Unable to search network drives with Lion...

Actually, that is what our company ended up doing. However, the instant searches in spotlight have been a huge bonus, and a Mac Mini Server with a SSD as the primary boot, really kicks, faster than the $10,000 server we had before

Smaller office 5 users, we run Virtual Box to host our ACT databases. We also use it as a fileserver and VPN, Time Machine backups are running as well, huge advantage over the Windows Server Backups we used to run.

That's a release note by apple for developers and i really hope this fix is related to smb network search but it's so generic explained...

Maybe some developer could tell something about this!

keep all fingers crossed!

Well, i guess this thread can be deleted at this time...

AFTER THREE LION UPDATES it's clear that Apple does not intend to fix this issue!

Maybe it's not Apple' fault (like i heard about the new smb license) but my Mac it's the only machine that is excluded from files search in ALL "non Apple" based network!

Very disappointed, maybe i should reinstall my fully funcional Leopard...

Yes it exists!

Another proof is that spotlight works well if I search a file in the FIRST LEVEL FOLDER (only files not if search a folder). It doesn't work only in sub-folders!

Really, i don't understand why Apple don't fix this after SEVEN months and THREE major Lion's update.

From a programmer's view:

There is no need to handle any SMB API.

Finder can display a network drive's folder. It knows the files, it can traverse the whole directory tree and write file contents to the Spotlight index database. Even without indexing search would be slow but possible.

So this cannot be a licensing issue, IT IS JUST A BUG and no one cares.

-- Harald

Same here, SMB drives are not included in the Spotlight index. Finder cannot search my smb drives, either. This is because Finder is using the Spotlight index.

Any other search program or Terminal find search on-demand or make their own index file. Thus the problem remains: Spotlight does not include SMB directories, drives, etc. AND Apple keeps blaming the other SMB versions.

@bosconero: No debug mode. You can include an external drive into spotlight index with

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/volume_name

Calling the volume status with

sudo mdutil -s /Volumes/volume_name

reports indexing is ON. But it definitely does nothing.

-- Harald

thx hschneider!

Maybe we will find the solution in the next OSX 10.8 code name DONKEY! 😁

Last question: do you know what means "Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing" as reported in lion 10.7.3 developer release?

Something is happening with spotlight/search in 10.7.3. I can actually search some directories (could search nothing before), but not all of them (all directories on the same server). And on those it does search, it will search multiple (all?) levels down into the directory, not just the top/root level as someone has said previously.

I do have read/write access priveledges to the directories so that is not the issue. In fact, I can search/access directories set up for other departments (for which I have access priveledges) but not the directory that contains my own (or anyone else's) user folder (even those for which I do have access priveledges). So, it seems there is an improvement and maybe it is just a setting for the individual server directories.

One other thing that is strange, is that although (from within an application), even though the Open dialog box is set to display "All Readable Files", it shows many files but many are grayed out, and I can actually click to select some of the grayed out files but not all of them. Also, within the application (Illustrator), I can not change the sort settings when clicking on the column headers.

I am hopeful as our IT guy investigates.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't Spotlight put it's Index into the root directory of every mounted Volume in a special folder named ".Spotlight-V100" ? Assuming that due to the GPL3 issues Apple came up with it's own SMB client in Lion, maybe they just put the basic functionality in and come up with a solution later on how to store the Index on a Windows share that is not writeable by the user.

rmcmahan0348 wrote:

I can actually search some directories (could search nothing before), but not all of them

Are those that can be searched SMB mounts or AFP?

Two answer for your questions:

- In snow leopard i had indexing disabled on network volumes (no ".Spotlight-V100" was created) but the spotlight search works more slowly than indexed files on main hard disk but works.

- In lion, i have write rights on my shared folder but i can't search any file stored in subfolders. Searching in FIRST LEVEL FOLDER works, as i said.Doesn't matter if indexing is enabled or disabled on network volumes.

Strange is that the search also does not work on NTFS drives. I have it mounted through the Paragon driver. (The search used to work under SL.) However, I can search FAT volumes. In both cases exist the .Spotlight-V100 directories on the volumes. It must be just some bug and not intention that the search does not work.

I dunno....this o/s seems to be so thought out. My Macbook Pro is my first Mac. It is supposed to be so head and shoulders above any pc I could use and it simply is not. It does nothing faster. It does nothing aside from browsing better. I will give credit where credit is due, the touchpad is simply marvy....

All that to say that for 3x the price of a similarly equipped i5 and double the price of an i7(pc) - I have not gotten near my money's worth. This o/s's inability to search my networked fileserver puts it well below a pc in my experience.

I still hold on to the idea that the purpose this ability was hampered was to encourage laymen like myself to ditch my Windows Home Server(or whatever any other layman may be running) and build a Lion server for $1000....

We we've just changed our server to a Mac Mini server and it's all up and running like it should be now. I think it's disgusting that you have to change your server to be able to find files using the World's Most Advanced Operating System.

#lionisajoke

Apple are not focusing on the needs of the pros, they are just trying to win new consumer business. It's evident in their crappy iWeb-type apps.

Still, my iMac is a great tool and is still the best on the market for me to use so I'm still an Apple customer it seems.