Spotlight Problem: mdimporter files erroneously recognized

After having problems with searching in Spotlight for text in MS Office docs, I messed up all my .mdimporter files, so now, they all (not just MS office ones) are set to "Open with Address Book" (instead of "None") and likewise, their "Kind" is "Address Book Document" instead of "Metadata importer". Any ideas how to fix this? Thanks.
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

You might try re-setting LaunchServices. Dr. Smoke has a set of instructions for doing this:
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/resetlaunchservices.html
It sounds like you did something to mess up the associations...
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Similar Messages

Spotlight problem mdimport

Hi there. On this G4 mdd 1,25 running OS X 10.4.9 the process mdimport
grabs away most of the CPU, sometimes freezing all with spinning beach ball.
How can I get rid? Is possible to downgrade from 10.4.9 to 10.4.8?
When the machine was running the older release (10.4.8) everything was fine
Any ideas?
Rob

Thank you, Niel. I did exactly what you told me, now I'm running 10.4.8 again
and everything works fine. Excuse me for abusing your expert user knowhow,
but I would like to know (if you can) something about new Elgato Turbo264.
This external device (usb) they say can encode h264 with his own built-in processor, taking off cpu usage. Can this one also PLAY h264, avoiding charge on the Mac cpu? If yes, what resolution?
Thank you again
Rob

Why do I keep getting the following in my console logs? 12/1/11 4:06:10.512 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'

I keep seeing "12/1/11 4:06:10.512 PM mdworker: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'" in my console logs.
How can I get this to stop?

I have the same problem. Recently upgraded to Lion 10.7.3, but unable to get Time Machine to back up, despite
reinstalling, verifying and repairing (unnecessary) my various internal HDDs. I realise that indexing takes some time but 14 hours overnight with no progress seems to indicate that something is wrong!! The only message is "Preparing Backup" and "Calculating",
System log shows the following message:
May 1 11:28:36 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[687]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 11:37:24 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[748]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 13:50:08 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[919]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 13:57:39 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[999]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 14:10:37 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[1239]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 14:22:29 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[1356]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 14:23:34 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[1834]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 14:38:47 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[2707]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
May 1 14:52:36 mac-pros-mac-pro mdworker[2995]: (Error) ImportPluginLoading: Couldn't load plugin 'file://localhost/Library/Spotlight/iWeb.mdimporter/'
If this file is corrupt, how can I remove it and replace it, or otherwise identify and correct the problem that
is causing TM to hang. Any and all expert advice welcomed.

Iam trying to import a short video in final cut express and I'm getting this error... File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown. How do I solve this problem? The video is on my desktop it's an mpg.

Iam trying to import a short video in final cut express and I'm getting this error... File Error: 1 file(s) recognized. 0 access denied, 1 unknown. How do I solve this problem? The video is on my desktop and it's an mpg file. Please help me

Get a copy of MPEG Streamclip and convert your MPG file to QuickTime/Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC). In FCE, select one of the setups that uses AIC that best matches your clip (say, 1920x1080i60). Create a new sequence, then import the converted file.
Note that if your MPG file is actually MPEG2 you will also need the QuickTime MPEG2 Component in addition to MPEG Streamclip.
What was the source of the MPG file? How about if you open it in QuickTime, then do Window > Show Movie Inspector. Tell us what it says for codec/compression, frame size & frame rate.

Spotlight problem in Lion (Tags gone AWOL!)

