Lion re-indexes my entire drive after every single reboot.

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Level 1

1 points

Lion re-indexes my entire drive after every single reboot.

Yes, I let it finish every time. It goes for 3-4 hours and finishes each time. This is not a question of whether or not Spotlight is finishing the index.

I only reboot a couple times a month, but this past week I've had to reboot a couple times due to an app I had on it freezing the computer up all the time. That app is history (and this reindxing issue was occuring before that app, so that's not a factor). I just had to reboot after uninstalling some other things, and I'm at the beginning of ANOTHER three-hour reindex.

I've found other threads about this, but no one offers a solution other than "let it finish." I have and the isse remains. My computer should not reindex my whole drive every time I need to reboot.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Aug 26, 2011 12:23 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 26, 2011 12:48 PM in response to Indyhouse

Have you tried rebuilding the index?

Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

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Answer 2

Indyhouse Author

Level 1

1 points

Aug 26, 2011 12:58 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yeah, I did that after the third time it completely reindexed my drive after a standard restart. I've got 80 minutes left on the current reindex. When it's done, I'm going to try this again, but I'm not optimistic because it's reindexing the drive right now. When it finishes, it should be done.

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Aug 26, 2011 1:11 PM in response to Indyhouse

Launch the Console application and select "system.log" from the file list. Enter "md" (without the quotes) in the filtering text box. Post the most recent 40 or so log entries shown.

Then launch the Terminal application. Copy or drag the following text into the window, then press return:

sudo ls -lR /.Spotlight-V100

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. Post the lines of output that appear below what you entered, not including the warning.

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Answer 4

Nov 16, 2011 4:10 PM in response to Linc Davis

Just a fair warning about using a Terminal command to force Spotlight to rebuild the index. I tried it. I did it at night before sleeping expecting it to take many hours. I saw that it was indexing and went to bed happy. In the morning I found my hard drive was wiped clean. I only had my boot camp partition to launch the hard drive. The entire mac partition was empty.

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Answer 5

Nov 17, 2011 4:36 PM in response to Indyhouse

I took out my 250GB and inserted a 1TB to my Macbook Pro 15" 2009. The indexing repeated several times, especially when the iPhoto library is copied to a new drive. The first day, it took 9 hours, then restarted, another 8, andother 9 and finally, after 5 days, it completed the reindexing. Now I am having problem with iPhoto crashing. Trying to reinstall now.

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