Finder Search in Mountain Lion -- broken?

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Level 1

11 points

Finder Search in Mountain Lion -- broken?

Since upgrading to Mountain Lion yesterday, my Finder Search does not operate the way it used to and I'm not getting the right results anymore. I have already forced Spotlight to reindex by adding the entire drive and a disk image file to Privacy, and then removing them from Privacy. Reindexing took about 45 minutes, but now it says it is done reindexing. I have these same two issues both before and after the reindex.

If I have Finder displaying the files in the disk image and type a few letters for a filename (e.g., name matches great) in the search box, Finder Search cannot find the files in the disk image even though I can plainly see they are there.
I have Finder pointing to the entire main drive. I search for name matches quiz. I get 10 results, including 3 in the RE Class folder, plus seven others. But, if I point Finder to the RE Class folder on the main drive, and do the same search, it shows me those three files (as it should), and if I click the button above the search results for "This Mac" to expand the search, it displays only those same three in the RE Class folder, and "Searching This Mac..." appears with a spinner at the bottom of Finder ... forever? About 20 minutes so far... (This used to be instantaneous.) It cannot find all the other matching files it previously showed me are in multiple locations on the main drive.

Can someone tell me how to fix this? Thank you.

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 7:19 AM

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Answer 1

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 26, 2012 10:07 AM in response to dpn48312

Here is a third oddity: I search my main drive for name matches Andrew. I get 49 hits, but only 6 of them show filenames and other info in Finder; the rest are just icons with no info.

A fourth issue: Search for naso in Spotlight -- several matches. Click Show All in Finder... 0 displayed.

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Answer 2

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 28, 2012 3:51 PM in response to dpn48312

Based upon my test results below, Apple Support has escalated this to the engineers for resolution. It appears that the presence of any mounted DMG file is what precipitates the problem, and the problem goes away if I close the DMG, but I can't really search in my DMG files until this gets fixed.

I have done more testing this morning.

I had always worked with the Finder Preference > Advanced > When performing a search = Search the Current Folder. I changed this back to Search This Mac before conducting the following tests.

My conclusion is that the presence of any open DMG is causing the problem. Other connected drives (external) don't have any bearing; they work fine.

Test 1, with no DMG open:

Pointing to the David home folder.

Search Name=Dad

This Mac=58

Davidn=23

This Mac=58

David=23

This is as expected. The counts include files from an external hard drive, together with the internal drive.

Test 2, with a DMG (Personal) open:

Pointing to the David home folder.

Search Name=Dad

This Mac=45 (Note that this number is lower than in test 1, and it should be higher by 3 because of the files in the DMG. Expected count was 61.)

David=23

This Mac = <spinner> (Expected 61)

Test 3, with the DMG still open:

Search Name=Dad

This Mac = 0 (Expected 61)

David = 23

This Mac = <spinner> (Expected 61)

At this point, I closed the DMG.

Test 4, with no DMG open:

Search Name=Dad

This Mac=58

David=23

This Mac=58

David=23

This is as expected. The counts include files from an external hard drive, together with the internal drive.

In addition, the tests I conducted yesterday, where I was directly searching in the DMG, remain the same: The first time the result is correct, and after that I only get beach balls.

Note that the DMG used for this test (Personal) is only 1 MB in size, and contains only 12 items in the root -- not a lot of searching to do. I have tried to force Spotlight to reindex this file by moving it into and out of Privacy. I never notice Spotlight do anything about that, but maybe it is too small to be noticeable.

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Answer 3

Tonden

Level 1

70 points

Aug 8, 2012 2:51 AM in response to dpn48312

Hello dpn48312,

any news on this? I have exactly the same problem. Search results inconsistent. Sometimes I get results in column view (showing more files than it should) when chenged the view no results at all and search running, siwtching back to column view gives me the correct earch results but for some files only icons are visible, no names - names visible in the details column.

Tried to re-index spotlight, deleted caches, repaired permissions etc. - nothing helps.

