had a 100% pristine installation of Mavericks - no old preferences, no old settings, no weird filesystem permissions issues, and yet this problem STILL persists.
I have three different Gmail email accounts, all connected via IMAP, and all saving the emails locally for offline viewing (although I don't believe this is an option anymore in Mavericks). When I first added these accounts to Mail.app, I was unable to search them either in Spotlight or in Mail.app.
I have since undergone multiple attempts to fix it, and occasionally during the process Spotlight has worked(although it shows multiple historical versions of sent mails due to auto-save), but searching from within Mail.app remained broken no matter what I did.
These are the things I've tried:
running 'mdimport -r /Library/Spotlight/Mail.mdimporter'
adding and removing ~/Library/Mail to the spotlight 'do not index these files' privacy setting
adding and removing the entire hard drive to the 'do not index' list
using 'mdutil -E' to erase and rebuild the index
manually removing the Envelope Index files from ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData, then re-launching mail to force it to rebuild the index
using the menus within mail to rebuild the mailboxes
This has been broken for several versions of Mac OS, and it's obscene that there hasn't been any progress on the issue. Please tell me that somebody has some new ideas that I haven't tried yet - I've been struggling with this headache literally for YEARS, and it has really soured me on an otherwise excellent Apple experience.

I finally figured it out!
The trick was that I had some old versions of Mail.app in an archived folder, and these versions were screwing up spotlight, even though they haven't been run in years. Removing the old versions, then updating the spotlight index and rebuilding the Envelope Index files seems to have fixed my search.
For others who, like me, have spent YEARS of constantly re-indexing things to fix it - there is an odd quirk in the way OS X associates files, where it seeks out Applications anywhere on your computer (including external hard drives), and the presence of those Applications can mess things up even if you aren't running them. This seems to be rarely discussed in proposed solutions, but it was absolutely the fix for me.

Spotlight & Mail Search Not Working After Deleting email Account's '.OfflineCache' File. How Do I Get Back to Normal?

Running OSX 10.7.4 and Mail.5.2.
One of 3 email accounts was constantly trying, but unable to synch. The rotating splines were turning non-stop but not synching (other two email accounts worked just fine.) After doing some searching on the internet, I found several articles about this. Many included the symptom of the "Recovered Messages" constantly being recovered/generated. I had noticed that I would get some recovered messages on occaision, but had never noticed it to be problematic. These articles suggested that the ".OfflineCache" file for that email account had been corrupted or the root of my problem. So, I deleted the .OfflineCach file as per this article...
Fix OSX Mail Creating Multiple 'Recovered Message
Well that got my mail working again. However, I soon noticed that spotlight no longer works and when I try to search mail, it doesn't work. It will only return a complete email address/contact; it doesn't search the contents of the email.
I tried to get spotlight to re-index the hard drive. However, when I try to drag a folder or volume to it, I get the error:
Since spotlight and mail search have always worked flawlessly for 5 years, I'm confident this is related to having deleted " .OffflineCache" for that particular email account. However, it seems strange that mail search won't work for the other email accounts.
Any other tips for getting spotlight back online?
How about the .OfflineCache file. Will Mail restore it, replace it on it's own?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also, looking back, not long before this problem started, I was trying to send a single email with numerous pictures ( around 50 or so.) I forgot to select "medium" for the picture size and it started trying to upload them at full size. I realized this after a minute or two and cancelled the upload, changed to 'medium' and sent the email with no problem. I point this out because the "Multiple Recovered Messages" error seems to be related to or being induced by having an excessively large file in the particular mail account's .Offline.Cache file.

Well, a couple days later and it seems that the .offlinecache has been rebuilt. Finder, Spotlight, & Mail search all seem to be working normally now!

Spotlight Google search in Safari gives Google links in Cyrillic characters

It's bizarre, I know, but when I use Spotlight as a quick access to Google, the page comes up with the Google links (Web, Images, Groups etc. at the top; Cached, Similar pages after each entry) displayed in Cyrillic characters in a language I don't know, although the search results are in English, in Latin type. But when I navigate to Google, all the text comes out "normal" in English, in Latin type.
I presume this is somehow due to settings going astray but I can't find how to locate the settings to change them.
(a) Does anyone know how this is happening?
(b) Does anyone know how to fix it?
For the time being I just don't use the Spotlight Google search in Safari, but it would be a useful shortcut to be able to use it.
(Posted here on the premise that it is a Spotlight rather than a Safari problem, but also under Safari because it relates to that too.)

Try quitting Safari. Then select Safari in the Applications folder and Get Info. Deselect any Language you don't want. Close the Get Info window and reopen Safari to see if the problem is corrected. If not, you might try trashing the com.apple.Safari.plist file after quitting Safari.

