Q: TIP - Spotlight is working again ...

It now reads only 9 hours left (but it has stayed there for the past +12 hours and the progress bar shows no change).

Everyone who has this issue should submit a bug report to Apple:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

If they get enough reports, it should go to the top of their list of priorities.

Don't foget to Tweet, Facbook etc. to get some noise on this!

THANK YOU!

I was able to run a timemachine backup to be on a save way today. I unloaded ...mds.plist and backup was running fine.

Bug Report has been sent to Apple, of course.

I have the same problem.  I'm performing my first backup since reintalling the OS.

I'm not sure I want to mess with code in Terminal, but I did try something else.

I went to Spotlight in System Preferences, and un checked all the categories.

It's working much faster than before - but still not fast enough.  I should be through with this back up by tomorrow though. (it had told me it could be another 50 days.)

unchecking categories in Spotlight preferences affects the RESULTS of your search, not the index process itself. It's really easy to enter just this one command to STOP spotlight and to speed up your backup:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

So, when I open Terminal, do I put the code on a new line and then hit return ?  Then, to turn Spotlight back on, what should I do, and when?

Thanks, I don't want to screw things up and need to take this thing back into one of the NYC stores!

KGBRE wrote:

 

So, when I open Terminal, do I put the code on a new line and then hit return ?  Then, to turn Spotlight back on, what should I do, and when?

What I do, since I'm not a programmer type, is copy and paste the line from here into Terminal, and then hit Return.

Handy tip: If you ever need to repeat a line you've already typed, press the up arrow key in Terminal and it will cycle through the last few commands you entered. So when you entered "off" for something earlier you can simply hit up arrow to get that line again and edit it to say "on". Now both the on and off commands are remembered by Terminal if you up arrow.

Same problem.

Time Machine backups to NAS hang since upgrade to 10.5.7.

Dragging all local disks to privacy in Spotlight, and out again as suggested on some forums, result in indexing hang, estimated time: 5 days, etc. Time Machine still not working.

Stopped Spotlight properly with commands in terminal.  Time Machine backups complete as normal - up to 1GB / min transfer speeds, etc.

Re-enabled Spotlight; Time Machine hangs, also Spotlight unable to do a fresh re-index -currently promising "About 6 months remaining". 

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

I thought I really wanted Time Machine to work, but am *really* inconvenienced without Spotlight. My advice is before you kill spotlight and force it to re-index, get another backup solution, like Carbon Copy Cloner and use that until Apple sort this out.

Submitted bug report.

  Model Identifier:          iMac8,1

  Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo

  Processor Speed:          2.4 GHz

Ah, it reminds me of the bad old days with Windows (for 15 years, until I came over to the dark side). What happened to, "it just works"?

mucsist wrote:

 

why not simply upgrade to mountain lion?

Having been stung once with 10.7.5 and had to revert back after days of so-called workarounds, why would I use almost half my internet monthly allowance on a download and maybe get stung again. Not sure I can get ML til it's available on hard media so maybe that's never?

The problem with long index times is different from the problem with recurring reindexing.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4322106

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4271843

Possible work around on page 5 of the first thread.

This is devastating 

I relay heavily on Spotlight to locate files, emails, etc, on a daily basis.  I deleted my index file in the hopes that 10.7.5 would re-index my HD.  Spotlight is telling me that it will finish indexing in 5 days.  And my computer has been on for 2 days straight already! 

So yeah, it's devastating

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

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

Confirmed.

This Supplemental Update fixed the Spotligh slow indexing problem.

Indexed my 250 GB HD (190 used), in approx. 40 minutes.

Macbook Air

1.8 GHz, Core i7

OSX 10.7.5