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Spotlight server not working properly

I'm having a hard time with spotlight on our server. I've updated the server to 10.5.4 but still get the same problem. I've turn off spotlight for my sharepoints and volumes, deleted the .spotlight-V100 files, reindexed the whole thing. I worked for about for the rest of the day, then next day, I was back as when I first started the whole thing.

Here is what happen, if I do a search from one of my client, I get results which are not complete. I'll see some folders and some documents, but not all of them. If I browse the server with the finder, I can see those folders with no problem, so I don't think its a permission issue. It's like it has a cache file somewhere that it reverts to, after a little while. How can I delete that cache file if that's the problem and where is it?

TIA
Jeff

Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 14, 2008 7:10 AM

Reply
39 replies

Aug 8, 2008 3:03 AM in response to Jeff Lambert

I'm having the same troubles since installing our new Xserve (10.5).

Spotlight results are unreliable at best, completely absent at worst. This is affecting both Leopard and Tiger clients and seems to fluctuate regularly. For instance, yesterday a spotlight search from my Leopard client located the file I was looking for, today it is no longer in the list. Some Tiger clients can find files while others get no results whatsoever.

I really need to get this working but I can't afford to spend anymore time troubleshooting it. I have tried deactivating/reactivating Spotlight both from the command line and in the Server Admin tool. I have checked permissions on the share point, I even tried giving Full Control to everyone to see if it worked. The other day everything worked normally for a while after I rebooted the server, but this is obviously not a workable solution.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Si

Aug 16, 2008 9:59 AM in response to Brian Harmann

Check your console logs to see if spotlight or mds is repeatedly crashing with the same error,
for me it was constantly crashing with a font importer error, and as a design agency we have a lot of fonts in all our jobs, this constant crashing of spotlight put the server on a lot of strain and meant users couldn't search.

I have removed the Font Importer component of spotlight and it has made a huge improvement, though it still has problems from time to time its nowhere near as bad as it was

Aug 28, 2008 11:00 AM in response to Kevin Neal

We have two clients experiencing the same exact issue. I can have the share window open showing the exact file we search for, but spotlight does not find it (0 items). No MDS or spotlight crashes in console at all.

We re-indexed the server and this did help for about two days. Now we're back to square one. This is becoming a huge problem. Server and clients are all 10.5.4.

Thank you for any help!

Sep 3, 2008 1:14 AM in response to Jeff Lambert

I'm having the the same problem at a sight that is full 10.5.4 clients and server. I can do a spotlight search on content and get some results but if I search a filename I get nothing. If I create a new file with some content, drag it to a share then search either some of the content or the file name I get a result.
This is a problem as my client need to search a large amount of files quickly all the time which is proving a problem.
How do you reindex the share? What's the command?

Sep 6, 2008 8:34 AM in response to MacBiXo

Just another "me too." I've seen it with a couple of Leopard servers now. I thought the first one might have been a fluke, but now a second install on completely different hardware is doing the exact same thing. Spotlight appears to barf on certain files. If I do a "mdls" on the file, it has some info, but very little when compared to the info mdls returns on a properly spotlit (spotlighted?) file. Clearly, something's not right with Spotlight on Leopard server. If I take a non-spotlit file and duplicate, the new file is typically properly spotlit, which seems to exculpate the file itself.

One thing I've noticed (and wondering if anyone can corroborate this): does this seem to be more pronounced on RAIDed volumes for anyone? For me, the two servers with this issue are both RAIDed--one with disk utility and the other with a HighPointTech card. Does Spotlight not get on with RAID?

Cheers,
Stephen

Sep 6, 2008 9:18 AM in response to steviestar

Ok, just did a bit more research and here's what I'm finding. In a nutshell, items created directly on the server will be indexed properly. Items created on the share point from a client machine, will not be indexed properly. Even a reindex (mdutil -E /) will not change this.

An example:

I dragged a file from my desktop to my share point. When I ran mdls on the file, here's what I get:

+myrta:~ admin$ mdls /Shared\ Items/Consulting/Consulting/Picture\ 1.png+
+kMDItemContentType = ""+
+kMDItemFinderComment = "Sonzea issue"+
+kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""+
+kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 16+
+kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0+
+kMDItemFSInvisible = 0+
+kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 1+
+kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0+
+kMDItemFSLabel = 0+
+kMDItemFSName = "Picture 1.png"+
+kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0+
+kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 80+
+kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 1035+
+kMDItemFSSize = 22287+
+kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""+

Though there is a bit of information on it, it's sparse and it doesn't show up when searched via spotlight.

