Mail+Spotlight Search Not Working in Lion

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Mail+Spotlight Search Not Working in Lion

I've been dealing with this problem for over a month and have not been able to fix it. Search works fine in Lion on several computers, but on my laptop it still won't do a complete search. It will only pull up emails from people in my contacts list..... no subject key word searches or people outside my contacts searches..... very frustrating! The searches also don't work in Spotlight, so I can't use spotlight as a backup.

I've tried rebuilding my mailbox.... deleting and recreating the account.... tossing out the Envelope Index folders in the Mail library... Deleting and re installing my search window, etc...... I see lot's of other people with the same issue. It's frustrating when your running your business on your computer and have to deal with a flaw in a new OS..... it was working fine in Leopard..... whats up APPLE? Please help!

Other Info:

Macbook Pro 2008 Version with 2.5 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo

Running 10.7.4

Posted on Jun 26, 2012 3:12 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 26, 2012 4:36 PM in response to bill96744

Open Spotlight in System Preferences. Be sure all boxes are checked in the list.

Click on the privacy tab and add your boot volume to the list. Once done, delete it from the list. This will cause spotlight to reindex your boot disk volume.

Hopefully, that will help.

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Answer 2

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 4:55 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

Thanks for your response. When I add then subtract the System Drive from Spotlight "Privacy Pane" nothing happens. I even rebooted with the my System Drive selected to be private and then deleted it.... nothing. I've been following and trying your suggestions for others and while it seems to work for them, it's not working in my case. Thanks for your suggestions..... any other ideas?

Bill P.

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Answer 3

Jun 26, 2012 5:05 PM in response to bill96744

If you've followed my suggestions from other threads, then hopefully you noticed to quit Mail before deleting the Envelope Index files. It will reindex the messages next time you start mail.

You said you added the boot drive to the privacy tab. Try closing the preferences, then reopen and make sure it's still in the privacy list. If so, remove it. When you open the spotlight search in the menu bar, it should show that it is reindexing.

Just checking to be sure.

In additon:

Here's the link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2409

You can also just add your user folder if you don't want to do the whole drive.

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Answer 4

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 6:10 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

Regarding adding and deleting the System Drive from the Spotlight Privacy Tab...... I'm following your sequence, but when I come back to Spotlight Search in the menu bar it just works the same.... no mention of indexing. What's interesting is that "Mail" dosn't appear anywhere in search results when a keyword search is performed via spotlight.

Regarding the "enevelope Index Files" ..... I followed the instructions and quit and re-opened mail as instructed. When I re-opened Mail I selected "continue" and the program began to index the contents of mail for about 30 minutes. I thought that would would fix the issue, but it's still not working.

I've tried to compare the account setup from my IMAC which works fine to see if I have something setup wrong in the account, but everything looks the same.

I guess I can try to re-index again? Don't know what else to do?

Thanks,

Bill

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Answer 5

Jun 26, 2012 6:16 PM in response to bill96744

You can try using terminal and see if that works. Paste this in a terminal window:

sudo mdutil -E /

You will need to type your computer password. That should force reindexing of all volumes.

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Answer 6

Jun 26, 2012 6:24 PM in response to bill96744

You might try opening Disk Utility and run permission repair. The original solution should have started a reindexing.

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Answer 7

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 6:28 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

I used the Terminal Utility .... pasted in the cammand..... typed in the password.... the message said "indexing disabled" Macintosh-4:-myname$

I don't see any indexing activities?

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Answer 8

Jun 26, 2012 6:32 PM in response to bill96744

Look at this article. If Spotlight is really disabled, then there is a command to re-enable it. Try that, then try the first procedure to reindex spotlight.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/12/10/disable-or-enable-spotlight-in-mac-os-x-lion/

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Answer 9

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 6:32 PM in response to bill96744

Repairing permissions now.... could take about an hour. Do I need to do something to fix turn indexing back on when the permissions have been repaired?

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Answer 10

Jun 26, 2012 6:36 PM in response to bill96744

Permission repair should only take about 5 to 10 minutes. The time shown when starting is usually off.

The command I gave you before didn't turn it off. It must have been disabled before. You might try to run the first command first to make sure it was disabled. Then re-enable it.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/12/10/disable-or-enable-spotlight-in-mac-os-x-lion/

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Answer 11

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 6:50 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

After the permissions were repaired, I pasted in the Termnal command in the article to turn Spotlight back on..... here's the message I got back: (I substituted myname)

Macintosh-4:~ myname$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

com.apple.metadata.mds: Already loaded

Macintosh-4:~ myname$

spotlight is not working

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Answer 12

Jun 26, 2012 7:09 PM in response to bill96744

Something is definitely wrong. It's probably beyond my knowledge of what to do next.

I would try downloading the latest ComboUpdate for Lion and reinstall it over the existing system. Then, try reindexing from the Spotlight preferences if it doesn't start on it's own after installing the ComboUpdate.

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Answer 13

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 7:13 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I just ran the disk utility again and it found some disk errors..... could be the problem?

This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.

I'll try this forst then try the Combo Update.

Thanks,

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Answer 14

Jun 26, 2012 7:19 PM in response to bill96744

If you're talking permissions, then some permission errors will reoccur and can be ignored. Permission repair is done when booted from the drive.

If you are talking about repairing the hard drive, then you can't be booted from the drive to repair it. If your hard drive is showing problems, then yes it could be the problem.

Boot from the recovery drive (command-r). Open Disk Utility and repair the hard drive. If successful, then boot back into the main drive.

Depending on what was damaged, you may need to reinstall the ComboUpdate after repairing the drive.

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Answer 15

bill96744 Author

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Jun 26, 2012 7:52 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

I did the repair, but can't find any info on "Combo Update" nothing on the Apple Site..... Itunes... App Store?

With a google search I find a combo update from old OS versions, but I'm up to date on all my software.

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