My friend, Pierre Bernard of Houdah Software, figured out what was going on. I'm curious if anyone else has yet encountered this problem.
I noticed the problem with sound files - you search for a specific piece of information (a tag) and it just can't find it. I noticed this both in Spotlight itself, and in Houdah Spot, which is a very advanced front end for Spotlight.
According to Pierre:
The problem is that the CoreMedia.importer does not forward this information to Spotlight.
Whenever you modify a file on the system, Spotlight searches for an importer plug-in to process the file. The role of the importer is to process the file into a list of metadata attributes and values. Those are stored by Spotlight and thus searchable.
The Lion version of CoreMedia.importer provides only basic information: just file attributes and a bogus audio bit rate.
The older version of CoreMedia.importer provided title, album, track number, author, composer, …
Pierre submitted this information to Apple
Here are his more specialized technical reports:
Attached below is the output for:
mdimport -d4 "/Volumes/Media/iTunes Music/Compilations/Jagged Little Pill/12 Wake Up.m4a"
CoreMedia.mdimporter reports a audio bit rate of 128 bit/s. The correct value would be 128kbits/s
Thus CoreMedia.mdimporter should return a value of 128000.
Conversely /System/Library/Spotlight/Audio.mdimporter reports correct values for MP3 files it imports.
Thus the Spotlight database has kbit/s values for M4A files, but bit/s value for MP3 files.
(Debug) Import: Attributes for file /Users/pierre/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Music/Compilations/Jagged Little Pill/12 Wake Up.m4a: {
   "_kMDItemFinderLabel" = 0;
   "com_apple_metadata_modtime" = 259498596;
   kMDItemAudioBitRate = 128;
   kMDItemAudioChannelCount = 2;
   kMDItemCodecs =     (
       AAC
   kMDItemContentCreationDate = "2004-06-09 18:33:12 +0000";
   kMDItemContentModificationDate = "2009-03-23 10:56:36 +0000";
   kMDItemContentType = "com.apple.m4a-audio";
   kMDItemContentTypeTree =     (
       "com.apple.m4a-audio",
       "public.mpeg-4-audio",
       "public.audio",
       "public.audiovisual-content",
       "public.data",
       "public.item",
       "public.content"
   kMDItemDisplayName =     {
       "" = "12 Wake Up.m4a";
   kMDItemDurationSeconds = "293.4766666666667";
   kMDItemKind =     {
       "" = "Audio-MPEG4";
       da = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       de = "MPEG-4-Audio";
       en = "MPEG-4 Audio";
       es = "Audio MPEG-4";
       fi = "MPEG-4-\U00e4\U00e4ni";
       fr = "Audio MPEG-4";
       it = "Audio MPEG-4";
       ja = "MPEG-4 \U30aa\U30fc\U30c7\U30a3\U30aa";
       ko = "MPEG-4 \Uc624\Ub514\Uc624";
       nb = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       nl = "MPEG-4-audio";
       pl = "audio MPEG-4";
       pt = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       "pt-PT" = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       ru = "\U0410\U0443\U0434\U0438\U043e MPEG-4";
       sv = "MPEG-4-ljud";
       "zh-Hans" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U9891";
       "zh-Hant" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U8a0a";
   kMDItemLogicalSize = 4909487;
   kMDItemMediaTypes =     (
       Sound
   kMDItemPhysicalSize = 4911104;
   kMDItemStreamable = 0;
   kMDItemTotalBitRate = 128;
The CoreMedia.mdimporter version 705.35 installed with Mac OS X Lion extracts much less metadata from AAC files than version 484.52 on Snow Leopard did.
Attached below is the output of
mdimport -d4 "/Volumes/Media/iTunes Music/Compilations/Jagged Little Pill/12 Wake Up.m4a"
First from Snow Leopard. The from Lion. Output on Lion lacks:
kMDItemAlbum
kMDItemAudioEncodingApplication
kMDItemAudioTrackNumber
kMDItemAuthors
kMDItemComposer
kMDItemMusicalGenre
kMDItemRecordingYear
kMDItemStreamable
kMDItemTempo
kMDItemTitle
Thus AAC music titles, including those purchased from the iTunes store, can no longer be found with Spotlight searching for author, composer, genre, …
Attributes for file /Volumes/Media/iTunes Music/Compilations/Jagged Little Pill/12 Wake Up.m4a: {
   ":MD:kMDItemSeedLastUsedDate" = 1;
   "_kMDItemFinderLabel" = "<null>";
   "com_apple_metadata_modtime" = 284396150;
   kMDItemAlbum = "Jagged Little Pill";
   kMDItemAudioBitRate = 128;
   kMDItemAudioChannelCount = 2;
   kMDItemAudioEncodingApplication = "iTunes v4.5, QuickTime 6.5.1";
   kMDItemAudioTrackNumber = 12;
   kMDItemAuthors =     (
       "Alanis Morissette"
   kMDItemCodecs =     (
       AAC
   kMDItemComposer = "Alanis Morissette & Glen Ballard";
   kMDItemContentCreationDate = "2010-01-05 15:55:49 +0100";
   kMDItemContentModificationDate = "2010-01-05 15:55:50 +0100";
   kMDItemContentType = "public.mpeg-4-audio";
   kMDItemContentTypeTree =     (
       "public.mpeg-4-audio",
       "public.audio",
       "public.audiovisual-content",
       "public.data",
       "public.item",
       "public.content"
   kMDItemDisplayName =     {
       "" = "12 Wake Up.m4a";
   kMDItemDurationSeconds = "293.4766666666667";
   kMDItemKind =     {
       "" = "MPEG-4 audio";
       da = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       de = "MPEG-4-Audio";
       en = "MPEG-4 audio";
       es = "Audio MPEG-4";
       fi = "MPEG-4-\U00e4\U00e4ni";
       fr = "audio MPEG-4";
       it = "Audio MPEG-4";
       ja = "MPEG-4 \U30aa\U30fc\U30c7\U30a3\U30aa";
       ko = "MPEG-4 \Uc624\Ub514\Uc624";
       nb = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       nl = "MPEG-4-audio";
       pl = "audio MPEG-4";
       pt = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       "pt-PT" = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       ru = "\U0410\U0443\U0434\U0438\U043e MPEG-4";
       sv = "MPEG-4-ljud";
       "zh-Hans" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U9891";
       "zh-Hant" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U8a0a\U6a94";
   kMDItemMediaTypes =     (
       Sound
   kMDItemMusicalGenre = "Adult Alternative Rock";
   kMDItemRecordingYear = 1995;
   kMDItemStreamable = 0;
   kMDItemTempo = 0;
   kMDItemTitle = "Wake Up";
   kMDItemTotalBitRate = 128;
Attributes: {
   "_kMDItemFinderLabel" = 0;
   "_kMDItemStaticInterestScore" = "1.111111";
   "com_apple_metadata_modtime" = 259498596;
   kMDItemAudioBitRate = 128;
   kMDItemAudioChannelCount = 2;
   kMDItemCodecs =     (
       AAC
   kMDItemContentCreationDate = "2004-06-09 18:33:12 +0000";
   kMDItemContentModificationDate = "2009-03-23 10:56:36 +0000";
   kMDItemContentType = "com.apple.m4a-audio";
   kMDItemContentTypeTree =     (
       "com.apple.m4a-audio",
       "public.mpeg-4-audio",
       "public.audio",
       "public.audiovisual-content",
       "public.data",
       "public.item",
       "public.content"
   kMDItemDisplayName =     {
       "" = "12 Wake Up.m4a";
   kMDItemDurationSeconds = "293.4766666666667";
   kMDItemKind =     {
       "" = "Audio-MPEG4";
       da = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       de = "MPEG-4-Audio";
       en = "MPEG-4 Audio";
       es = "Audio MPEG-4";
       fi = "MPEG-4-\U00e4\U00e4ni";
       fr = "Audio MPEG-4";
       it = "Audio MPEG-4";
       ja = "MPEG-4 \U30aa\U30fc\U30c7\U30a3\U30aa";
       ko = "MPEG-4 \Uc624\Ub514\Uc624";
       nb = "MPEG-4-lyd";
       nl = "MPEG-4-audio";
       pl = "audio MPEG-4";
       pt = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       "pt-PT" = "\U00c1udio MPEG-4";
       ru = "\U0410\U0443\U0434\U0438\U043e MPEG-4";
       sv = "MPEG-4-ljud";
       "zh-Hans" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U9891";
       "zh-Hant" = "MPEG-4 \U97f3\U8a0a";
   kMDItemLogicalSize = 4909487;
   kMDItemMediaTypes =     (
       Sound
   kMDItemPhysicalSize = 4911104;
   kMDItemStreamable = 0;
   kMDItemTotalBitRate = 128;

