Spotlight Search not working?

I upgraded to Big Sur Nov 21. I use cmd-F in Finder all.the.time. I rely on it for just about everything. It still worked OK until about an hour ago. Then, these things happened:

For cmd-F, I selected my current folder to search (top-level folder containing many many subfolders with photos) on an external drive). Selected display icons.

Selected Name/contains/string, but it brought up 0 images even though there are many that match.

I started over at the disk level, back down to the folder, selected Name/contains/string, and then it did bring up the photos BUT it repeatedly displayed the same filenames for the images over and over (screen shot). I went to the source folders to be sure that I wasn't crazy about the filenames (of course I wasn't). If I display in list view, the names seem to be correct. But that doesn't help me looking through images--I need the icons.

So I tried the search again--same results.

Restarted the system. Tried the search again: 0 results. (screen shot)

Created a new finder window, tried the search again: 0 results.

Went back to the top level so it's searching my entire system, not just that folder: Did find the files but back to the results of repeatedly displaying the same name.

Anyone else encounter these symptoms? I'm blocked right now. Ugh.

....just occurred to me, could this be a symptom of the drive failing? So far things check out, but--?

I'm having problems with the search function in the Mail app and also with the Spotlight Research. I've typed every word and always get 0 results. I don't know if these things are related but I'm not the only one having these problems so it's not a Beta issue

Every time I search for a file, the results don't match the actual file.

For instance, if I search for "abcde.jpg", the result will show, among other similar filenames, an "abcde.jpg" but when I click it, he opens a totally random file.

I tried to google this and all the hits are related with a Mail App search problem. Not a specific Big Sur search prob.

Apple makes it very clear Betas are offered as is, and there is no support for them outside of the Feedback Assistant App. https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/submitting


You may find my other post useful, as I ran into similar problems with Big Sur, official release (11.1).

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252201598?answerId=254191698022#254191698022

Good luck!