Why can't my spotlight find anything?

Ed State wrote:
Um, it gave me a warning about erasing stuff, and asked me for my password... I'm kindof scared to do that!

That's normal output from "sudo". You need to type in your password to give sudo permission to run the mdutil command as the root user.

Good luck solving your problem.

http://tc.versiontracker.com/product/redir/lid/1243943/

This will download a search utility that can find invisible files on drives that have not been indexed.
I tried the recommended terminal commands for a similar difficulty without success; it was removing an invisible file that prevented indexing which worked for me.

Of course, ymmv.

Message was edited by: myaka

Try just "sudo mdutil -s /" if you're using you're boot drive. Otherwise use "sudo mdutil -s /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD"

Hello Ed:

One point of caution. I have no issue with people who know UNIX dropping down to that level of commands. However, you should (if you do that) be VERY careful what you type. The "sudo" command is a very powerful UNIX command that will do a number of bad things if you make an error. Apple does, on occasion, suggest using UNIX commands for specific issues. This is cut/pasted from one of those knowledge base articles:

+Warning: Typographical error or misuse of the "rm -rf" command can result in data loss. Insertion of a space in the wrong place could result in the complete deletion of data on your hard disk, for example.+

IMHO a "regular" OS X user very rarely needs to decend to the UNIX command level to "fix" problems. Those rare occasions are usually documented in Apple knowledge base articles.

Barry

P.S. To semicolon; - this is not a criticism of your post - just a caution to Ed and others who might read it.

Did you try running mdfind from a terminal window? It won't do any harm, and it will verify that spotlight is working.

Ed State wrote:
What's a mdfind?

Apologies. I am a terminal novice.

Mdfind is part of OS X. It is a command-line interface to the spotlight search database.

Open your Applications folder in a Finder window. Open the Utilities folder, which is in the Applications folder. Double-click the Terminal icon to get the Terminal program running. Type *mdfind image* in the window and hit return. You should see a lot of output if spotlight is working. If you type mdfind only and hit return, it will print a help message.

Ed State wrote:
Yeah... it's still going!

Good. Spotlight is working. If it is still failing to find items, have it re-index your hard drive. Here's an article that tells how to do it:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301562

ED:

Try it again - there is no reason I can think of that the process described will not work.

Barry

As myaka I use EasyFind too, because since Leopard I can´t find anything anymore in a comfortable way.
That´s because the default config of Spotlights search-criteria doesn´t match my needs:
(Searching for Filename not content and only in the folder where the window is and not the whole machine!)
In Tiger I used Spotlight in the finder-windows every day very often.
Yeah I know that it´s possible to extend the search-criteria, but it´s lengthy to use.
Even if I go this long way I still cannot find many things. If I´m searching for a systemfile even in the library-folders to look for what version is installed - no way! Sometimes I know there´s a file I had worked on a short while ago and I´m searching for on a special volume - no way! I had to dig it out manually.

Since Leopard Spotlight has become totally useless to me.