Just FYI, I tried this and CoreMedia.mdimporter is still snagging my files.
However, if you do something like:
$ mdimport -g $to_the_snowleopard/Audio.mdimporter $files_to_index
This should work, at least until the system decides to reindex with the default. However, neither appear to be importing M4a files and when I run this command with either the Snow Leopard Audio.mdimporter or CoreMedia.mdimporter I get:
"2011-10-01 11:03:14.235 mdimport[1386:707] Imported '/Volumes/Work/Sound Library/Sound Ideas/SI9000 M4A/SI9012/901299 Swinging Wood Door 6.m4a' of type 'com.apple.m4a-audio' with no plugIn"
Ugh: "no plugin."   When I don't use -g and let the machine use it druthers to decide which importer to use, it uses the /System/Library/Spotlight/ one. If I remove the CoreMedia importer from /System/Library and leave the Audio and CoreMedia importer in /Library/Spotlight, it imports m4as with no plugin. If I COPY the old Snow Leopard CoreMedia importer into /System/Library/Spotlight, it imports m4as with no plugin. Something keeps the system from using the old importer, you suppose the new one is signed and the old one is just untrusted?
I for one use the kMDItemComment and kMDItemDescription extensively for a sound effects library and not having them in my Apple Lossless M4a files really screws me up.

