Unable to search network drives with OS X - short answer

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Level 2

166 points

Unable to search network drives with OS X - short answer

This is here not as a question but rather to summarize some point on a very long thread >> https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3194502

If you are facing the issue in this title

Keep these in mind.

1 - Make sure indexing is 'on' for the SMB volume: sudo mdutil -i on (path-to-smb-volume).

2 - Since the index is stored locally on the client's local volume, the server MUST remount with exactly the same name each time or it can't pair up the server with the local index.This applies to any of the protocols that work with Mac; SMB, FTP, AFP etc. In other words, if the server name changes or if it is a localdrive whose name has changed since the last succeful spotlight index, a subsequent index won't pair up therefore you won't find things, this is expected so try to avoid changing the name of the drives or SMB server to prevent indexes from pairing up.

Hope this helps you avoid a long read on that thread above.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, iMac early 2012, 3.4Ghz i7 32GB RAM

Posted on Jan 10, 2013 12:04 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 10, 2013 12:37 PM in response to LostAccount

It is partially working for me, where before searches yielded nothing. I now can find FOLDER names on the SMB drive. However, it will not find anything by FILE names. This seems a bizarre result and I'd appreciate any useful thoughts on this.

Thanks.

Rick

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Answer 2

Jan 25, 2013 10:45 AM in response to Rick Fernandez1

I can see the mounted shared volume but when execute in terminal from client that command

sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Name_of_shared_volume

I receive that error:

Error: unable to perform operation. (-403)

Server search enabled.

Why ? How to solve ?

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Answer 3

LostAccount Author

Level 2

166 points

Feb 6, 2013 2:22 AM in response to fadrianoc

Try this

In terminal type:

sudo mdutil - on

add one space after 'on'

Now drag and drop the hard drive icon into the terminal window.

Now hit enter and then enter your user password.

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Answer 4

kcncda

Level 1

0 points

Apr 22, 2013 4:51 PM in response to LostAccount

I have tried this and get this result:

Error: unable to perform operation. (-401)

Server search enabled.

Still unable to search the network drive.

Setup is an Late 2006 xServe running Lion Server with Bays 2 and 3 as a RAID data drive set up as a Sharepoint. Using a Late 2009 MBP running 10.5.8 as cleint.

Finder and Spotlight Search results in ZERO results in searching the sharepoint.

Any other suggestions?

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Answer 5

jynk

Level 1

41 points

May 31, 2013 3:15 AM in response to kcncda

i too get this.

Error: unable to perform operation. (-403)

Server search enabled.

I always presumed the server created an index localy which connected users' spotlights picked up.

Makes a lot more sense that 20 client machines having to index one volume 20 times?

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Answer 6

Jun 14, 2013 4:01 AM in response to jynk

jynk wrote:

i too get this.

Error: unable to perform operation. (-403)

Server search enabled.

I always presumed the server created an index localy which connected users' spotlights picked up.

Makes a lot more sense that 20 client machines having to index one volume 20 times?

On a Mac OS X Server this is the case, the OS X Server not only runs a process to do the indexing on the server so clients can all search the same index, but also automatically modifies the ACLs on the share to allow the server process to be able to access all the directories in order to do its indexing and for clients to be able to access the indexes.

Unofrtunately no-other server platform currently has an equivalent server based Spotlight indexing tool (possible exceptions being ExtremeZ-IP and Helios from JPY). So this affects Windows Server and SAMBA in otherwords the vast majority of SMB servers.

The ideal solution for most would be for the SAMBA project to add a spotlight server component, I would think this would be reasonably straight forward for them to do, whether they would be interested is a different matter.

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