Spotlight search causes external drives to be dismounted

After the last 2 updates I have noticed the following weird behavior.
If I click on the spotlight icon in the top right of the screen my 2 external drives (connected via USB2) are dismounted. This happens almost every time.
I can bring the drives back by restarting my computer.
Peter

Never seen that behavior. Create a new admin user account, log into it, and see if the problem persists. Report back.

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Stop Spotlight searching attached external drive

I have a new imac and I have attached an external hard drive to which I backup the whole of the main drive. When I try to add the external drive to the privacy Panel in Spotlight prferences it will not register it. If I test by dragging folders from the main drive into the Privacy Pane they do hold there and are excluded from searches.
Has anyone any ideas?

Maybe it has something to do with permissions. Do a Get Info on the drive icon. At the bottom, check ignore ownership on this volume. See if that makes any difference.

10.8.5 Supplemental Update causing external drive error?

I'm seeing a lot of discussion about 10.8.5 having a bug that caused some external drives to eject improperly. I have never had this issue, but just did the software update -- which *I believe* was the 10.8.5 Supplemental Update, because I remember it saying this:
"Fixes an issue that may cause external drives to be ejected after the computer goes to sleep"
... and now I AM getting that error message sometimes after my computer is woken from sleep! So, for me, the Supplemental Update caused the problem that others had been having, but that I'd never had, with the previous update!
I'm assuming I'm fully up to date with my software updates because, when I check, there are no updates to be found.
It's frustrating because I never had this issue, and the update that was supposed to fix it for everyone else, cause it to start happening to me.
Any help or thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Try running the combo update.
10.8.5 Combo Update

Ntfs Event 153 causing an external drive to be dismounted on WIndows 8 system?

I am running Carbonite's Mirror Image on my Windows 8 system, using an external USB-connected hard drive as the target disk. Carbonite formats the target drive before using it for mirror images. The snapshot process works fine, but it appears
that after the snapshot is complete, Windows is doing something that causes the system to dismount the drive. I assume it is the new automatic disk maintenance service that comes with Windows 8. The Carbonite function was fine under Windows 7,
but when I upgraded to Windows 8 this problem began.
The System log details a series of events whereby a first check of Drive O/Disk 1 (the mirror image drive) is declared healthy: Event 98 ("Volume O: (\Device\HarddiskVolume16) is healthy. No action is needed."). But
then a series of Event 153 Warnings show up ("The IO operation at logical block address 1887dd98 [and others] for Disk 1 was retried."), followed by an Event 140 ("The system failed to flush
data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur in VolumeId: O:, DeviceName: \Device\HarddiskVolume13.(A device which does not exist was specified.)")
Oddly, this sequence repeats, including the Event 98 that Drive O is healthy!
Externally, the drive is definitely dismounted from the system as reported by the Carbonite InfoCenter. Once I unplug the USB cable and then reconnect it, the mirror image resumes.
Is there any way to exclude a drive from the Ntfs maintenance? (I've already excluded it from the disk optimization process.)
Additional info: I am running System Mechanic and I have been told that SM can mess up VSS performance in other apps and that even when SM is uninstalled, the problems remain until/unless the OS is refreshed/reinstalled. Any truth to this?

Hi,
This forum is dedicated to System Center Data Protection manager. Moving this to the Windows file system forum.
Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. Regards, Mike J. [MSFT]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

External drives won't dismount despite the fact that all apps are closed.

I've got 2 external drives and suddenly I can't shutdown my computer b/c the drives will not dismount. I keep getting an error message "The drive 'hello' is in use and could NOT be ejected. Try quitting apps and try again"
There are 0 apps open. Everything has been closed for over 10 minutes. ?

is a little app that will tell you what is holding the drive. Usually Spotlight or time machine related in my case, even though neither is doing anything at the time. I usually end up logging out and in again to be able to eject the drive,

How can I stop Spotlight from indexing external drives?

I work in an environment where we plugin several different costumer harddrives all day long as part of our working process. Often only to extract one file from a given drive. Therefore its annoying that Spotlight automatically starts indexing these drives, because it slows down everthing, but also because our windows costumers suddenly see these weird mac files on their drives, that are invisible to the macuser. The Privacy setting is not of much use, as its impossible to add oru costumers drives to the list - we simply don't know the drive until we see it.
How can spotlight stop indexing?

The Privacy option is okay for private users, but at work we receive alot of harddrives from costumers and we simply cannot spend the extra time waiting for a drive to be indexed every time it is connected. That drive may never be connected again as it belongs to a costumer, and it is impossible for us to add drives to the Privacy pane, because we do not know they exist before we see them infront of us. The ption to disable all external drives from being indexed would be great. Or that the indexing can be stopped in the spotlight menu, or that the indexing will not start until 10 minutes after the drive has been mounted - and only if the drive is inactive.

Finder window unresponsive after a search on external drive.

