Spotlight search always quits itself when typing.

It has everything to do with the Safari 12 update. Turn OFF (uncheck) the "Bookmarks & History" option in Spotlight pane in System Preferences. The problem will stop until Apple fixes Safari.

Here is the thread I started yesterday: Spotlight crashes after typing a few letters since Safari 12 update

Nekoniaow wrote:

... Legends, myths and rumors have it that Apple staff read these forums but given that there is rarely (if ever) an official acknowledgment that they are aware of the reported issues ...

Not a legend, myth, or rumor. Apple knows about this and they marked my comment here as " Apple recommended".

I'm following over a dozen threads about this issue, and the majority of people reporting their upgrade to Safari 12.0.1 are saying that it has been fixed.

Others previously reported that restoring their Sierra or High Sierra operating system cleared it up. In my case, I fixed the problem when I upgraded from Sierra to High Sierra.

Try setting up another admin user account to see if the same problem continues. Please post back on whether or not this worked. Also try the Safe Mode. Please post back on whether or not this worked.

Isolating an issue by using another user account

Safe Mode - About

Safe Mode Startup – El Capitan. also Sierra

If it works in the Safe Mode, try running this program when booted normally and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read. Click “Share Report” button in the toolbar, select “Copy to Clipboard” and then paste into a reply. This will show what is running on your computer. No personal information is shown.

Etrecheck – System Information

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

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Might be a corrupt .plist.

Do a backup, preferably 2 backups on 2 separate drives.

Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library. Then go to Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist. Move the .plist to your desktop.

Re-launch Finder by restarting the computer and test. If it works okay, delete the plist from the desktop. Then reset your preferences as desired.

If the same, return the .plist to where you got it from, overwriting the newer one.

Thanks to leonie for some information contained in this.

See if anything here helps.

Spotlight crashes from API misuse

Laurie,

You probably have something else going on then.

In another thread, my workaround was flagged by Apple as "Apple Recommended":

Re: Why does the spotlight window randomly close after typing a few specific characters?

Now we just need to wait for them to fix it!

After this problem started happening with mine, I updated from Sierra to High Sierra and the problem went away. Others are reporting that a system reinstall fixes the issue too. Using recovery mode, you can reinstall operating system without losing any data or installed applications... it simply reinstalls the OS much like when you install normal OS updates. Make sure you have a Time Machine backup just in case. Might be worth a try.

The actual solution is to either bug Apple phone support or to report the bug on their feedback system.

Legends, myths and rumors have it that Apple staff read these forums but given that there is rarely (if ever) an official acknowledgment that they are aware of the reported issues, the only approach left is to send as many reports of that bug to https://apple.com/feedback/macos.html (Feedback - macOS - Apple).

Every time I have had to talk with support people on the phone they have insisted that this is the sole official reporting avenue (aside from the Radar system available to developers) for bugs and that even support people cannot really report bugs to Apple's engineers (which is completely stupid policy but that is how Apple thinks apparently).

So, head to https://apple.com/feedback/macos.htm and report that bug. 🙂

This just started happening to me, also, and I just upgraded to Safari 12.

Spotlight launches, I start to type my search, and after typing 3-4 letters, it just quits and won't let me finish typing nor does it produce search results. The only way I can something now is by searching in a Finder window.

I'm on a MacBook Pro, early 2011 model, Sierra macOS.

Is this bug only happening on Macs running Sierra (10.12) after updating to Safari 12? Or also to Macs running High Sierra? It does seem like it's related to the Safari update. Also, sometimes when I try to type a search into Spotlight, it doesn't just quit after 3 characters...I've had it switch to a field in the Safari browser and the characters appear there instead.

None of this matters. I forced Spotlight to re-index several times and it briefly works until the indexing is done and then the problem returns. It also happens while using a different Admin account. After a lot of troubleshooting, I can only get it to stop crashing by UN-checking the "Bookmarks & History" option in the Spotlight pane of System Preferences (all other Spotlight options are checked). I think it has to be a bug or issue with Safari since it's only "Bookmarks & History" and the problem coincides with the update to version 12.

Unfortunately, this fix doesn't work for me, even though it seems to be working for many others. I'm having the same problem... Spotlight lets me type a few letters and then quits. I do have Safari 12.0 on my MacBook Air running High Sierra. But my problem isn't fixed by unchecking the Bookmarks and History. Furthermore, Finder is also experiencing similar problems. It works fine for a while after rebooting, but then starts quitting moments after opening a finder window. They seem like they must be related. Help?

Even when unmarking the option in spotlight preferences works as a temporal fix Apple must fix this. I mean, I use constantly spotlight to open much quicker my bookmarks. Not having this feature is really annoying.

Do we have any new on how long can it take to be fixed?

I regularly report every bug I discover. I highly doubt they care. No bug I’ve reported has been fixed (except maybe the iOS Safari tab preview image bug), and I’ve been watching the continuation of iOS bugs in specific since iOS 9 (I skipped iOS 7 & 8). Most of the bugs were introduced in iOS 7, and almost nothing has been fixed. It’s just getting worse.

As far as Mac OS bugs, there’s less of a problem there, but it’s still nowhere near as bug-free or speedy as Snow Leopard.

Still, I continue to report things.

Turn OFF (uncheck) the "Bookmarks & History" option in Spotlight pane in System Preferences. The problem will stop until Apple fixes Safari.

Other threads have begun to discuss this bug. Here is one:

my spotlight tool bar disappears after I type in 3 letters