iCal searching of events not working
For some iCal users the search functions, which rely on Spotlight indexing of the calendars, has suddenly stopped working.
Apple Discussions poster chris_hb writes:
"Yesterday, when I tried to search for an event in iCal the search came up empty. At that time the search in spotlight was still working and gave me the correct link to iCal. However, the search using the search field directly in iCal always fails."
This problem may exist only with iCal's search, as users have been able to find calendar events through the system's Spotlight search. Users have tried forcing Spotlight to index the calendar folder, as well as reinstalling the latest Mac OS X update and removing old calendar data from previous versions of iCal, but these efforts have not been successful.
It seems this problem can manifest itself in a variety of situations, and as such, there are several fixes for this problem that users have found:
Fixes
Put an end date on recurring events It appears that, in some instances, the omission of an end date on repeating calendars can cause problems with Spotlight indexing. It is recommended to add an end date to all repeating calendars, even if the date is 100 years in the future.
Temporarily exclude Macintosh HD from spotlight indexing It is possible that the inclusion and exclusion of the hard drive in Spotlight's privacy list may toggle proper spotlight indexing of the hard drive again. To do this, go to the spotlight system preferences and in the "Privacy" tab click the " " and add the Macintosh HD to the list. Then wait a while for spotlight to index again, and ten remove Macintosh HD from the privacy list and wait for the index to be rebuilt again.
Remove iCal cache and preference files Locate and remove the com.apple.iCal.plist file from the /username/Library/Preferences/ folder and also remove any iCal-related files and folders from the /username/Library/Caches/ folder. Corruption in these files may prevent iCal from functioning properly.
Rebuild the launch services database Its possible that spotlight searching is being inhibited by another program users may have installed which has reset the launch services, making indexing require the presence of a plugin from the application. To rebuild the launch services, enter the following command in the Terminal (copy and paste):
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
When the command has run, reboot the computer and then run the command again.
Workaround: Use another search application While Spotlight is a fast and well integrated search solution, it is not always the best and can have problems. Users can opt for another search program to find files, though non-indexing solutions will take longer to find the desired files. One of these options is EasyFind from Devon technologies.
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