Level 1

42 points

Finder or Spotlight Searching SMB folders

We have a new iMac with shared folders set up. For the first few months, any share that was mounted was easily searchable. Now at random different shares become unsearchable through spotlight or Finder. we can still use Easy Find. What we have found is that propagating permissions does not fix the issue only a computer restart where the shares are.

So my questions in no particular order are:

why did the issue take months to show up
why do only certain folders become unsearchable
why can Easy Find still search and Finder and Spotlight cannot
What happens on a restart that allows the search to work again.

Some information: all iMacs. All running High Sierra. All connected via Ethernet. All sitting on the same LAN including the shared folders. All connect using SMB.

We actually bought a new iMac in the hopes that this behavior would not show up again. NO such luck.

Any help would be wonderul,

Debbie

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jan 10, 2019 10:17 AM

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37 replies

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 24, 2019 12:55 PM in response to BDAqua

The support article at Apple refers to Browsing SMB shares. Not searching. I think we will try the first suggestion on one client and see how long we go before we cannot search.

Debbie

more to come as this often can take a week between

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 31, 2019 4:55 PM in response to rccharles

We have called Apple a few times. We bought a new computer! I will look at the ports. I agree on the restart which we do. I would love to understand what is cleared on the restart to allow search to work again.

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 31, 2019 4:57 PM in response to BDAqua

The iMac is brand new. 16 gb of RAM. Plenty of hard drive space. We run time machine and one backup program besides the file shares. I will open activity monitor once it happens again. The console suggestion was very helpful.

Thank you

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 2, 2019 4:14 AM in response to singerdf

I am not sure it is one share per se. the share that most often fails the search is the one that is searched most often.

Can you have both NFS and normal apple file structure on the same drive ?

i was under the impression spotlight could not search an NFS share.

Thanks

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 2, 2019 12:21 PM in response to rccharles

I apologize. All are running high Sierra. Server is a bit of a misnomer. It is just file sharing. Everyone connects via SMB. AFP is really old and being phased out.

I will spend some time reading about NFS. Given that the Mac OS to s UNIX based you would have thought that would be the choice

I still come back to the same question. What does a restart of the server accomplish to allow search to work. It must clear a cache. Why can’t I clear that cache on my own?

Debbie

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 10, 2019 1:52 PM in response to BDAqua

I have passed the word. Sometimes it takes a few days for the search to go belly up. I can't thank you enough for responding. This has been driving us nuts.

Debbie

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jan 10, 2019 2:04 PM in response to singerdf

OK Debbie, anxious to hear the outcome.

Did you get Find Any File?

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 11, 2019 10:17 AM in response to BDAqua

No anti virus installed.

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jan 13, 2019 6:36 AM in response to singerdf

On the one(s) doing the searching I believe.

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 13, 2019 7:15 AM in response to BDAqua

Another tidbit to the mystery. When one person cannot search a particular share no one else can either! It seems so related to the computer where the share is not the client.

Debbie

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 13, 2019 7:36 AM in response to BDAqua

nope :)

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jan 24, 2019 1:29 PM in response to singerdf

OK.

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Jan 24, 2019 3:08 PM in response to rccharles

Do you want me to run this on the client side or the smb side

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 1, 2019 10:56 AM in response to singerdf

I did a search on MDSTaskRegistry. There are a few references. No solutions.

You can relaunch Spotlight via.

https://birchtree.me/blog/mds-alfred-fix/

singerdf Author

Level 1

42 points

Feb 2, 2019 4:11 AM in response to rccharles

That is a possibility. Once it happens again we will look at activity monitor. It appears to take a week.

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Finder or Spotlight Searching SMB folders