Spotlight menu won't drop down

Duane

try trashing the com.apple.systemuiserver.plist file from the home / library / preferences folder. Log out and log in again.

Regards

TD

The Solutions: Troubleshooting Spotlight

Solution #1: Kill SystemUIServer
• Launch ‘Activity Monitor’ (located in /Applications/Utilities/)
• Locate the process ‘SystemUIServer’, highlight it, and click the red button “Quit Process”
• Within a few seconds the menubar will rebuild itself and often Spotlight will magically work

Solution #2: Rebuild the Spotlight Index manually
• Launch ‘Terminal’ (located in /Applications/Utilities/)
• At the command prompt, type this exactly: sudo mdutil -E /
• You will be asked for your password, provide it, as this command requires administrator privelages to run
• You will receive a confirmation message saying that index will be rebuilt
• Wait until index is finished rebuilding, this can take a while depending on the size of your hard drive, amount of files, etc.
• Note: You can also rebuild the Spotlight index with MainMenu, mentioned in Solution #4

Solution #3: Change Desktop Resolution
• This is a strange fix but it works everytime for me when my Spotlight menu icon highlights but the search form doesn’t appear
• Open “System Preferences” via the Apple Menu
• Click ‘Displays’ and select a resolution smaller than what you are currently using, 640×480 seems to always work
• Select your native resolution again, changing your screen resolution back to normal
• The Spotlight search tray will magically become available again

Solution #4: Clear caches and preferences
• Clear caches and preferences relating to Spotlight, this is best done through either the free tool OnyX, or the free tool MainMenu, we recommend MainMenu because it’s easier for novices
• Download MainMenu here
• Download OnyX here
• Install MainMenu
• a little Hammer and Wrench icon will appear in your menubar
• navigate down to ‘Cleaning’ and clean out User Cache, System Cache, and Font Caches
• Note: Some users discover that just cleaning the Font caches is adequate to repair a screwy Spotlight, but it won’t hurt to clear them all

Solution #5: Reboot your Mac
• This should almost be listed as #1 just because sometimes a simple reboot will fix Spotlight, but if I can avoid a reboot I will, and often, a reboot isn’t good enough
Hopefully that covers it, and Spotlight should be working good as new again. If we missed something, feel free to contribute in the comments below.

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Thanks for help! I had just posted about Spotlight not working and browsed down and here was this great post! Solution #1 worked for me!

Let me add my thanks to the list sudkoce. I tried fix 1 with no success; and fix 2 needs an admin account (I always work in an ordinary account) so I was saving that for later.

It was fix 3 and that makes sense (in a ay) as I had been running several presentations recently and the display sizes are often changed during the show for optimum views. It shows how the parts are so integrated: I once fixed a screensaver problem by dumping Dock preferences.

Just an FYI - I had this problem occur after yesterday's Security Update (July 31, 2007). Once I rebooted from the Security Update, spotlight wouldn't activate. I fixed it using the info in the post above - manual reindex, resolution change, dumped cache and the systemUI prefs, rebooted. Thanks!