How can I get Spotlight to search my Users/Shared folder?

How can I get Spotlight to search my Users/Shared folder? It searches the folders in the other users, but not Shared. When I CMD-I the Shared folder, my group has read-write privileges (all groups have at least read-only privileges). When I do the search in the Finder window (with the Shared folder highlighted), It gives me the options of This Mac and "Shared". When I click on "Shared," it does not give me any results. I keep documents, photos, iTunes data, etc, in this Shared folder, and would like to be able to use Spotlight on it.

I appreciate the 108 "views," but there weren't any replies, so I took another shot at figuring it out. I did a CMD-I on the Shared folder, and made the "everyone" group have read-write access, and it worked! I'm not sure if its because now all groups have read-write access, or just because the "everyone" group does, but I don't care at this point. I'll have to restrict a few folders within in there, but at least it searches the main Shared folder itself now.

HT204088 Why can't I use Library Search in iTunes?

Why cant I use Library Search in Itunes?

iTunes supports only mov mp4 and m4v video formats. If you have added above format files to iTunes library and still not showing in the movies library, please repair your QuickTime.
Control Panel > Programs n Features > highlight QuickTime, click CHANGE then REPAIR.

Forcing spotlight to search the web

Is there a way to force spotlight to search the web. In other words, I'd like to force spotlight to send my search query to bing directly.
Any ideas?

No, it's not OK. Not quite. Almost OK.
But if that's your skill level, you don't have a hope in hell of writing a program to search the Internet for anything at all. Not yet.

Enabling Spotlight Web Search - Multiple Search Terms and Boolean Searches

Hello there,
I'm trying to incorporate a spotlight web search into my website as per these articles:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.5/en/c3ws21.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23537?viewlocale=en_US
What I'm finding is that the search page provided by using template.spotlight file does not give search results when more that one search term is entered. Additionally, boolean terms (AND, OR, NOT) do not appear to work.
I've tried to edit the template.spotlight file but I'm not sure what to add in order to provide this functionality which is otherwise present in spotlight searches within Mac OS. Has anyone else used the spotlight web search feature for their websites and had success with multiple search terms / boolean searches? Could someone please advise on how to edit template.spotlight to provide these search features?
Thanks in advance,
Leon G

(bump)

Spotlight web search

Where is IOS7 spotlight web search
i know that you can swip down at any app page to active spotlight search, but how to search in WEB or Wiki?

Hopefully it will be a quick update available very soon !
To search the web nothing has been faster than iOS6 spotlight search: swipe, type word, hey presto !
Now in iOS7 it's: return to home screen, safari app, top of screen, delete existing text, type word, press go
It's fractionally slower, and if you use apple devices all day for business, it's an annoying step backwards. Chatting with colleagues here and abroad, nobody can suggest a logical reason for removing it.

Spotlight comments search

I have a customer that upgraded to 10.5 server for the spotlight comments searching on share points. They can search everything else but the comments. We have tried setting up a group with all the users having full read/write permissions. I have reindexed the share points. I can search the comments from the xserve that the raid is attached to. Just not on any of the networked computers. The networked computers are all PowerMac G5s running Tiger. I have heard that having a space in the share point can cause problems and some of the share points have space but not all and they can't search the comments on any of the share points. We have tried searching files on the root directory as well as in folders on the share points. Has anyone else had this problem or have a suggestion?
Thanks

Hi TD
Yes and no.
Yes it worked the way you mentioned but if I change the Spotlight Comment: on the same file to something else I can still find it via 'Fruit'. I much prefer command-space bar to call Spotlight.
How long does it take a change to a Spotlight Comment: to filter into Spotlight?
Its not the end of the world its just I was finding Spotlight really useful until I came up against this.

Using Spotlight to search Trash

Hi gang,
I'm running 10.5.2 and Spotlight does NOT search my trash. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm looking at files right here in my trash can, and when I type these filenames into Spotlight, they don't show up. Spotlight used to search the trash in Tiger.
Thanks,
Scott

Same question but in reverse. Is there anyway to STOP Spotlight from searching my trash seeing as how the "TRASH" cannot be added to the list in the privacy section? I am so sick of having a flood of non-related results flood the screen when I search for a file, this thing should be called "FLOODLIGHT" or "DAZZLELIGHT" because it sure does not zero in on the file I want anymore.
Is there anyway to get back to the old simpler/better times of Norton Fast Find finding a file in a flash by typing in a portion of its name without click-setting a half-dozen option hurdles?

Library search giving javascript error in IE8...

