Level 3

889 points

Spotlight failing repeatedly in iOS 9.2

This bug is driving me batty.

Spotlight keeps failing for me in iOS 9.2. I enter a search term and get nothing back.

If I do things that rebuild the index [1] it works for a while, but it then stops again. Disabling Contacts can get it working, but so can enabling it. Enabling Spotlight on other apps may or may not make a difference.

I've seen this intermittently over the years, but nothing like this. I'm using a 1yo iPhone. 6.

The next step is to wipe the phone and restore. Anyone come across another fix? Anyone else seeing this?

[1] Spotlight search is not working with contacts

Posted on Dec 30, 2015 12:10 PM

27 replies

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

May 17, 2016 4:10 PM in response to Jason Heiser

That's pretty encouraging -- since for you Spotlight blew up every time. Can you report back in a few days and let us know if it's still working?

I'll probably update my phone in a couple of days. I always wait.

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

May 18, 2016 6:51 PM in response to Jason Heiser

I did my phone update and for several hours Spotlight worked normally. Then, as I pretty much expected, it failed. Force quitting background apps restored it as before.

Since many things will fix the problem for a few hours I'm not surprised the update process helped transiently.

Be curious if your problem returns.

May 18, 2016 7:15 PM in response to jfaughnan

Since updating yesterday, Spotlight stopped working twice. The first time it happened, I immediately did a soft reboot. This restored search results. The second time it stopped working, I just tried quitting a bunch of apps. That restored it again. In the past six months, no amount of rebooting or killing apps would bring back Spotlight, so things seem to have improved a bit for me.

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

May 18, 2016 7:15 PM in response to Jason Heiser

I think for me it might be more like it was with 9.1 -- still failing, but taking a bit longer.

CindyB.

Level 1

17 points

May 29, 2016 2:50 AM in response to jfaughnan

I have an ipad mini (original) and an iphone 5s. I update ios on them similtaneiously. For almost a year Spotlight on my ipad has not worked at all while it works just fine on my iphone. I have many apps in folders so they are hard to find without Spotlight, and in some cases I don't remember their names so I can't even use Siri to look them up. Plus, my ipad is wifi only so Siri only works when I'm at home (I live in a remote area). ARGGGGGGH!!!!!! I've been waiting patiently for new versions of ios to fix the issue but they don't.

I wonder why Spotlight works on my iphone but not my ipad?

CindyB.

Level 1

17 points

May 29, 2016 2:54 AM in response to Jason Heiser

Interesting that for some the problem is intermittent while for me it's been consistent, but only on my iPad

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

May 30, 2016 7:48 AM in response to CindyB.

I suspect the bug is an OS bug with releasing memory when RAM is constrained and that it's timing related.

So a primary factor is how much RAM the device has (2GB doesn't get the bug), how fast memory cleanup is, what apps are used with which memory leaks, and so on.

This bug definitely won't get fixed in iOS 9. Our only hope is iOS 10. We don't even know if it's on Apple's radar to fix; if it does get fixed it might be a side-effect of other work they're doing.

It's the biggest Apple bug I routinely experience, but that doesn't mean it's important to Apple.

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

Jun 9, 2016 9:15 AM in response to jfaughnan

I'd seen a report that switching to Google's keyboard helped spotlight.

Seemed unlikely, but I tried it. Indeed it was quite fast at first, but after a while I was back to killing background apps. I suspect the install process cleared out some RAM producing the usual transient fix.

I'm still doing force quitting Reeder.app and a few other background apps.

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

889 points

Jul 30, 2016 8:08 AM in response to Jason Heiser

Upgrading to 9.3.2 alone did not fix the problem for me.

HOWEVER, after upgrading to 9.3.2 AND doing a full wipe/restore Spotlight has worked for 7 days. That's 2-3x longer than any prior fix. I do see occasional stutters but overall it's working.

Which is better than I expected. I didn't think there'd be any fix for this before iOS 10 at the earliest, if ever.

Aug 11, 2016 12:05 AM in response to jfaughnan

works fine now in iOS 10 Public Beta 4.

let's see how long 😉

Sep 14, 2016 10:05 AM in response to longtom99

I just upgraded my iPhone 6 to 10.0.1 and Spotlight is now running exceptionally well. Even after its partial return to my iPhone with iOS 9.3.2, search results were sluggish and delayed. Spotlight on 10.0.1, however, produces nearly instantaneous results and continues to function even after launching a bunch of RAM-hungry apps. Impressive.

Sep 14, 2016 10:28 AM in response to Jason Heiser

Yes, seems to be a problem with RAM management in iOS 9.x.

Now it feels like an iphone 7 😉

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Spotlight failing repeatedly in iOS 9.2