spotlight indexing not working

I have now worked on this problem for 4 days and today fixt it. same problem thugh i have not done this in safe mode stil worked for me.... if you have problem with erasing old .spotlight-V100 folder (Trinkertool, if you dont se hiden files/folders) or if it dosent help try with Onyx.app ( search on google and instal correct version for you machine.)

maintenance: both. Rebuild; Launchservices, dyld´s, XPC, CoreDuet, Spotlight and volyme on desktop -> auto restart when finish.

if 'sudo mdutil -sa' is ok but not 'sudo mdutil -sa /Applications' or that you cant add without error 'sudo mdutil -E /Applications' then try BDAqua text after.

wait until each step is complete and your user name 'Macintosh-2:~ Name$' before writing the next comand, if the first does not go through procced with the second.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network

killall Dock

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /

P.S remove NTFS for mac if you have that installed. disable wont help.

MacBookPro 6,1 17'' (2010) with SSD

It should say only...

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /

Drop the Users/zaj/data from the end on both.

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.

Manually Rebuilding Spotlight via Terminal

If the aforementioned Spotlight control panel approach doesn’t spur a reindexation of the drive, you may need to initiate it manually through the command line. Open Terminal and use the following command string to do so:

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.

If still need be…

Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network

killall Dock

sudo mdutil -E /

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.

after a manual removal of the spotlight Index ( private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/ ) and a reboot of computer do you get more mds activity? If yes and still doesn’t work it’s a other system file that’s the problem if you some time have installed a pirate app most time manually or automatic a new text line is saved in the…. Select Go ➙ Go to Folder… from the Mac menu bar

Type in /private/etc/hosts

check google for what should be there. Then reboot. And do a remap of index first with the app onyx then commando etc etc.

make sure you have apfs formatted disk first in disk utility if not search for how to convert.

Now you need to do the ast one///

sudo mdutil -i on /

Try repair with the app and se in activity monitor if you can se mds**** if spotlight is working in the background you should have minimum 4 mds worker

When you open termenal just type the comand line in the sequence and steps described previously. When only comand dont work use app onyx

Safe Mode boot - the problem here is that in Safe Mode the system does not see the external flash drive, so no re-indexing is attempted

Could you have 3rd party Disk Driver installed?

Those 2 commands are verbatim, no changes needed, but what OS version?

I have the same problem as zaj-carlosman.

After carefully following the process in terminal, and terminal listing hundreds of lines of data, I get this: 

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ killall Dock

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ sudo mdutil -E /

/:

Error: unknown indexing state.

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ sudo mdutil -i on /

/:

Error: unable to perform operation.  (-400)

Error: unknown indexing state.

Still no spotlighting, finder searches, or mail searches. I need to go out of town soon with this laptop and without search it is incredibly frustrating.

Thank you.

I still get this after following your text: Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ killall Dock

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ sudo mdutil -E /

/:

Error: unknown indexing state.

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ sudo mdutil -i on /

/:

Error: unable to perform operation.  (-400)

Error: unknown indexing state.

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ 

System Preferences solution has not worked. I tried the Activity Monitor where you quit System UI server and it does not work.

Activity Monitor>Spotlight showing Zero percent CPU, 8 threads, 502 OID (but I don't know what any of this means).

Further...in terminal I get this: Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$ private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/

-bash: private/var/db/Spotlight-V100/Volumes/: No such file or directory

Beckys-MacBook-Air-2017:~ beckycagen$