System preference search not working

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Level 1

4 points

System preference search not working

Title says it all; when I try to search the system preference pane, it doesn't provide any results. The icons become greyed out but the setting I am looking for is not highlighted.

The spotlight search still works, I can type 'security" for example and spotlight will open the security and privacy section but the search bar within the system preferences window does not work. Could this be a cache issue? Not sure how to fix this, would appreciate some assistance.

iMac 27, mid 2011, running on 10.12.6 Sierra.

Thank you.

Posted on Dec 13, 2018 5:30 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Dec 13, 2018 7:28 PM in response to Pogo stick

Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Quit System Preferences.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Restart the computer, open the application, and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop.

If the application is the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

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Answer 2

Pogo stick Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 14, 2018 3:28 AM in response to Eric Root

I've managed to fix the problem. I'll leave the solution that worked for me, for anyone who has the same issue.

First you need to quit system preferences then follow the instructions above to reveal the library folder in your user/home folder. Find "com.apple.preferencepanes.searchindexcache" in the caches folder and move it to your desktop, then restart the system. Thats what worked for me.

Thanks Eric for pointing me in the right direction.

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