Spotlight search keeps reindexing and not working

Hi there:

Long story short; Any idea at all why spotlight keeps reindeing, crashes and never finishes?

Background & Symptom:

Since upgrading to Mavericks my Spotlight haven't been indexing and searching properly. My main issue is Mail App because I search there 30-50 times a day but I can see the symptom is also there with searching for Apps or files. I've tried absolutely everything, been Googling and been on chat and phone support with Apple (still have time left on my extra warranty) at least 20 times and must say its shown no results so far.

Detail:

I've got 2 drives in it - 1 HDD and 1 SSD - everything OS, Apps and Mail is on the main SSD drive and I've even tried to have spotlight just index that but to no avail.

It worked prior to the upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks.

I can see in console that my mds_stores crashes constantly (which maybe explains the behaviour) - maybe ~20 times a day.

The main thread that crashes is "com.apple.metadata.spotlightindex" but there are a couple of others too rarely (MDSSecureStore and com.apple.libdispatch-manager)

The other thing they all have in common is this message:

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

and 50% of the mds_stores crashes have this in common:

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000100000001

Here's some of the things I've done (and some of them many times in various orders):

- Reinstalled OS X Mavericks bare and reinstall/repaired on top of the existing install

- Moved a lot of the IMAP mails into local folders

- Tried different user account

- Uninstalled all kinds of stuff on the machine in case anything of that was the culrit

- Spotlight reindexing (both by dragging my drive into the spotlight exclusion as well as via the command line mdutil commands etc)

- Turned off FileVault (had to in order to get into Safe Mode)

- Reset PRAM (Cmd+Option+R+P)

- Have repaired disk permissions

- Have rebooted in safe mode

- Have rebooted in Recovery console and run resetpasswd/resetpassword and fixed ACLs

- Tried disabling everything but my mails in spotlight (Mail App)

- Lots of other things...

Any ideas at all?? I had to write here because I've rn out of options and I have on faith that Apple can sort it out (its been more than a month of open support cases).

Thanks a lot even for any ideas you might have!!

Cheers,

Daniel

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Dec 9, 2013 4:22 AM

39 replies

Jan 14, 2014 3:15 PM in response to Barney-15E

None of the messages in the console had the triangle and mdutil commands under it (there were only a couple of messages that could be expanded via the triangle icon).

Any other ideas anyone?

Thanks,

Daniel

NB: Has anyone resulted to trying to use a non-Spotlight-based desktop search tool of any kind and what is the experiences?

Jan 23, 2014 2:17 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

Hi Daniel,

I've got the exact same problem. Also happened after upgrading to Mavericks and it's driving me nuts. My Spotlight starts reindexing my entire system on every reboot, which takes about an hour every time. I've also tried almost everything you listed (resetting Spotlight via the UI, via the terminal, etc.), nothing helps. I really only need Spotlight to be able to search my mail, but excluding everything in my homedrive except ~/Library/Mail doesn't solve my problem either.... It still starts reindexing on every reboot, and not only my mail dir, but also the other dirs that I did not exclude (I checked by watching the files opened by the index process: "sudo fs_usage -w -f filesys mdworker")

So I've now excluded my entire home-dir, so I at least can start apps via Spotlight. But I can't search my mail anymore, which is a real pain.

If there's anything I can do (e.g. add info to your support case), please let me know.

Furthermore, how did you get the info on the crashes of the Spotlight index processes? I went through my old system.log files, and the Console app, but I don't really have crashing Spotlight processes as far as I can tell.

Cheers,

Duncan

Jan 23, 2014 2:32 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

Now I have excluded my ~/Library/Mail from Spotlight search. No reindexing has happened for the last 24 hours.

I have the same problem on two Macs, where I use the same IMAP accounts. I wonder if Spotlight does something special for email. Perhaps 150.000 messages may be too much for Spotlight. Time for a binary search.

Jan 23, 2014 3:20 AM in response to Duncan Doyle

Hi there Duncan,

I've incidentally got a few Apple Support cases for this issue over the time (I think the system created a new one every time) but the last one with the most data, history, info and experiments is 541648142 and it was created mid Deecmber so you could refer to that.

The spotlight crashes was in my console it is the mds_stores process that keeps crashing.

I think Microsoft Outlook for Mac doesn't have this issue (maybe its more robust and transactional as well and doesn't stall as much as Mail App either) - would be worth a test I think. But it would be pretty bad if we had to buy that just because Apple's stuff doesn't work (and I'd think MS Outlook wouldn't be clever with PowerNap mail fetching either which was something I was looking forward to using in the future on a newer machine)..

If it does turn out that Microsoft Office Outlook for Mac is the most robust for mails then here are cheap sourcing options (depending on what you qualify for);

- Academic license for students: http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/itsnotcheating/default.aspx

- Home User Program (HUP): http://www.microsofthup.com/

- BizSpark (for startups): http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dsoftware&field-keywo rds=microsoft+office+2011+for+mac+%22home+and+business%22&rh=n%3A229534%2Ck%3Ami crosoft+office+2011+for+mac+%22home+and+business%22

Anyone else have any thoughts or ideas on how we can fix this Spotlight / Mail App issue/symptom?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Daniel

Jan 23, 2014 11:00 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

I have filed it to Apple as a bug

Bug ID #: 15890594

Bug Title: Spotlight reindexes my Mac on a daily basis

They asked me to perform a diagnostic report with the command

sudo mddiagnose

in the Terminal.

