Codecs column in the Finder now shows only blanks

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Codecs column in the Finder now shows only blanks

It used to work, mostly. Sometimes I needed to click the row for the codec to show up, but they started disappearing earlier today (yesterday, actually!) and now all I get is a double dash in the Codecs column for each file. I have to open the movie in QT or another player to see what codecs are being used in the file, but it used to work in the Finder (more or less) until yesterday. The codecs also don't show up in the Get Info panel.

I "relaunched" the Finder from the Force Quit Applications panel. No good.

I restarted the mac, but to no avail.

This happens for all movie files, not just the ones in the screenshot below.

I'm trying to go through all my movie files to see which ones need to be converted (yes, I'm still on a pre-64-bit-only OS: Mojave), and this isn't helping matters any!

Can anyone please help me with this? TIA!

macOS 10.14.6

Posted on Jul 7, 2021 12:26 AM

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Answer 1

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BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jul 7, 2021 4:58 AM in response to betaneptune

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes.

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

Open Terminal and run each of these...

sudo mdutil -E /

This basically asks for temporary super user status, which is why Terminal may ask you for your password (it may not if you’ve used a sudo command recently or are already logged in as a super user or root. The command asks the unix tool mdutil to reindex the spotlight database for everything on the computer, including external drives, mounted disk images, etc. To re-index only for a specific drive, use the /Volumes path. For example, for an external drive named “MiniMe,” the command would look like this:

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line. A few minutes normally.

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Answer 2

betaneptune Author

Level 2

226 points

Jul 7, 2021 3:13 PM in response to betaneptune

Good news. The problem appears to be fixed. I was typing search terms into Finder when it hung. I Relaunched it and now all the movie files (save AVI and WMV files) had their codecs listed!

I guess Finder needs Spotlight to get the codecs. It can get other metadata without it. I don't know why it's different for codecs.

OK.

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Answer 3

betaneptune Author

Level 2

226 points

Jul 7, 2021 10:48 AM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for your rapid reply!

Tried Safe Mode. No good. So I rebooted in normal mode.

I recall that I had put ~/Movies temporarily in the Spotlight Privacy panel. So I took it out and ran the

sudo mdutil -E /

as instructed. (I don't see why Spotlight would be needed for metadata that QT and other media players have no problem with. Also, I wanted to see all movie files that were not in or under ~/Movies and could not find any other way to do it. The "Document Container" keyword does nothing. BTW, Spotlight should scan file names first, then metadata, then data. I'm not sure if it does this.)

Anyway, the reindexing did no good.

Tried a Restart (reboot) and some of them have their codecs displayed! But only some. So that's good! Partly.

WT Ow, my tongue!!!

Wash, rinse, repeat?

Oh, I forgot to mention that during all of this I noticed that 6 random files in ~/Movies had their codecs displayed perhaps even before I posted here -- I'm not sure.

Anyway, any other ideas? This is really weird and frustrating.

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Answer 4

betaneptune Author

Level 2

226 points

Jul 7, 2021 11:19 AM in response to betaneptune

Thanks for your rapid reply!

Tried Safe Mode. No good. So I rebooted in normal mode.

I recall that I had put ~/Movies temporarily in the Spotlight Privacy panel. So I took it out and ran the command

sudo mdutil -E /

as instructed. (I don't see why Spotlight would be needed for metadata that QT and other media players have no problem with. Also, I wanted to see all movie files that were not in or under ~/Movies and could not find any other way to do it. The "Document Container" keyword does nothing. BTW, Spotlight should scan file names first, then metadata, then data. I'm not sure if it does this.)

Anyway, the re-indexing did no good.

Tried a Restart (reboot) and some of them have their codecs displayed! But only some. So that's good! Partly.

WT Ow, my tongue!!!

Wash, rinse, repeat?

Oh, I forgot to mention that during all of this I noticed that 6 random files in ~/Movies had their codecs displayed perhaps even before I posted here -- I'm not sure.

Anyway, any other ideas? This is really weird and frustrating.

Sorry, one more clue: The Motion JPEG files usually, if not always, have the generic QuickTime 7 icon, but didn't display the codecs.

BUT WAIT! Looks like most of the codecs are back.

But none of .AVI files or .WMV files have codecs listed. Is that normal? I thought the AVI one did!

A few QuickTime files don't have their codecs listed either. But Spotlight no longer shows the Indexing progress meter.

So it's mostly fixed. Maybe I just need to wait a little longer?

But why doe the Finder need Spotlight to get the codecs? It gets other metadata, including the Kind?

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jul 7, 2021 8:25 PM in response to betaneptune

Great work, take care my friend. :)

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Codecs column in the Finder now shows only blanks

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