Migration Assistant Help - Photos

Rebuild the Spotlight index. If you try to search now, there will be an indication that indexing is in progress.

Step 1

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

syslog -F '$Time $Message' -k Sender mdworker -o -k Message Rne Norm -k Sender mds | tail | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Step 2

Enter the following command as in Step 1 and post the output:

mdutil -as 2>&- | pbcopy

You can then quit Terminal.

Step 3

Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Terminal. In the Console window, look under the heading DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION on the left for crash reports related to Spotlight. If you don't see that heading, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar. A Spotlight crash report has a name beginning in "mds," "mdworker," or "mdwrite," and ending in ".crash". Select the most recent such report, if any, from the System and User subcategories and post the entire contents—the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)

Please don’t post any other kind of diagnostic report, such as hang logs—they're very long and not helpful.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

/.Spotlight-V100

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Open

from the contextual menu. A folder should open with a subfolder named ".Spotlight-V100" selected. Move the subfolder to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password.

Restart the computer in safe mode. Certain caches maintained by the system will be rebuilt.

Safe mode is much slower to start up than normal. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.

When the login screen appears, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and test. There's no need to log in while in safe mode.

Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID, you can’t start in safe mode. In that case, ask for instructions.

You can't see the folder in the Trash because it's invisible. The next time you empty the Trash, it should be deleted.

Select the text on the line below by dragging across it. Don't include the blank space at the end of the line. Only the text should be highlighted.

ls -@Odeln

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the Terminal application again.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V, then press the space bar.

Now switch to the Finder and and select the grayed-out items. Drag into the Terminal window. More text will be added to what you entered.

Click in the Terminal window to activate it, then press return.

Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear. Post any lines that appear below that line—the text, please, not a screenshot. You can then quit Terminal.

Please back up all data, then run the following the command in the same way as before. See whether there's any change.

mdimport Pictures

It's another shell command. You ran one already.

Just copy and paste the command, then press return. Don't drag anything into the Terminal window this time. You don't need to post the output. The question is whether Spotlight starts working properly.