Spotlight and Catalina

At the end I've decided downgrade to Mojave as solution.

Steps:

1. Format system hard disk. It's a SSD disk. HFS+ (not APFS take care in this point... I'm not sure but maybe...)
2. Clean install Mojave.
3. Configure user and group account manually through system preferences. Aprox. 20 users and 4 groups. All users are "only share" except "admin" account obviusly.
4. I've cleaned ACL permissions on shared volume (it's a thunderbolt connected OWC Raid L5). Totally permissions cleaned.
5. Assign ACL permissions manually group by group in three different shared points of this disk. I've assigned also permissions to "_spotlight" user.

sudo chmod -R +a "user:_spotlight allow list,search,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/toSharedPoint

Inmediatly after this actions the Spotlight search from network clients are working again perfectly. From terminal and from finder window of share point.

Hi,

I have a similar problem

My configuration is Mac Mini late 2012 (as a network server) with 6TB OWC RAID (Level 5) connected via thunderbolt.

After Catalina update, Spotlight doesn't work from any client, Mojave or Catalina.

I have rebuilt the Spotlight index on some computers (Mojave and Catalina) without results.

If you search something in the search field of network mounted volume window, you can get any results, but not always and very slowly.

When I do a search from terminal with

mdfind -onlyin /Volumes/diskName -name anyTextToFind

nothing appears.

The Spotlight index on client machines seems to be rebuilt correctly but does not work.

I have tried SMB and AFP connections to server (sorry but you say something incorrect, you can configure the AFP shared points on your server if the disk does not have an AFPS format), with the same result (no results).

I looked at the route of the Spotlight index on clients to find any explanation or clue and the only weird thing is a different structure in path

/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/

In Catalina clients you can see three folders (BootVolume, Volume, LocalVolume) in it, in other hand Mojave only one folder (Volume)

I have posted a question about this in another technical forum:

Ask different

Thank's. Allways my last option, but...

It's mixed. Windows machines (Win XP, Win 7 and Win 10) connect with SMB and the Mac clients (10.13, 10.14 and 10.15) with AFP.

Our networks are odontological clinics and radiographic hardware normally works over Windows. It's weird but some of this Windows are XP because are closed machines without upgrade posibility.

I know we are going to SMB only sharing networks but it's clear for things like our problem that can be necessary a file sharing system a little bit different. I'm thinking in NAS but my tests at this moment are showing that you can not use Spotlight over NAS from Asustor or Qnap for example (I've tested).

But at the other hand, seems like Apple don't want to be a file sharing server distributor.

Anyway...

Only two things to pay attention if you are going to downgrade also.

1. My Mac mini it's a late 2012 standard computer. After formating hard drive I've experimented problems (4 hours of intense work) to reinstall system. The two reasons were the difficult of return to HFS+ format and install also original system. I've prepared two different usb pen drives and firewire hard disk with Mojave Boot installer (with two different utilitys for do it), and didn't work nothing. At the end, when I've selected for system recovery through internet download, the message of 5 hours of download (fiber channel internet connection 600MB symmetric) make me change. I've solved this starting my server with other Mac Mini with Mojave connected to my server as destination disk through thunderbolt, acting as system disk for my computer. I've used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the startup disk and voila...
2. The permissions are configured using terminal and ACL. No one is configured through "Information window" or something as this. If you need a starting point to understand this, you must read two works:

• • Setting ACL on OS X

To apply recursively you must use

chmod -R +a "group:groupName allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/to/shared/point

Where "groupName" is your desired group name previusly created

• • What is the terminal command to remove ACL

To remove recursively you must use

sudo chmod -RN /path/to/sharing/point

I've using this method from years ago and it's from far the best method.

Good luck.