Mac OS X 10.4.8 Special Report: Spotlight issues

Spotlight is another touchy area for incremental Mac OS X updates. Because so many files are modified and/or created during the update process, Spotlight's index and associated files are among the most likely to suffer corruption or other problems.

If Spotlight does not function properly after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.8, make sure that your startup volume (or any other volumes you desire to search) are not listed in the "Privacy" tab of the Spotlight pane in System Preferences. Some users have reported that volumes become inadvertently placed here after the update.

In other cases, you can resolve spotlight issues by using the mdutil command-line utility in Terminal, turn off indexing for each of your drives. First use the following commands (in the Terminal, located in Applications/Utilities) to turn off Spotlight:

• sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name

Then use mdutil to remove the indexes from each drive

• sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_1

Physically remove the .Spotlight directories from the root of your hard drive with these commands:

• cd /
• sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100

(make sure to carefully type the "rm" command -- a typo could result in deletion of critical files.)

Use mdutil again to turn indexing back on for each drive

• sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_1
• sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/your_hard_drive_name_2

Spotlight will now re-index all drives, potentially solving some issues.

Reader Reports

MacFixIt reader Mario writes:

"Since upgrading to 10.4.8 I cannot use the spotlight button in the menu. I use a PowerBook 1.67 GHz. It is possible to open spotlight window via the shortcut, but not directly from the menu, when clicking on the blue loupe nothing happens."

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