Why would an error pop up saying the installer is damaged. The Installer can't open the package. There may be a problem with file ownership or permissions. when trying to install java 7?

why would an error pop up saying the installer is damaged. The Installer can’t open the package. There may be a problem with file ownership or permissions. when trying to install java 7?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Select
/var/log ▹ install.log
from the hierarchical list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar. Then select the messages from the last installation or update attempt, starting from the time when you initiated it. If you're not sure when that was, click the Clear Display button in the toolbar of the Console window and then try the installation again.
Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out by search-and-replace in a text editor before posting.

Doc files not recognized

I am not able to open some files in doc format. Saved in the same pendrive but some files are recognized and others not, even though both are saved in doc. I have tried to reduce the file name, but without positive result. What can I do to solve this problem?

.doc are Word documents. http://www.libreoffice.org/ http://www.openoffice.org/ http://www.zoho.com/ and http://docs.google.com/ should be able to open them as well. Apple's iWork Pages can open most of them. TextEdit may be able to open a few.

.RAF files not recognized in bridge but PS ok. Patch 7.1 installed.

.RAF files not recognized in bridge but PS ok. Patch 7.1 installed. Anyone know the fix?

To me it seems related to your Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) converter. Clue inhere is you only miss the Raw files and have no problems in seeing other formats like jpeg and tiff.
The screenshot you delivered is from the wrong library, however, this same library (the one on system level) also is the location where you should be able to view the correct version of your ACR plugin. The path: library (same as per your screenshot)/Application support/ Adobe/ Plug ins/ CS6/ File Formats. inhere should be only one version of Camera Raw (called: "Camera Raw.plugin") and this should show version 8.3 (141).
I'm not sure about your bridge version number, Bridge 5 comes with PSCS6 but my most recent version of Bridge is 5.0.2.4.
Anyway, if you have only one ACR (8.3) installed in the above mentioned path then you might want to try to delete the Bridge plist file and Bridge cache file manually.
For this you have to Quit Bridge and find the user library (by default hidden, use menu Go in Finder and press option key to reveal).
Inhere find the plist file (user(your user name) / library / Preferences and inhere find and manually delete the file called: "com.adobe.bridge5.plist"
The in same user library find Bridge Cache. User/Library/Caches/Adobe/Bridge CS6. Inhere are 2 files, the adobe Bridge plug in cache and the folder called Cache. delete (or move outside libray) both items.
The restart Bridge (If needed also again hold option key to reset preferences) and this will create fresh files for the previous deleted items, leaving you with an almost out of the box factory set version of Bridge.

