Unable to search network drives with Lion...

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/<name>

does not work for me. The command succeeds, I get a message that indexing is enabled, but there is no spotlight indexing icon as reported...

I am running SL.

I have to add that in addition to this not staying active after reboot/log out, it also just doesn't work at all. The command completes, but spotlight continues NOT to search my NAS. Simply doesn't show up, even though it's listed in the /Volumes folder.

I use Easy Find now, I have found this kludge to be hit amd miss. I get the same results as eretria, although after a while mine does find files on the nas.

Remember, after using the said command, sudo mdutil -i on you SHOULD NOT change the name of the volume you ran this command against because it is stored locally and refers back to it.

Also, you should click the spotlight icon and you should observer the "Indexing (name of drive)" and the barber pole indicating the index.

You can also that your drive is indexing by running this command:

lsof | grep /Volumes/

If you repeat the lsof command every now and again you will find that mdworker is accessing the volume that is being indexed.

PS I never expoerienced this issue in Snow Leopard at all and I was connected to about 100 different remote servers and search always worked there. I don't know what Apple changed in 10.7 and 10.8 (if it was or is affected)

Hope this helps.

I just downloaded the 10.8.1 update and I can't believe my eyes--I actually can Finder search all my drives--external, and two smb-networked computers (both root and subdirectories).

Wow, can a few others verify? Might almost be enough to convince me to upgrade to ML (and eventually upgrade a few machines that have been sunset at Lion).

I see no real change. I can search a mounted share but not the nas as a whole, and if I knew my file was on a perticular share I would not need to search for it..

More work needed.

The process that "LostAccount" is reporting does not work for me.

After sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Data, the barber pole does not appear on the spotlight menu item, and "lsof | grep /Volumes/" does not list mdworker.

Too bad.. :-(

I would be very interested in knowing if other people can report if 10.8.1 works in this case. For me, too, if it does, that's a good enough justification for me to buy it.

Thanks...

Just updated to 10.8.1 as well ... Spotlight is still NOT searching my NAS, or mounted NAS Volumes.

Maybe I'm missing somthing here?

Also mdutil fails as well:

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/<server>/<share>/

/Volumes/<server>/<share>:

Error: unable to perform operation. (-400)

Error: unknown indexing state.

I wonder if it is already indexed?

Try the following:

In Finder:

Finder>Preferences>Advanced

When performing a search:

Searcht the Current Folder

Connect to your NAS

In the Finder window displaying the content of your NAS search, don't use the spotlight icon use the Finder window to search.

I tried exactly that ... and my settings do match yours ... no dice.

Immediately shows "0 items" and does not even attempt a search (unlike EasyFind and ForkLift).

Your issue is peculiar alright

I am not sure which device you have but considering how little specifics I have other than the issue you report, I wonder if this article is relative or not. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4700 (Connecting to legacy AFP services)

Also, if possible, I would connect that device directly to your mac to ***** whether you can search when it's connected directly.

Also, you should perhaps try an FTP server or other SMB/AFP connection types to see if they work. It would be a good idea to isolate the issue by testing against other configurations.

As an FYI, I updated to 10.8.1 which yielded a restart and I continue to have no issues. My setup is a bunch of hard drives attached to a USB hub which is in turn connected to the USB port of an airport extreme which is extending an Airport Express's network.

I mounted my "Music" drive and searched for "abc". In a matter of seconds I got my results up on screen.

Please submit any further information here or contact AppleCare. If you purchased Mountain Lion remember that it enjoys 90 days of technical support from the date of purchase you purchased Mountain Lion on.

For the time being, you may want to try:

sudo mdutil -i off (the path to your NAS drive)

You can leave a space after the word 'off ' and then drag and drop the NAS drive icon into the terminal window to complete the path for you.

Then run:

sudo mdutil -i on (the path to your NAS drive)

I will be happy to help in anyway I can and I hope this helps.

Kind Regards

Before 10.8.1 I could not use finder search, and now I can. The Spotlight search is another beast altogether--one I do not usually use. It is true that I can't just use a single search for everything on my network. But, for me, I know what computer and drive certain types of files are kept, so the ability to use Finder Search and a nifty app called Alfred (works like a powerful Spotlight Search) do seem to work just fine now. Also, as my network does not have a central NAS, I don't know if the .1 upgrade works for searches there.

Do you mean your hitting cmd/F and then entering your data in the search tab at the top of the finder window ?

Do you mean your hitting cmd/F

That's an option yes…