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Q: iOS 9 Spotlight Search not working properly

HI,

 

On my iPhone 5 32gb Spotlight Search is not working and hasn't been since around the time of iOS 8. When I search for keywords that I know have been used in messages from a year ago it only shows results back to the middle of this year. I have read a lot of threads about the issue and have tried the suggestions:

 

-changing the phone language which seems to have worked for some people

-sending myself emails from my iCloud account

-sending myself a text

-I have reset all phone settings

-restoring from backup

 

None of which have worked  I'm loathe to restore as a new phone as deleting all of my texts defeats the purpose of wanting to search my old messages

 

Amy suggestions?

 

Thanks

iPhone 5, iOS 9, null

Posted on Sep 17, 2015 3:53 AM

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Q: iOS 9 Spotlight Search not working properly

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  • by pattybaby,

    pattybaby pattybaby Dec 9, 2015 3:39 AM in response to HawkUser
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 9, 2015 3:39 AM in response to HawkUser

    I have no Facebook syncs and no groups and it still isn't working

  • by Gadgets4me,

    Gadgets4me Gadgets4me Jan 28, 2016 7:07 PM in response to Brophs
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jan 28, 2016 7:07 PM in response to Brophs

    That worked for me... thanks

  • by GerryConway,

    GerryConway GerryConway Feb 17, 2016 11:57 AM in response to Brophs
    Level 1 (14 points)
    iPad
    Feb 17, 2016 11:57 AM in response to Brophs

    Spotlight isn't working across ANY of my iOS devices. I've tried all the suggestions here. I wonder if the problem isn't somehow related to iCloud, since the same issue is appearing on my iPad, my iPad mini, and my iPhone, all running the latest iOS version (9.2.1). I noticed problems with Spotlight months ago that seemed to be related to alternate Keyboard apps (text input wouldn't activate the search bar) but the problems persisted after I removed all keyboards except the standard and rebooted. What happens is this: After a reboot, hard or soft, Spotlight works fine (either with or without Contacts selected in the Settings) but after a few minutes of use, it stops working. A downward swipe reveals the search bar but typing text in it and clicking search does nothing-- no results appear, and the usual Search the Web etc options also don't appear. Performing the various "fixes" offered in this chain has no permanent effect. Rebooting is the only (temporary) solution.

     

    Is Apple aware of this issue? I'm obviously not the only person experiencing problems with Spotlight.

  • by d3edmau5,

    d3edmau5 d3edmau5 Feb 27, 2016 8:36 AM in response to GerryConway
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2016 8:36 AM in response to GerryConway

    @GerryConway - I'm experiencing the exact same issue since iOS 9.3 Beta 2 and now am on iOS 9.3 Beta 4 (I have an iPhone 6). Apple has not yet come up with a fix to my knowledge and I have not found a solution yet. Let me know if you find something.

  • by Randy Stewart,

    Randy Stewart Randy Stewart Feb 27, 2016 3:42 PM in response to GerryConway
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Feb 27, 2016 3:42 PM in response to GerryConway

    My phone has been unable to find anything using Spotlight search for a few months now and have tried all the above solutions.  Most recently, I wiped the phone and restored it from backup, which did temporarily fix the issue, but the problem returned a couple of days after restoring.  At this point, I feel like the only remaining solution is to wipe the phone and start over.

     

    Any help here would be much appreciated.

     

    Running iOS 9.21 on an iPhone 6

  • by MacPhonePro,

    MacPhonePro MacPhonePro Mar 3, 2016 3:11 PM in response to fersoft2009
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 3, 2016 3:11 PM in response to fersoft2009

    Thanks!

  • by wrapper,

    wrapper wrapper Mar 22, 2016 2:42 PM in response to Brophs
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 2:42 PM in response to Brophs

    Just updated to 9.3.

     

    Problem still there... arggg..

  • by jfaughnan,

    jfaughnan jfaughnan Mar 23, 2016 11:32 AM in response to Ted413
    Level 3 (803 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 23, 2016 11:32 AM in response to Ted413

    This is a bug in 9.0 through 9.3. There's no fix.