Spotlight not finding files on my Hard Drive - permissions issue?

I found that Spotlight in Mountain Lion was often not finding files when searching for words within the file (searching file names seemed to be OK).
I found various threads suggesting that it may be a problem with File Permissions. I use Dropbox and was concerned it may have messed up permissions after a relinking a while ago.
I tried to reset permissions from within Dropbox (under Settings, as suggested by some), but no help.
Finally I found this EXCELLENT TIP to reset permissions from within the Repair Utility (in Mountain Lion), Not the Disk Utility, which I had not been aware of:https://discussions.apple.com/message/20421138#20421138
It took a little while and then Spotlight re-indexed all my files. SO FAR it seems to be working well.
THANK YOU!!

Might try this...
Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, test if things work OK in Safe Mode.
Then move these files to the Desktop for now...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
Reboot & test.
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.

I am having a problem installing File Vault. Encryption goes halfway

I am having a problem with File Vault encryption. Halfway through encryption I receive an error message stating that there is a problem with the encryption thus halting the process. When I try to restart the process I keep receiving a messsage saying that I cannot turn on File Vault without restarting the computer giving me the impression that I will never be able to use File Vault.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Scroll back in the log to the time you noted above. Select any messages timestamped from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Help! File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown.

Hi folks,
I just recently upgraded to Final Cut Studio and while my first week of working went smoothly, I'm now beginning to have a weird issue. Whenever I export a clip to work in motion without embedding the motion content, and then try and import the new motion file, I get the following error message:
File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown.
I'm using the standard steps to export and import the clip, and what's more I was initially able to do it with no problem. I've already downloaded all the relevent updates, and I've also tried creating a test user. The test user gets the same result. Even weirder, occasionally (though not everytime) despite giving me that error, I will discover that the video layer did import as it's own sequence instead of as a clip, and with none of the motion elements.
My apps are installed on a PowerMac G5 DualCore 2.3 GHZ, I have a gig of ram, and my scratch disk is an external dedicated Firewire drive.
Motion files will import if they originated in motion with no video layer, but that's kind of a drag when the whole point of having all these apps in one box is to be able to keep your workflow streamlined.
I've seen other posts with error message, but I couldn't find any answers. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Avi
PowerMac G5, DualCore 2.3 GHZ Mac OS X (10.4.5) Final Cut Studio
PowerMac G5, DualCore 2.3 GHZ Mac OS X (10.4.5)

The only other things I can think of are: 1) try re-installing QuickTime by deleting the QuickTime related receipts (In /Library/Receipts) downloading the installer from http://www.quicktime.com/ and running it... and 2) have you done the "Pro Apps" update? Search the Motion Forum for a link. Which brings me to my final thought - ask your question there. You'll find more Motion experts there that may offer new thoughts...
Patrick

Spotlight Cannot Find Files

Hi,
I have an encrypted disk image with some files in it. However, spotlight cannot find any of the files. Most are text files and I even placed tags in the Spotlight Comments section of the 'Get Info' popup. Any ideas how I can have spotlight find these files?
PS. Is it just me or did spotlight in Leopard get less powerful, in that there aren't as many custom filters to put on finding metadata. Plus it is a chore to specify if you only would like to search one folder.
Thanks
IP20

i'm having the same problem and my disk isn't even encrypted. since switching to leopard, spotlight has been a distaster. it worked fine in tiger, but i've repeatedly tried to find things that i know exist with no luck.
for example, i do a search on my local for files that i created called FAQ, nothing relevant comes up. i then look around myself and find the folder they are in, called FAQ, and do a search in that specific folder for files called 'FAQ'. i have two browser windows open, one with the search results, one with the actual folder. in the folder i see seven files with FAQ in the file name. in the search results window, with file name clicked, and that folder specified, it brings up only one of the seven files. other times it's come up with none, and i'm looking at the **** things sitting there. what gives? am i losing my mind?

