big sur reading file names wrong on external hard drive

Was anyone able to find a solution to this issue. Like Mikeley, I am having incorrect results show during search of my external drive. Navigating through folders is normal. But searches give incorrect file types. Very frustrating.

I am now having folders that appear in search not show up as folders.

It will have a blank page icon and when you click, it does not show the file path or open the contents in the next column. This was previously working.

Also would like to add that when browsing this drive normally, it functions OK. I am having this issue with any external plugged into the machine.

Hello everyone... same problem here, as a photographer with thousands of photos taken through out the years, this issue has become a huge downside for me. I even get weird results when searching external drives... folders that contain nothing and even folders with alphanumeric names such as iTunes folder structure for music kinda style. For sure indexing issue here, since when browsing manually to files non of these strange folder or faulty file icon association are displayed. My Big Sur installation was after a drive format.

Hope to get a permanent fix soon.

After upgrading to Big Sur, search was returning no results for my external, so I reindexed my that drive. Search performed as it should.

Now, I am having the above issue. To use the above example, it will correctly find all files named "bike.jpg," but clicking them previews "dog.jpg" with all of its info correctly displayed in the preview column. Below, in the status bar, the path for "dog.jpg" is displayed but the filename says "bike.jpg."

Nothing in the Joseph_S linked doc has anything to do with the above issue.

Are these image files on the EHD in folders or in a Photos library on the EHD?

Using the shareware Find Any File do you get the same results?

Boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and check there to see if the problem persists.  Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

Hello plx_grl,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

We understand that you are getting inconsistent or incorrect results when searching for file names on your hard drive. We would recommend that you take a look at this support article to sort out what may be causing you to get the unexpected results.

If searching your Mac returns unexpected results - Apple Support

Best regards.

Not at all. We'll keep digging for solutions :) Bless.

NJARIRI gave this link: I worked "like magic",

for me.

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/make-mac-file-names-external-drive-30728.html

The external disk is formatted as Mac OS Extended or APFS, right?

Sounds weird. Maybe you should try to reset the basic things by:

Reset SMC & PRAM

Safe-boot

Recovery mode Disk First Aid check

Disable and re-enable Spotlight on the external disk and let it re-index it

Matti’s suggestion helped me out. While I had attempted reindexing, only after completing the above mentioned steps prior to disabling and re-enabling spotlight on the external did I finally see things show up normally.

Thanks for posting that info. Hopefully it helps for everyone with these symptoms.

I've been in a holding pattern of the spotlight permission reindex fix, then having it lapse. Was worried it was a drive failure, but this is happening to any external I plug in.

For what it's worth, the reindex fix took leaving my machine on overnight to fully process. I think some of the above issues were from it not fully finishing - ie showing the wrong file when selecting another?

Would love a permanent fix if anyone has another angle.

To clarify, this happens with any file, not just images. All are in a regular file structure, not using photos or any other apps. This happens while searching within the finder window, spotlight, or simply browsing the drive.

I click a file, it previews an incorrect file, the file path in the status bar is correct but with incorrect filename. If I drag the file onto the desktop it sometimes moves the "correct" file, sometimes moves the "wrong" file that is displayed in preview.

If i reindex the drive, it will start exhibiting problems again after 3-5 days or so.

Thanks for offering a 3rd party solution, but using this in safe mode to find files is not an option for my workflows.

Back again. Now neither of my machines running the current 11.2 update of Big Sur will search any drive plugged into it. It worked fine a few hours ago, now will not search the drives. I have made no changes, only left and came back to work more a couple hours later.

It will give me the option to search "This Mac" or "Name_of_drive" but will not display any results from the external drives. It will, however, search the local drive.

I can currently browse the drives with no issues like the previously described, but now I am unable to search.

The drive is not blocked under 'privacy' in system preferences.

Is the external drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (both GUID and case insensitive)? Does rebooting help? Maybe this is a Big Sur bug? (I usually disable Spotlight on external disks anyway so I have not paid attention to this).