Spotlight frozen, using all CPU

Question

Level 1

0 points

Spotlight frozen, using all CPU

I have been searching the forum and haven't been able to find an answer to this problem that works. My Spotlight has completely frozen, and all the applications on the top right bar have disappeared. When I run my mouse over spotlight, it says it is busy, and I can't access it. SystemUIServer is using up to 100 %CPU and hundreds of MB of real memory and over a GB of virtual memory. When I force it to quit, it simply restarts and does the same thing. I can run other programs. I can also restart my computer, but the same problem allways reappears. It started after a particular Spotlight search, but I have used Spotlight before with no problems. Any ideas?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.8), Intel chip

Posted on Jan 11, 2007 8:00 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Jan 12, 2007 12:52 AM in response to Joe Tanniru

Joe

Welcome to the Apple Discussions

This could be caused by a corrupt Preferences file.

Go to Home / Library / Preferences

trash the com.apple.spotlight.plist file

and the com.apple.systemuiserver.plist file.

The OS will regenerate these files automatically, but you preferences will be reset to factory defaults.

Regards

TD

Reply

Answer 2

Joe Tanniru Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 12, 2007 4:48 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks for your help, but it doesn't seem to solve the problem. I deleted the file and rebooted, but no change. I also repaired my file permissions to no avail. It appears that Spotlight is stuck on scouring my disk in search of something. Perhaps it has some sort of bad input that doesn't get deleted when the system restarts?

Reply

Answer 3

Joe Tanniru Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 12, 2007 4:53 AM in response to Yer_Man

Never mind. I misread your post and only deleted the spotlight preference file the first time. Just deleted the systemuiserver file, and everything comes back online. Thanks!

Reply