Takes up to 30 seconds to return results.
I have tried re-indexing by adding, then removing, my drive to the Spotlight privacy preference.
Any suggestions?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11)
Launch the Console 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.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take an action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any lines that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
10/5/15 4:35:29.000 PM kernel[0]: LS(4350) m38a93df2 pname:SpotlightNetHelp (748) id:191583 protocol:6 conStat:2 flags:640 to == NULL connectAddr:-
10/5/15 4:35:29.237 PM Spotlight[744]: XPC connection was invalidated
10/5/15 4:35:29.251 PM SpotlightNetHelper[748]: tcp_connection_tls_session_error_callback_imp 107 __tcp_connection_tls_session_callback_write_block_invoke.434 error 22
10/5/15 4:35:29.379 PM Spotlight[744]: XPC connection was invalidated
I also noted a number of other spotlight related error messages:
10/6/15 11:25:23.115 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [com.apple.corespotlight.log.index] Finished "index items"(402) with error:Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
10/6/15 11:25:23.116 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [Warning] IMDChatAddMessageToSpotlight: indexing searchable items failed with error Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
10/6/15 11:25:23.116 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [Warning] IMDChatAddMessageToSpotlight: indexing searchable items failed with error Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
10/6/15 11:25:23.117 AM com.apple.spotlight.IndexAgent[637]: [com.apple.corespotlight.log] Not allowed to pass in bundle ID
10/6/15 11:25:23.117 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [com.apple.corespotlight.log.index] Finished "index items"(404) with error:Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
10/6/15 11:25:23.119 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [Warning] IMDChatAddMessageToSpotlight: deleting message for searchable items failed with error Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
10/6/15 11:25:23.119 AM IMDPersistenceAgent[353]: [Warning] IMDChatAddMessageToSpotlight: deleting message for searchable items failed with error Error Domain=CSIndexErrorDomain Code=-1003 "(null)"
If you have any user accounts that you haven't yet logged into since upgrading to El Capitan, log in to them now and see whether there's an improvement.
Credit for this idea to ASC member theloon.
Thanks for your reply; alas there are no other user accounts on this machine.
Some additional console messages:
10/7/15 10:54:09.000 AM kernel[0]: LS(4350) m38a93df2 pname:SpotlightNetHelp (33854) id:299050 protocol:6 conStat:2 flags:640 to == NULL connectAddr:-
10/7/15 10:54:09.000 AM kernel[0]: LS(4350) m38a93df2 pname:SpotlightNetHelp (33854) id:299055 protocol:6 conStat:2 flags:640 to == NULL connectAddr:-
10/7/15 10:54:09.898 AM Spotlight[33734]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7fe1f4b62c60 57631 file:///Users/zenith/Library/Mail/V3/anmbox.mbox/All%20Mail.mbox/microsoft product key looking character string/Data/7/1/Attachments/anumber/1.3/an attachment which contains a spotlight search term.doc>
10/7/15 10:54:10.231 AM SpotlightNetHelper[33854]: Connection error while checking Apple Internalness. Error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper was invalidated.}
10/7/15 10:54:10.000 AM kernel[0]: LS(4350) m38a93df2 pname:SpotlightNetHelp (33854) id:299068 protocol:6 conStat:2 flags:640 to == NULL connectAddr:-
Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a test, not a solution. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Step 1
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account.
Enable guest logins* and log in as Guest. Don't use the Safari-only “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac.”
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your documents or settings. Applications will behave as if you were running them for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this behavior; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
Test while logged in as Guest. Same problem?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.
*Note: If you’ve activated “Find My Mac” or FileVault, then you can’t enable the Guest account. The “Guest User” login created by “Find My Mac” is not the same. Create a new account in which to test, and delete it, including its home folder, after testing.
Step 2
The purpose of this step is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Please take this step regardless of the results of Step 1.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem.
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 do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of Steps 1 and 2.
Thank you for sticking with me.
The results of the guest user test are as follows:
Results were way faster than my regular account, but slower than my wife's mac (hers is a '15 air, mine is a '12 retina). It's hard to be certain, but I think it is slower than response under Yosemite. It was slower than response in safe mode.
Contents of Console are posted below, notable is the absence of the _XPC connection was invalidated_ message.
The results of the safe boot test are as follows:
Search was snappy, but only produced results from Dictionary (spotlight limited in safe mode?). The _XPC connection was invalidated_ was present in the console logs.
Console output from guest account usage (searching for "Spotlight" in results):
10/8/15 4:11:05.407 PM Spotlight[39213]: spot: agent checkin
10/8/15 4:11:05.496 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: ### Failed to load Addressbook class CNContactNameFormatter
10/8/15 4:11:28.006 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: Connection error while checking Apple Internalness. Error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper was invalidated." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper was invalidated.}
10/8/15 4:11:51.904 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: CFPasteboardRef CFPasteboardCreate(CFAllocatorRef, CFStringRef) : failed to create global data
10/8/15 4:11:51.906 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: CFPasteboardRef CFPasteboardCreate(CFAllocatorRef, CFStringRef) : failed to create global data
10/8/15 4:11:51.906 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: CFPasteboardRef CFPasteboardCreate(CFAllocatorRef, CFStringRef) : failed to create global data
10/8/15 4:11:51.907 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: CFPasteboardRef CFPasteboardCreate(CFAllocatorRef, CFStringRef) : failed to create global data
10/8/15 4:11:52.313 PM Spotlight[39213]: applications query - started
10/8/15 4:11:58.355 PM Spotlight[39213]: applications query - finished in 6 seconds
10/8/15 4:12:56.660 PM Spotlight[39213]: Connection error while checking Apple Internalness. Error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.CrashReporterSupportHelper}
10/8/15 4:18:18.547 PM Spotlight[39213]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f90152f9820 128039 file:///Users/bubba/Documents/Not%20a%20nother%20way.pages>
10/8/15 4:18:47.761 PM SpotlightNetHelper[39253]: [SLSUGGESTIONS] Location managed failed with error Error Domain=kCLErrorDomain Code=0 "(null)"
10/8/15 4:19:05.155 PM Spotlight[39213]: [QL] After retry, preview was from a different type for <QLPreview 0x7f90154cae00 93211 file:///Volumes/New%20Butter/not%20transient/Law%20Schools/law%20school%205/moo t%20court/OFF%20-%20BRIEF.doc>
At least one secondary volume("New Butter") is mounted. Please add all such volumes to the Privacy list and see whether there's an improvement.
Thank you for your diligent attention!
Re-indexing that volume (and another external volume) restored spotlight performance.
Many thanks again for your assistance!
Spotlight in El Capitan is quite slow to display results