That made a 20 MB file I have attached to the bug report.

I hope this will help to get the bug hunted down!

Jan 23, 2014 11:12 AM in response to Henrik Dalgaard

Det lyder godt Henrik!

Let's see what comes out of that, fingers crossed!! Funny that over my 3 months of working with Apple Support on this and lots of reinstalls and experiments and data captures I was never asked to run "mddiagnose"! :-|

Lets see. In the meantime, anyone that has any updates for the rest of us (or even ideas) that would be great to hear.

Cheers,

Daniel

Jan 23, 2014 11:41 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

Håber Apple får spor nok at gå efter!

Apple has heard about it before in bug #15838350

Now I have sent them one more report from my other Mac as well. After a Restart from the Apple menu Mail triggered the reindix.

So far Apple has fixed several of the bugs I have reported. Mostly bugs which more people have found and told them about - do if a bug report gets the "Duplicate" stamp it is a good sign.

Cheers,

Henrik

Jan 24, 2014 3:14 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

Hope they figure out that we are talking about the same problem so it can get the "votes" to get attention. They get about 6600 reports every day. The first to hope for is that it gets the "Duplicate" status.

I installed 13C44 this morning. No reindexing yet. But it is too early to tell. It could also be because I excluded the 6 GB of my email I have on iCloud. Perhaps there is one mail in there causing the problem.

Perhaps my habit of leaving everything in my inbox is bad. I could archive most of it. That might make life easier for the indexer.

Cheers

Henrik

Feb 2, 2014 9:03 PM in response to Daniel_iversen

Well... just curious about this problem (That is a reality for me, but I have TWO similar computers with the same MAC version... and the same information). Why? cause I wanted to upgrade my computer. I have a lot of problems with space with the other computer (MACB AIR MID 2011) and the other computer lastest version (MID 2013, with twice ram mem and twice SDD), that I got four days ago.

SO I copied all the info to the new computer using the TIME MACHINE backup... guess what... in the former computer I DO NOT HAVE the problem... I can search and everything works fine... however in the new one... NADA FUNCIONA (NOTHING WORKS with the email search).... I can not search with email... same software... same computer... same information... so I can guess this problem is a bug with the connection with hardware of the NEW computer. I am an electronics engineer and LONG TIME AGO even I use design Electronic cirtuits and develop software from mainframe to micros.... but NOW I am in business... so i prefer to buy a new software that waiting for the solution. Anyway lets try a couple of questions to you guys...

- I already use OUTLOOK for the emails of my company(I can not use MAC MAIL with the info of the company). BUt the outlook is a REALLY BAD SOFTWARE:... crashes 10 times the day.... so what other MAIL software do you recommend to work with icloud?

- Second: were can I find the 10.9.2 upgrade software?...

FOr more than 10 years I am just in business. I do not do any electronics neither programming (neither go to command console....LOL). In the past I was bored of patching or debuggin PC software... that was the idea of buying a MAC... now I am a usless guy with all the commands you recommended to make... EVEN. ... I do not have time for that.

Thanks in advance for the recommendations.

Alfredo

Feb 3, 2014 1:42 AM in response to Alfredo_RA

Hi Alfredo

The 10.9.2 update comes automatically when it is released. Probably in a not so distant future.

Apple Mail supports Microsoft Exchange when you add an email account. Did that not work? If not that is a good subject for a new thread.

Kind regards,

Henrik

Mar 29, 2014 9:39 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

I'm not sure where the problem is...I'm getting emails to appear in Spotlight but Office for Mac Outlook 2011 won't search. It used to work before upgrading to Mavericks and after the upgrade it stopped.

Nov 17, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

Having this problem in 2014.

Opened Console and noticed this: 11/17/14 10:20:07.796 AM mdworker32[3228]: (Warning) Import: import uti:com.makemusic.mus plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Finale.mdimporter uuid:8F7AD1E0-0DB3-11D9-95E0-000A95BA3EA2 1.1 exceeded cpu use limits (12) after 16998 milliseconds sizing:0 - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 4482807

Found a thread that links this problem to Finale 2011 http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=337028

I deleted the offending file and the problem seems to be resolved.

Jan 28, 2014 12:05 AM in response to Daniel_iversen

The problem has not come back, and I now index my entire Mac. I believe that Apple fixed this one!

And the problem is still on my other Mac which is not upgraded to 10.9.2.

Selv tak,

Henrik

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

Dec 30, 2013 1:37 PM in response to stalubalub

SIMBL has caused a lot of problems for people.

SIMBL Uninstall

SIMBL Uninstall (2) See solution posted by Linc Davis .

Eric Root

Level 10

685,221 points

Dec 30, 2013 1:37 PM in response to Daniel_iversen

Trying running this program and then copy and paste the output in a reply. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read.

Etrecheck – System Information

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Spotlight search keeps reindexing and not working