     

    Workarounds:

     

    1. Launch with Siri. That works.

    2. Quit background Apps. Yeah, that thing Schiller says not to do and semi-experts claim isn't needed. My bad actor is Reeder.app; I always have to quit it. Occasionally I have to quit a few apps, I'm starting to kill them routinely. I think it's a timing bug triggered by RAM consumption so it may not affect the 6s. (more RAM)

  • by Randy Stewart,

    Randy Stewart Randy Stewart Mar 23, 2016 11:51 AM in response to jfaughnan
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Mar 23, 2016 11:51 AM in response to jfaughnan

    Interestingly, quitting a few background apps allowed Spotlight to successfully search for one item and then it fails again. I quit all apps, searched again, and it still didn't work.  Rebooted, still nothing.  It is interesting that it briefly worked, which seems to lend credence to your theory that the issue is memory related.

     

    That said, Siri is able to launch apps, which never occurred to me and for that, I'm grateful.  Thanks for posting.

  • by jfaughnan,

    jfaughnan jfaughnan Mar 23, 2016 11:53 AM in response to Randy Stewart
    Level 3 (803 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 23, 2016 11:53 AM in response to Randy Stewart

    Yes, Siri always works. What phone are you using?

  • by wrapper,

    wrapper wrapper Mar 23, 2016 12:26 PM in response to jfaughnan
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 23, 2016 12:26 PM in response to jfaughnan

    siri does not work when spotlight search does not work

     

    turn off contact and turn on contacts in spotlight search

     

    reboot

     

    then it will work once or twice.

     

    I use US English.

     

    happening on iPhone 5S and iPad Air with IOS 9.x

     

    Is nobody from Apple looking at this?  Very hard to find things without the search.

  • by Randy Stewart,

    Randy Stewart Randy Stewart Mar 23, 2016 12:52 PM in response to jfaughnan
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Mar 23, 2016 12:52 PM in response to jfaughnan

    AT&T iPhone 6 with 64Gb of storage. 

     

    The other thing that has worked for me is resetting the device to factory settings and adding apps back in one by one to see if I could ascertain the culprit.  After taking the time to do this, I never was able to figure out if a certain app was causing the difficulty but I have hundreds of apps (maybe another issue), so this wasn't really a viable solution for me.  Also, the data associated with those apps isn't easily recovered unless I restore from backup (which also restores the bug).  I've been attacking the issue from the other side by slowly deleting unused apps, but that hasn't worked thus far.

     

    I have weighed Spotlight not working or losing a tremendous amount of data (iMessages go away completely and don't repopulate, for example) and I've decided my data was more important than search.  Not the best trade off :-/

  • by Randy Stewart,

    Randy Stewart Randy Stewart Mar 23, 2016 12:53 PM in response to wrapper
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Mar 23, 2016 12:53 PM in response to wrapper

    In my case, Siri does work even though Spotlight doesn't.  It seems that there are many varieties of this bug.

  • by jfaughnan,

    jfaughnan jfaughnan Mar 23, 2016 1:16 PM in response to Randy Stewart
    Level 3 (803 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 23, 2016 1:16 PM in response to Randy Stewart

    Yes, in another thread we came to same conclusion. Many bugs and/or ill-behaved applications means fixes vary. For at least one person I trust a full wipe and restore was a longterm fix. Others claim changing language for US to UK English and back again did the trick (rebuilds indices). For me Siri always works and killing Reeder.app almost always restores  search.

     

    Any restart will fix the problem for me transiently, even when Reeder.app is in use, but Spotlight gets slower over time then stops returning results.

     

    And Wrapper's Siri never worked..

  • by jfaughnan,

    jfaughnan jfaughnan Mar 24, 2016 7:57 AM in response to Randy Stewart
    Level 3 (803 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 24, 2016 7:57 AM in response to Randy Stewart

    PS. There's an active discussion on this bug here: Re: Spotlight Search shows no results.

     

    I think it's worse with 9.3, so maybe we'll get more info. I doubt it's fixed before iOS 10. Siri and background app quit are my only workarounds.

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