Lion Spotlight Problem on an old Macbook2,1

Folks,
After updating to lion 4 weeks ago, just realized, there is one thing that still bugging over a month now, a "blind" spotlight. Does anyone experiencing difficulties to find file(s) by using spotlight? the file exist but the spotlight seemed can't see, please guide me to handle this problem.
The problems are only happen on my macbook (late 2006) 2GB ram not on my iMac 21.5' (late 2009), so is it about the old machine or else?
Thank you

Hi shotekitehi, me again, the guy from the same city.
I tried a new approach. It is not the most elegant way but it works. You mentioned the right thing. When you open another account besides you "problem" account (it should be an Admin-account) and set the properties so that you can read and change files in the problem-account, spotlight works fine. I noticed that I am really lost without spotlight and happy to find this way, thanks for helping and maybe it helps the others, best
Sascha

Problem using File sharing in a small office network

I have a problem using File sharing on an Imac and Macbook Pro.
My office has a small network running Windows Small office file server 2003. I have one Windows 2000 PC connected to it and 3 Macs, an 2.4 gHz Intel iMac running Leopard 10.5.6 , a MBP running the same and a Mac Mini running 10.5.
From the Finder Shared window of the Mac Mini, I can see all the computers on the network. It also used to be the case for the iMac, but the MBP could never see the Windows PC’s, not the server or the Win2000. This wasn’t a big problem as I was communicating between the Macs and using the shared printer on the iMac.
On Monday Jan 19 the iMac was suddenly unavailable to the other 2 Macs. It was working normally on the Friday. The iMac can access the Mac Mini and copy files to it. The Mac Mini can see the iMac but cannot access it. Even trying to connect as, ends in a failed connection. I have tried rebooting, turning File sharing off and then on again to no avail.
The iMac now also cannot see the Windows PC’s which it previously could.
To get files from the MBP for printing, I now copy it to the Mac Mini and acces the folder from the iMac, a very tedious procedure. I don’t know why this happened and am scared that the Mac Mini is going to do the same thing.
All three computers are also running VMware 2.0 with Windows XP pro, and from VMware the server is visible on all the computers.
Any help will be much appreciated, I live in a small town in South Africa and the local computer suppliers have no knowledge of the Macs.
I think that the problem with the iMac may have started after a software upgrade to 10.5.6 but I am not entirely sure.
Thank you
ajdk

Well, you're current method sounds pretty good. But if you want to user a file server, hey go ahead.
What you want to do when you centralize project files is to keep track of which one is the newest and becareful not to overwrite files with the same name. So you either have to set up individual spaces on the server (separate AFP/FTP folders maybe), or you'll need to run a file checkout service.
The individual space is cheaper, but it's not much of a difference from backing up to the network drive. Since you have Gigabit connections, you might even opt to save ALL the user files on the server instead of just the project files.
If you want to run a file checkout service, there's two approaches. You can run a service that can host any kind of file, or you can run a version control system for each kind of application (Photoshop, Word, etc.). Please notice, that as you read further and further along, the methods become more and more expensive and complicated. Once you get to this point, it will be necessary to purchase or build software in addition to the Mac OS X Server package.

Problems with File Transfers Over Firewire 800

Problems with File Transfers Over Firewire 800.
Over the past month, I have had problems when transfering files from my harddrive, over Firewire 800 to a portable drive. I usually transfer very large files (20gb or more) to the portable drives for moving files around. When I drag a file over to copy onto a drive, the transfer starts normally. If I drag more files to copy over, the computer screen goes darker and a large icon comes up that looks like a power button icon. It tells me to restart, so I have to do a hard shut down on my G5. Weird. I also get the dark screen of death sometimes when I am transfering those large files and open another application to do some work while it's copying. It's killing me. I am having to sit here and wait for the transfer to finish before I can do anything.
Any thoughts...
Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5
Mac OSX 10.4.3
Dual 2.7 GHz PowerPC G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Have you run the Apple Hardware Test? Sounds like it could be a RAM problem.

Spotlight Problem: mdimporter files erroneously recognized

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for