Spotlight forever indexing

The long and the short is that blowing away the folders in /var/folders, rebooting, then forcing a reindex either with mdutil or briefly adding/removing the Mac OS volume from the Spotlight system preferences panel (in the privacy section), fixes the problem. For me.

Why not just add /var/folders/ to the privacy list within the Spotlight pref pane? Add other directories if opensnoop indicates that are causing slowdowns (and you don't mind them being excluded).

Someone would have to test if that works. There is nothing useful in /var/folders for Spotlight to index anyway, so I just assumed mdworker wasn't indexing /var/folders, but rather mdworker working within Lion/Mountain Lion's sandboxing.

Restored Evernote, Colloquy, LibreOffice back to /Applications (from the Trash).

Quit all applications except Terminal, issued the following two commands:

sudo mdutil -i off /

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo rm -Rf /var/folders/*

Reboot.

sudo mdutil -i on /

Hi,

I had the same problem (never ending "Spotlighting" and never ending "Time Machining") on my MacBook Mac (early 2007, 256 SSD, 4G RAM, OS X 10.7.5). I applied the solution as proposed by Christopher and the problem disappeared.

As Christopher wrote the indexing processes (mdworker) get stalled/crashed and re-started again and again. Deleting /private/var/folders/* solved this problem. It looks like there was a corrupted file or directory which is used by indexing in /private/var/folders.

May be someone else knows which file/directory is used for indexing.

Many thanks to Christopher

Wolfgang

Hi,

I agree with Christopher's analysis although I have not tested his solution yet.

It looks like updating to Lion 10.7.5 via Combo is quicker, see my post :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4353245?answerId=19811497022#19811497022&ac_cid=op123456#19811497

Thank you Christopher

Phiippe

jym75 wrote:

It looks like updating to Lion 10.7.5 via Combo is quicker, see my post :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4353245?answerId=19811497022#19811497022&ac_cid=op123456#19811497

Unfortunately, my problems started after running the 10.7.5 Combo on 10.7.4. Maybe I'll try running it again. (I always use the Combo.)

Stellar detective work! I have deleted /var/folders before when troubleshooting other problems. Never noticed any side effects from this. I only do it while booted in single user mode though.

B

Thanks Christipher, that solved my stalling Spotlight indexing. After 3 days without coming to the end, it took less than one hour after this fix. Now it lookes like TM works as it should as well. Btw: MBP on 10.7.5.

Csound1 wrote:

kilgo wrote:

I don't understand how software which does not conflict with spotlight, prior to 10.7.5, is crapware?

The obvious answer to that is that the 'Crapware' has not been updated from Lion to Mountain Lion yet

Huh???

baltwo wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

kilgo wrote:

I don't understand how software which does not conflict with spotlight, prior to 10.7.5, is crapware?

The obvious answer to that is that the 'Crapware' has not been updated from Lion to Mountain Lion yet

Huh???

I was answering a how-could (how can it work before the upgrade but not after) question, it certainly doesn't apply to TechTools, but I see that's unclear.

Understood, but Linc's original indictment, which started it all, was:

Remove the rest of the useless "Tech Tool" crapware according to the developer's instructions.

😎

So it does, sloppy of me. 😊

no chance to get mdworker running through the whole indexing process.

mdworker is working, gone, working, gone, working, gone....

I've disabled the whole Spotlight sh*** until Apple delivers a Fix :-(

Just wanted to say that Chris' method solved my problem.

Thanks!

There is now a new OS X Lion 10.7.5 Supplemental Update that seems to say it solves this. Downloading now...

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1599