Now, _from the server_, I duplicate that exact same file and run mdls on it:

+myrta:~ admin$ mdls /Shared\ Items/Consulting/Consulting/Picture\ 1\ copy.png+
+kMDItemAlternateNames = (+
+"Picture 1 copy.png"+
)
+kMDItemBitsPerSample = 32+
+kMDItemColorSpace = "RGB"+
+kMDItemContentCreationDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemContentType = "public.png"+
+kMDItemContentTypeTree = (+
"public.png",
"public.image",
"public.data",
"public.item",
"public.content"
)
+kMDItemDisplayName = "Picture 1 copy"+
+kMDItemFinderComment = "Sonzea issue"+
+kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""+
+kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 16+
+kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0+
+kMDItemFSInvisible = 0+
+kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 1+
+kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0+
+kMDItemFSLabel = 0+
+kMDItemFSName = "Picture 1 copy.png"+
+kMDItemFSNodeCount = 0+
+kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 80+
+kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 1000+
+kMDItemFSSize = 22287+
+kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""+
+kMDItemHasAlphaChannel = 0+
+kMDItemIsScreenCapture = 1+
+kMDItemKind = "Portable Network Graphics image"+
+kMDItemLastUsedDate = 2008-08-30 10:47:16 -0400+
+kMDItemOrientation = 0+
+kMDItemPixelHeight = 602+
+kMDItemPixelWidth = 797+
+kMDItemProfileName = "Apple Cinema Display"+
+kMDItemResolutionHeightDPI = 72+
+kMDItemResolutionWidthDPI = 72+
+kMDItemScreenCaptureType = "selection"+
+kMDItemUsedDates = (+
+2008-08-30 00:00:00 -0400+
)


...a wealth of info that is readily searchable in Spotlight.

If I take that exact same file and duplicate _from my client machine_, it once again does not get indexed properly.

So, why the devil won't Spotlight give any love to the files created on the share point rather than the server itself?

Also, answering my own post above, whether the drive is RAIDed or not doesn't seem to make any difference. I played around and confirmed the behaviour sited above regardless of whether it was on a RAIDed volume or not.

Moreover, this is happening on multiple machines running Server 10.5.4, so I don't believe it's specific to the hardware or the particular setup. What's up, Apple?

Cheers,
Stephen

Sep 7, 2008 2:07 PM in response to steviestar

After some maddening troubleshooting, I think I've found a workaround for my particular issue. Perhaps it'll help others....

In a nutshell, if the "others" permissions on the share point are set to anything but "none," then spotlight seems to reliably work. I've changed the "others" permissions on my shares to "read only" and now everything works fine. If I turn it back to "none," it stops working. GRRRR!

To me, this seems like a potential security issue. I don't want any user to be able to see all shares' contents even if they can't do anything with them.

I also tried to go through users and groups one by one thinking that the "spotlight" user or group would be the magic member of "others" that needed to have permissions, but alas that's not the case. Either "others" needs to have POSIX read permissions or the "everyone" group needs ACL permissions to read.

So, can anyone corroborate this, or does this help anyone?

Cheers,
Stephen

Sep 16, 2008 12:42 PM in response to steviestar

I'm having the same problem with a bunch of shares on the same volume (it is a RAID volume, I've read conflicting accounts of whether this matters). From what I've found, only one of the shares doesn't work with Spotlight. Turning Spotlight on & off and deleted the index multiple times with no luck. I tried steviestar's suggestion to set the POSIX Others permission to something other than read only, and it still doesn't work. Also, I have shares where Others is set to None that work just fine. ???

Has anyone been brave enough to see if this is fixed with 10.5.5 yet?

Sep 16, 2008 4:26 PM in response to steviestar

Hi Forum folks.

Stephen's solution of putting the "Everyone" or "Other" permissions to at least "Read Only" seems to do the trick for my servers.

I've tried it on a 10.4.11 OS X Server too, and it seems happy to index + communicate with clients instantly after the permissions change was issued.

Such an immediate result (no waiting around!) after making the change, the files are searchable again.

Thank you!
Derek

Spotlight server not working properly

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