Q: Mavericks: Spotlight Indexing Forever!

I don't know if there really was a "culprit". The spotlight got stuck only once for a large directory containg a lot of data, but it worked again when I added and removed the folder to the list.

I find those messages in my mind (don't know if they were triggered by the stuck spotlight though):

27/5/14 2:29:22.863 PM mds[4076]: (Warning) Server: No stores registered for metascope "kMDQueryScopeComputer"

After reading through all of this as, my Spotlight takes forever to estimate the indexing, I have two suggestions for Apple.

1)  Create Oerating Systems that actually work without the people (customers) who pay for all the hardware having to endlessly alter and tweak settings which really are the result of poor design/sotfware issues and negligent testing.

2) Give the Mac's that your engineers say work faultlessly to your customers and take their malfunctioning Mac's in return until you learn to understand the concept of responsibility.

Please stop using your customers as free labour and charging them to phone you to sort out the problems that you have created. We have already paid and you treat us with contempt.

I have become so frustrated with the speed of my iMac 27" Mid 2010.

It's taking over 40 seconds to load Pages or iPhoto  or really any application that I have removed my hard drive from Spotlight !

So I now have Time Machine and my HD removed from Spotlight and it'd back running at normal speed without the HD crunching awaw all the time.

So Apple thank you for making one of the best features of OSX   - Spotlight usless on my Mac !

Try this

OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 (Update (Combo)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1746

This is a full update with any missing bits that you may have from your Mavericks OS on your system and can sort out various problems with its operation. What can also be relevant, is whether you have any bits missing from a previous OS as, the errors move along intact within your computer. It speeded up my iMac and sorted out various problems that I was experiencing.

So, try this first and then if not get the relevant Combo update for the last OS that you had before updating to Mavericks.

Hi, try this.

Go to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Search Results Tab, and Uncheck everything there.

Check the Spotlight search at top right of menu bar and you may see that it has stop.

Now, go back to System Preferences and check ONLY the things that you want it to search for.

Next on the Privacy Tab, you can select folders or Drives you DON'T want spotlight to check for.

This worked for me.

Peace out.

My MBA kept looping the "Estimating indexing time" and not moving on. Then I added my StorEDGE to the Privacy tab in spotlight preference pane and everything went back to normal. I just don't have the indexing of the files on the PNY StorEDGE 128Gb sd card, but I can live with that.

Thanks Martin Form the linked update

OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 (Update (Combo)

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1746

sorted it for me.

Hi ajl124. Glad that it did the trick. Pity that I cannot get a tick against 'this sorted it for me' but someone else got that earlier in the topic. I trust that your Mac is running well again now.

Unfortunately, only the original poster can award points and asking for them violates the ToU of these forums.

Everything violates the TOU's of this forum lol. I didn't ask for anything.

What solved it for me was excluding a partition (Running the Yosemity Beta) from indexing.

System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy > "+" > Add partition

I just installed 10.9.4 and so far it does NOT seem to fix the "estimating indexing forever" problem for me!

I also cannot add my external harddrive to the spotlight privacy because of an "unknown error".

It doesn't seem to "just work" anymore.

Thank you for the fix!

It worked for me!

Try this

OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 Update (Combo)

This is a full update with any missing bits that you may have from your Mavericks OS on your system and can sort out various problems with its operation. What can also be relevant, is whether you have any bits missing from a previous OS as, the errors move along intact within your computer. It speeded up my iMac and sorted out various problems that I was experiencing.

So, try this first and then if not get the relevant Combo update for the last OS that you had before updating to Mavericks.

If the combo download gets rid of your 'error' then:

Here's how you can prevent Spotlight from indexing external drives and Time Machine backups.

1. Connect the volume or drive you want excluded to your Mac.

2. Open the System Preferences application.

3. Click on Spotlight, then click on the Privacy tab.

4. Drag your volume or drive into the Privacy menu to exclude them from Spotlight's indexing.