Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
After upgrading to High Sierra, Spotlight seems to have stopped searching our two servers. I've never experienced this in the earlier Mac OS versions.
Both servers are running on Snow Leopard. Could it be that High Sierra has dropped support for Snow Leopard servers?
Any suggested work around is highly appreciated. Thank you.
Mac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
Sounds like progress, but I suspect it's a feature that needs Apple's attention. See if you have the Feedback Assistant app in this location. This is the app used by beta testers to send bug reports. It will send system reports etc that will aid Apple in fixing the problem along with your description and details of your problem.
Macintosh HD Root folders
Applications
Library
System > Library > CoreServices > Applications > Feedback Assistant.app
Users
If you don't have Feedback assistant, you might want to enroll in the public beta.
Beta testing is not for everyone. If you don't have a good backup strategy (Time Machine and clone) I suggest you have backups first. You'll get a new build approx once a week.
There is no Apple Public Beta forum to discuss and get help. MacRumors does have a place to get help but it's all volunteer. macOS High Sierra (10.13) | MacRumors Forums
Sounds like progress, but I suspect it's a feature that needs Apple's attention. See if you have the Feedback Assistant app in this location. This is the app used by beta testers to send bug reports. It will send system reports etc that will aid Apple in fixing the problem along with your description and details of your problem.
Macintosh HD Root folders
Applications
Library
System > Library > CoreServices > Applications > Feedback Assistant.app
Users
If you don't have Feedback assistant, you might want to enroll in the public beta.
Beta testing is not for everyone. If you don't have a good backup strategy (Time Machine and clone) I suggest you have backups first. You'll get a new build approx once a week.
There is no Apple Public Beta forum to discuss and get help. MacRumors does have a place to get help but it's all volunteer. macOS High Sierra (10.13) | MacRumors Forums
No, they're not. In fact I tried a tip suggested somewhere else, which is to drag the volume onto the Privacy tab and then removing it to force Spotlight to Index. That didn't work. I've also ran Onyx and the issue has remained unresolved.
It's possible this is simply a bug in High Sierra at this time. Time Machine will not work on APFS.
If you’re sharing a volume formatted as APFS over the network, you must use SMB or NFS, not the increasingly deprecated AFP. (SMB has been the preferred file sharing protocol for several versions of macOS now.) That applies to Time Machine share points as well. http://tidbits.com/article/17451
You can try setting Time Machine in the server itself.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/pro-tip-configure-the-time-machine-service-i n-os-x-server/
According to this wiki, your Snow Leopard server should qualify.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Server
Here are some other links that might have some helpful info:
Time Machine and APFS: What You Need to Know - The Mac Observer
Thank you for the suggestions, Diane. We don't have a problem with Time Machine. It's the Spotlight's failure to search that is the issue, as I described earlier. The iMac running on high Sierra can connect to both servers which are using the AFP file sharing protocol. The files are all visible.
I just did a test on another server running on Windows Vista and Spotlight's search feature works.
If there is anyone out there who is still connecting to a server running on Snow Leopard, can you kindly check if High Sierra's Spotlight search is working. Thanks.
These are steps prior to High Sierra.
Unmount the desired network drive
Turn off file sharing - ie untick the file sharing box
Reboot Mac
Open File Sharing and click Options. Tick AFP** and SMB then exit Options. File Sharing will now be turned on, if it hasn't then click it on and check Options to see that the ticks in AFP and SMB have both stuck.
Open Finder. Use Command+K or via Menu "Go" then "Connect to Server" (Try Browse to find servers)
**Apple deprecated AFP, so volumes formatted as APFS cannot offer share points over the network with that protocol. You have to use SMB or NFS.
By turning on the SMB feature of the servers, the Mac running on High Sierra can now search files on them grudgingly.
However, when I open a file that came out in the search, it gives a "Fix Alias" notice. I'm trying to force Spotlight to Index the servers that I have now connected to via SMB and will give feedback again.
I have the exact same issue. This index is built and it is quick to search but u cannot open any of the search results without getting the error u describe. Trying to fix the alias also does not work. I can get AFP volume to work but only after rebuilding the index first and with a reboot the search stops working.
We're seeing the same issue on Windows servers and an enterprise NetApps Filer server. All connections are stock SMB.
Items will find by name, but in the Spotlight results list when you double-click, they complain about being orphaned alias files. When you contextual-click, the pop-up menu doesn’t give the options a file (or an alias) would have. And when you do “Get Info” all the fields are blank!
Searching a macOS Server or another desktop mac via File Sharing (SMB) works fine.
The issue has not been fixed at all. I've updated to 10.13.1 and am still getting the same problems, whether on a server using AFP or SMB. On SMB, it does give search results but the "fix alias" error pops up, as you are also seeing.
Hello from France,
Sorry for my english, I'm an old french ;-)
I have a similar problem with 4 MacPro 2009 under MacOS El Capitan 10.11.6 and my Macmini server updated under High Sierra 10.13.2, with server installed. When we search from our MacPros under El Capitan, we can see the result one second, and just after, icons disappear, and all results appear as alias unlinked. I have contacted Apple France, they take control of my Mac, and they saw the problem. They took every data they need, and I have tranfer datas and copyscreen... It was one month ago, and no news from them since... I called many times, but nothing... It is very annoying, because our server has 24 TB of datas, and we can't work without searching possibilities...
Before High Sierra, search works slowly, but perfectly.
Apple, what do you do for us?
Stéphane
Hi from Holland,
Same problems here. Try to search on a NAS Synology server with a 2017 iMac and Macbook Pro 2015 both running osx 10.13.1. Similar problems as described above. With my old Mac Pro 3.1 ElCapitan everything still works fine.
APPLE HELP!!!
Richard
Hi from Prague, the same problem here.... we have 9 workstations connected to SnowLeopard server and spotlight is not working anymore after sierra high update processed on these workstations last week......everything was OK on Sierra 10.12.6... I remmember that we used something like EasyFind app somewhere in past, yes I can give it try but I hate this situation - I must install 3rd party app to search data on my network volume..... http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware.html
Verify that the servers are not under the Privacy tab in Spotlight.
Open System Preferences > Spotlight
Click on Privacy tab
If you see the servers listed, click on - to remove.
That might be the solution. Gonna try that tomorrow when I get back to work. Thanks. 🙂
OK, thank you Diane. I'll do as you have said.
iMac can't search servers after upgrading to High Sierra