Hi guys,
I have an odd problem. I have an external HD full of music and whenever I want to play one, I just search for it in finder and drag&drop it to iTunes. However, I'm having issues with it on my new MacBook Air. Whenever I search the drive for files, they appear normally, but I can't drag them! Highlighing works OK, so does double-clicking or cmd+O, but I can't move them to a playlist. It's the same with any files, not just .mp3s - they cannot be dragged out of the finder window. Scrolling is also wonky, but moving between files using arrows works fine.
Please note that this works perfectly fine when searching the computer's HD.
Is this a glitch of some sort, or is the computer preventing me from doing it for some reason? Any explanation/fix? I'm running 10.9.3 with all the updates; the HD is a 1TB Transcend, ExFAT formatted.
Thanks!

How much space do you have on the Air? Most Air users do not have the space to keep a big iTunes Library on the internal drive.
They would still be on one place on the external drive. When you get a new mp3 import into iTunes and it will be saved on the external drive.
I'm not a cross platform users so not sure what the issue is with copying the data.

Prevent Spotlight From Indexing External Drive?

Is there a way to prevent spotlight from commencing to index an external drive immediately upon connection?

As Király says, once you have put the volume into System Preferences > Spotlight > 'Privacy' tab it will remain there - with one caveat, though...
Bear in mind that if you ever erase that volume it will have gone from the 'Privacy' tab (because erasing gives the volume a new UUID) and will need to be replaced.
NB: It's not actually the drive that goes into the 'Privacy' tab - it's the volume(s) on the drive.

MBP internal drive failure causes external drive probs. Weird...

I've been booting off an external drive for some months now. I figured it would save wear on the internal drive, and when my boot drive eventually failed (the external one) it would be quicker and a lot cheaper to swap that out with another external one than to have to change the internal drive. I use FW800 and not seen any performance hit.
Yesterday (with the whole system booted from the external drive) it started going really buggy, everything was painfully slow - like, virtually at a standstill, and with a very slow wi-fi internet connection.
I tried rebooting. It would only boot from the external drive, and only if I held down the option key and selected a boot from the options that appear. Otherwise just the apple symbol and an endless twirly. It wouldn't boot from the internal drive +at all.+
Eventually I booted from the SL disk and ran disk utilities. To my surprise the internal drive was corrupted in some way and couldn't be repaired. I wiped the drive and restored it using Time Machine (stored on yet another drive). Everything then worked fine, except for the slow wi-fi.
So, +why should a corrupted internal drive stop the MBP booting from an external drive?+ This is worrying for me if the machine ever goes down at work and I have to rely on booting from another drive, which then might not boot properly and is buggy.
To complicate matters (or does it offer a clue?) this morning I booted from the usual external drive. It worked ok, but wi-fi was still slow. Another Mac here was showing the same internet slowness, so I figured it was maybe the ISP.
Then the MBP itself started going slow n buggy again. A check on the internal drive showed no return of yesterday's probs. On a hunch I unplugged the router from the mains and plugged it in again. The wi-fi then worked properly as did everything else.
+Why would a buggy router affect my MBP? Could it have corrupted the internal drive?? Why should any of that affect the machine's ability to boot from an external drive..?+
Thoughts anyone?

clicked 'solved' but the credit went to the wrong place!
it's solved, thanks to clinton:
Re: Re: clone no longer sees MBP internal drive

Syncing iPod Touch Causes External Drive Disconnection

This is a really bizarre problem. I am unable to sync my iPod Touch. Once it goes to copy the first song (whatever it is -- this is not a file issue), my computer ejects my external hard drive and stops the sync. It then takes roughly 5 - 10 minutes to finish the sync (though put no new material on it).
I have to unplug my external drive then replug it to be recognized.
I've tried removing all music from iPod, which worked fine. But now I still can't put anything on it. I checked and have the latest software on both iTunes and the iPod. I've done simple stuff like restarting. Any ideas?

ejerry wrote:
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DeviceLink.framework/Versions/A/CodeResources ",
should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrwxr-xr-x
Permissions differ on "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/iTunesAccess.framework/Versions/A/CodeResourc es",
should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrwxr-xr-x
Warning: SUID ﬁle "System/Library/Filesystems/AppleShare/afpLoad" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DiskManagement.framework/Versions/A/Resources /
DiskManagementTool" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "sbin/umount" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "bin/rcp" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "usr/bin/quota" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "usr/bin/rlogin" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "usr/bin/rsh" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "usr/sbin/pppd" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
Warning: SUID ﬁle "usr/sbin/vpnd" has been modiﬁed and will not be repaired
ACL found but not expected on "Applications/Utilities"
ACL found but not expected on "Applications"
ACL found but not expected on "Library"
that report is generated by *disk utility* (not diskwarrior), correct ? if so, there's nothing to worry about. see _*permission repair messages you can safely ignore*_.
Finished verify/repair permissions on disk
as long as you see that message @ the end, you're in the green.
you profile suggests you are running OS X 10.5.6. if that's the case, i suggest you download and run the [_*Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update*|http://support.apple.com/downloads/Mac_OS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate]. repair permissions before and after.
next, run software update from the  menu and install any updates offered.
JGG
edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