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Answer 4

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 8, 2012 4:13 AM in response to Tonden

Not yet. The engineers did respond with one proposed solution, but that did not fix the problem, so they collected more data about the configuration of my MacBook while it was running, and they are analyzing it, under the belief that my situation is unique and no one else has reported this problem. I expect to hear back from them any day now. I have forwarded your message to them in case it helps to know others are also having this issue.

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Answer 5

Tonden

Level 1

70 points

Aug 9, 2012 5:11 AM in response to dpn48312

Did some more testing. I see improvement - better and consistent results - when I change in Finder>Preferences>Advanced: "When performing a search:" to "Search the Current Folder" instead of "Search this Mac".

Changing back to "Search this Mac" breaks everything again (looks as if the Mail searches break it).

Maybe you can check if it works for you?

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Answer 6

Sep 12, 2012 6:39 AM in response to dpn48312

Same problem here I think. My finder is behaving completely irratic. Sometimes searching doesn't turn up anything at all, it's almost like it doesn't even begin searching. The filtering system (choosing "name", "type" "any" etc.) doesn't work at all for me since upgrading from Lion. Everything worked seamlessly before the upgrade. Had any luck with correcting this?

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Answer 7

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 12, 2012 6:53 AM in response to jontekristo

After not hearing anything from Apple support for weeks, I contacted them again and created a new ticket on 9/8/2012. This time the Senior Advisor was able to replicate my problem on his own machine. He was going to forward information to the engineers, and told me to expect a call back later this week. However, that may mean that the solution might have to be in the form of a future OS X update.

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Answer 8

Sep 12, 2012 6:59 AM in response to dpn48312

Okay, thanks for the update.

Feel free to forward to them that I'm experiencing similar problems. It seems to work when searching drives or folders separately, but searching "This Mac" all together is turning up weird results. Cmd+f searching and filtering for "name" and "matches" works for me at times, but even that function seems to be acting up...

Really messes with my workflow, I use the finder search for everything!

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Answer 9

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 12, 2012 7:03 AM in response to jontekristo

I have this morning forwarded to him the URL for this whole discussion.

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Answer 10

Sep 12, 2012 8:41 AM in response to dpn48312

I have the exact same problem. Finder search "This Mac" for filename breaks when a disk image is mounted. The process takes ages and concludes immediately and successfully when the DMG is ejected.

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Answer 11

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 15, 2012 8:31 AM in response to dpn48312

I heard back from the Apple Support advisor this morning.

He has made the engineers aware of this problem. They have responded -- if I can accurately recall all that he said -- that they are now aware of the situation. It has not been a "bug" on their list that they are currently working on, and we should not expect a fix in the forthcoming 10.8.2 release. However, this is the sort of thing that tends to get quietly fixed in later updates, and we should just keep our systems up to date and see if the problem eventually goes away.

They did suggest a work-around: If you must search files that are on a DMG, copy them all to a folder on the main drive, unmount the DMG, and search them on the main drive.

Meanwhile, we should keep in mind that Apple does not moderate this forum and will not routinely take note of your comments on this page. If you want the issue to get higher priority with the engineers, you are encouraged to send them a message about this issue at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html. The more they hear from us, the more attention the issue should get.

To make it easier for you to submit feedback that is recognized as consistent with my own problem report, below is the feedback I submitted:

Subject:

Searches in Finder/Spotlight broken when a DMG is mounted

Feedback type:

Bug report

Feedback area:

Desktop/Finder/Filesystem

Comments:

As per Apple Support issue 347419605 and forum discussion https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4140179?answerId=19576591022#19576591022, when a DMG is mounted, Finder or Spotlight perform only one or two searches correctly, then return incorrect results. As soon as the DMG is unmounted, the problem goes away.

I consider this a significant issue because I use encrypted DMGs on a daily basis.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd still like to hear them.

Regards.

Message was edited by: dpn48312 to include my Feedback report.

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Answer 12

dpn48312 Author

Level 1

11 points

Sep 19, 2012 12:28 PM in response to dpn48312

Updated to 10.8.2 today, and all this went away for me.

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