Spotlight keeps losing index since Sonoma

Question

Spotlight keeps losing index since Sonoma

I use either Spotlight or Alfred (which just uses the Spotlight index) to search for files on a 14" Macbook Pro M1, 16GB 2TB. Since upgrading to Sonoma, search returned no results.

(if relevant: the firmware had to be reloaded by the store, the disk wiped, Sonoma installed and everything migrated back by choosing the Carbon Copy Cloner backup drive from the latest Ventura backup. The App Store (and perhaps other apps) did not notice that the system was now Sonoma (I forgot how I saw this, but it offered me strange updates), so I downloaded and installed Sonoma via the App Store once more just to make sure that everything is up to date.)

I now have the following settings and steps:

System Settings > Siri & Spotlight >

Search Results: all boxes are checked.

Spotlight Privacy: No Locations Added.

I have added and removed the hard drive twice in Spotlight Privacy to force reindexing.

I have once deleted .Spotlight-V100 Folder via Alfred's Advanced Preferences Rebuild macOS Metadata https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/.

Each time, reindexing completed within a reasonable amount of time as monitored via the progress bar underneath the spotlight search window when evoked from the menu bar, and search worked fine for a while.

This morning again, no search results, neither via Spotlight nor via Alfred. I cannot even find a specific pdf in a specific folder when I copypaste the file name into spotlight nor Alfred.

I don't know how to check the indexing status on macOS, but Alfred's File Search Troubleshooting report for a sample pdf gives some extra hints that the files aren't even indexed:

Check if volume '/' is indexed by macOS...

⚠️ Indexing may not be enabled on this drive

/:

Error: unknown indexing state.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Check direct file metadata...

⚠️ Direct metadata is missing, this file is likely not indexed by macOS

-----------------------------------------------------------

Check mdls file metadata...

❌ macOS metadata missing essential items

/Users/homefolder/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx.pdf: could not find /Users/homefolder/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx.pdf.

Note that this is not about Alfred, it is just more information about Spotlight that Alfred displays to me.

What else could I try to make spotlight keep its index?

MacBook Pro (2021)

Posted on Oct 22, 2023 12:02 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

thirdhalf

Level 1

16 points

Jan 24, 2024 10:20 AM in response to thirdhalf

Talked to Apple in an open support case and Engineering confirmed this is a bug. I've installed MacOS 14.3 and it is still broken.

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Answer 2

Jan 8, 2024 2:31 PM in response to schmunzelmonster

I have this problem on my M1 MacBook Pro. I opened case 102172512750 with Apple and they advised:

Reset disk permissions: diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`
Rebuilt spotlight index
Reinstalled macOS Sonoma

Nothing fixed it. The latest is that Engineering thinks this is a software bug. Their workaround is to issue these commands while they troubleshoot:

- sudo mdutil -Eai off

- sudo mdutil -Eai on

The workaround did not work for me, but it seemed to fix a problem where my Recent Items was not showing recent documents.

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Answer 3

Oct 23, 2023 8:53 PM in response to schmunzelmonster

wrong. Yesterday everything worked, progress bar finished at some point, this morning no progress bar but also no files found. In spotlight, I get only websites.

this is odd.

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Answer 4

Apr 4, 2024 12:09 PM in response to thirdhalf

Did you find a solution? Since I upgraded from macOS Ventura to Sonoma 14.4.1 I am experiencing the same issue. Apple Support told me to reinstall. I went through all steps to no avail. Search in System Preferences pane and Apple Mail stopped working. I am able to find my files through Alfred, through. I have rebuilt and deleted the Spotlight Index index multiple times to no avail. I have rebuilt the Mail Envelope Index multiple times to no avail. I have never experienced these spotlight issues before. It is clearly a serious bug.

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Answer 5

Oct 23, 2023 3:57 AM in response to schmunzelmonster

schmunzelmonster wrote:

(if relevant: the firmware had to be reloaded by the store, the disk wiped,

I think Spotlight has not finished indexing. The Spotlight progress bar was gone yesterday but now shows it's half way through. Maybe it just takes a few days to index 2 TB after deleting the index, and the progress bar takes a minute to appear.

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Answer 6

Apr 6, 2024 11:24 AM in response to Tom Binroth

I'm now on 14.4.1 and Spotlight is STILL broken - no fixes from Apple and it does not appear to be a priority for them as this has been going on for several months.

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