Repairing external drive when improperly dismounted

not sure if anything can be done. i screwed up- i unplugged the drive while the computer was restarting, to plug it into a more secure power source (through battery backup). anyhow, i know i should have unmounted it first and i was stupid- it was a heat of the moment while crawling around under my desk kinda thing. when i rebooted my comp, disk utility keeps telling me that
"Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)
1 volume checked
0 HFS volumes verified
1 volume failed verification"
it won't repair the disk- gives me a similar message. tried running cocktial, but the disk isn't showing up to do anything with.
is there any program that will enable me to save some of the data on this extrenal? it's a 500 gb firewire lacie drive. i was thinking of reformatting it anyhow, because it was stuttering some while i was working on a file on it, but wanted to get the stuff off first. fortunately, i have only had it for about a week (it's about a yr old, and worked fine for the person i boughtit from), and don't have anything except a small amount of stuff that isn't somewhere else on it. but, it's stuff i really didn't want to lose.
so, is my only option going to be reformatting, or is there some software that will force it to mount long enough for me to get the data off?
banging head on wall, vowing to be better about backing up....
thanks for any help!

wanted to let you know that disk repair was able to see the files, but couldn't rebuild the disk. data rescue II (which was recommended by the lacie site) was able to pull the files off. it took 3+ days to run the thorough scan before i could do that, though!! so i got my files, and reformatted the disk. copying a bunch of stuff to backup to it, and will really test it out before i trust it completely again. thanks for your help!

Issue using "Find" in Bridge to search external drive

When using "Find" in Bridge (version 2.1.1.9) in CS3 to search for files on an external hard drive I must either check "Include Non-Indexed Files" or go to the external drive and build the cache for the folders I want to search. Otherwise the files will not be found.
Having to build the cache in the external drive or use non-indexed search slows down the search process. Is there a way around this. Bridge preferences are set to "Automatically Export Caches to Folders". I use SyncBack for back up to the external drive.

Thank you for the reply. I thought that once the cache is built and exported to a folder, that folder would be indexed and ready for a search by Find. And when copying that folder to another drive the files would remain indexed and available to a search by Find on that drive.
I have not copied the central cache to the external drive. So I assume that when using Find to search the external drive it is looking at the caches in each folder on that drive.

Issue with "Find" in Bridge when searching external drive.

When using "Find" in Bridge (version 2.1.1.9) in CS3 to search for files on an external hard drive I must either check "Include Non-Indexed Files" or go to the external drive and build the cache for the folders I want to search. Otherwise the files will not be found.
Having to build the cache in the external drive or use non-indexed search slows down the search process. Is there a way around this. Bridge preferences are set to "Automatically Export Caches to Folders". I use SyncBack for back up to the external drive.

Thank you for the reply. I thought that once the cache is built and exported to a folder, that folder would be indexed and ready for a search by Find. And when copying that folder to another drive the files would remain indexed and available to a search by Find on that drive.
I have not copied the central cache to the external drive. So I assume that when using Find to search the external drive it is looking at the caches in each folder on that drive.

Using faces to search external drive

how do i go about getting faces to search an external drive or even another computer over a wireless network.

faces can not be separated form your iPhoto library - it only works with photos that have been imported to the iphoto library
And you should not access your iPhoto library over a wireless network - it is extremely problematic
You can move your iPhoto library to a directly connected Mac formatted external drive - Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

HT204014 How can I get spotlight search to work over a network running OS X Server?

I have installed OS X Server on an iMac to share its files over a network.
I can access the files fine, but if I try and search the shared folders from another Mac on the network it yields no results.
How can I get search to work as well as it does on the files on local disks.

Spotlight searching of shared volumes works for me using OS X 10.10.3 Server and OS X 10.10.3 client, as follows:
If I use Spotlight to search for some content "Aaron Aardvark" the file that contains this text does not seem to show up in the immediate results, but if I select "Show All in Finder" and switch from "This Mac" to "Shared" the file "untitled text.txt" that contains it is listed.
In the past Spotlight was responsible for bringing servers to their knees, so I suspect that the above two-step process is a way of limiting server searches to cases where it is actually required.
Server 4.1 (OS X 10.10.3) seems to add the extended attributes needed to allow Spotlight to index sharepoints:
     test_server3:~ admin$ ls -el /Volumes/Server\ 3\ Users/
     total 0
     drwxr-xr-x+ 4 admin staff 136 30 Apr 17:02 Server 3 Users
      0: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit
     test_server3:~ admin$
but in the past, e.g. Snow Leopard server, you could choose whether or not these attributes were set or not. IIRC Snow Leopard clients would always include server volumes in Spotlight searches, causing significant slow-downs on the client, so a lot of sysadmins, myself included, chose not to enable it.
C.

Spotlight search causes external drives to be dismounted

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