Hi,
Searching in a document library search box gives the following error in IE8. Sometimes the search works and sometimes it does not. It starts out ok, but after 2 or 3 searches the error appears. The error messages are different which I am pasting below.
The search seems to working fine with IE10, Chrome 39 and Firefox 33.
Is this a known issue with IE8 since I checked that IE8 is supported by SP 2013 - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263526(v=office.15).aspx
----------------------------------------------------- Start Error Message 1 -----------------------------------------------------
Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; openframe/30.0.0.6.1; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MS-RTC LM 8; MS-RTC LM 8)
Timestamp: Tue, 2 Dec 2014 18:35:26 UTC
Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 30151
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/inplview.js?rev=JuQvHna5pA8GjBqyCrETww%3D%3D
----------------------------------------------------- End Error Message 1 -----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------- Start Error Message 2 -----------------------------------------------------
Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; openframe/30.0.0.6.1; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; MS-RTC LM 8; MS-RTC LM 8)
Timestamp: Tue, 2 Dec 2014 18:45:58 UTC
Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 30151
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/inplview.js?rev=JuQvHna5pA8GjBqyCrETww%3D%3D
Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 30151
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/inplview.js?rev=JuQvHna5pA8GjBqyCrETww%3D%3D
Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 30151
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/inplview.js?rev=JuQvHna5pA8GjBqyCrETww%3D%3D
Message: Can't move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus.
Line: 1
Char: 155185
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/core.js?rev=uA2xjCXmuYM5ARP8g3eTSA%3D%3D
Message: Can't move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus.
Line: 1
Char: 155185
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/core.js?rev=uA2xjCXmuYM5ARP8g3eTSA%3D%3D
Message: Can't move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus.
Line: 1
Char: 155185
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/core.js?rev=uA2xjCXmuYM5ARP8g3eTSA%3D%3D
Message: Can't move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus.
Line: 1
Char: 155185
Code: 0
URI: https://xyz.com/_layouts/15/core.js?rev=uA2xjCXmuYM5ARP8g3eTSA%3D%3D
---------------------------------------------------- End Error Message 2 -----------------------------------------------------
Regards

Hi Arsalan,
From the error message Can't move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus, I suspect the issue is related to focus().
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3452281/greybox-cant-move-focus-to-the-control-because-it-is-invisible-not-enabled-o
http://www.mkyong.com/javascript/focus-is-not-working-in-ie-solution/
I cannot reproduce the issue in Search via IE8, I wonder if there is custom coding in your envrionment that could be related. Please try install latest update to IE8 and test the issue again.
Regards,
Rebecca Tu
TechNet Community Support

I can't click on any of the library search results in itunes

Hi all. When I'm searching my library in the search box, the results come up, but I'm unable to click on either the plus sign, arrow or right click on any of the search results. First off let me say, I've read about the "untick 'search entire library' " option, but that's not what I'm looking for. I actually like the full library search with dropdown results, but unfortunately it seems to be broken. I can't figure out how to really fix this. I'm not looking for a workaround, I'm looking for the actual solution. Thanks!

Hello gregkala
Check out the articles below to troubleshoot iTunes. You may have to completely remove iTunes and its related software and then reinstall it.
iTunes for Windows Vista or Windows 7: Troubleshooting unexpected quits, freezes, or launch issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1717
Removing and reinstalling iTunes and other software components for Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1923
Regards,
-Norm G.

Itunes library search returns a blank

Itunes library search returns a blank but when I locate the same song on youtube and click Buy song on itunes, I am able to access it.
Thank you
The Rees Clan

I now know what is causing the problem, at least for the singer in question, but I don't know how to overcome it. I now know that the problem started when I downloaded an MP3 album from Amazon. This album contains 25 songs sung by 25 singers, INCLUDING Annette Hanshaw,THE SINGER I'M INTERESTED IN AT THE MOMENT. So, when I do an iTunes' search for Annette Hanshaw, I get her, but I also get all the other singers on this album. This puzzles me. I've downloaded many entire albums, but I've never run into the unwanted linkages before. In other words, I want to keep all of the songs in the album I just downloded, but I only want Annette Hanshaw when I put her name in the SEARCH bar. Is there a way to do this?
Are all the songs in all Amazon MP3 albums linked together in this way?

How To Enable Spotlight to search data App?

Is it possible to enable Spotlight to search data on external app? Example I was install Awesome Note, I want Spotlight to be able search data on Awesome Note. Is it possible? How?

Hi
Are you sure that your indexer is finishing without any errors? Check activeindex.hda under \search directory to see what is the variable set for activeindex variable? If Oracle Text is the indexer search enabled then the variable activeindex should either OTS1 or OTS2. If anything else then you have indexer problems that is not indexing documents.
Check the CS log file to see if indexer errors are shown there. If yes, then put it over here so that we can analyse it.
Hope it helps
Thanks
Srinath

Spotlight Library Searches incomplete

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