Spotlight crashes from API misuse

There must be 5 or 6 new threads in the last couple days pop up in the Sierra forum describing the same issue. Fugge says that Eric's suggestion to follow Linc Davis's procedure for re-indexing had solved it for him. Unfortunately, this did not work for me.

I believe this is solely an issue with Safari 12 update because turning off the "Bookmarks & History" option makes this problem go away.

If anyone is interested in inspecting my crash log, I've posted part of it in this other thread: Spotlight crashes after typing a few letters since Safari 12 update

Spotlight not working see post by Linc Davis and other suggestions.

I also had this error on my system running Sierra 10.12.6 and the only recent change was the update to Safari 12.

Looking at the crash logs (In Console - User reports) certainly calls out the same things reported here as follows:

Time Awake Since Boot: 120 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Terminating Process: exc handler [0]

Application Specific Information:

XPC API Misuse: Release of last reference on a suspended connection.

Application Specific Signatures:

API Misuse

The important thing to note is what THREAD has crashed as seen below:

Thread 7 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-qos

0 libxpc.dylib 0x00007fffd9152504 _xpc_api_misuse + 75

1 libxpc.dylib 0x00007fffd9141b7f _xpc_connection_last_xref_cancel + 52

2 libxpc.dylib 0x00007fffd9141b22 -[OS_xpc_connection _xref_dispose] + 17

3 com.apple.SafariServices.framework 0x00007fffc94c685f SSGetFullySimplifiedStringForURL + 746

4 com.apple.QuickLookUIFramework 0x00007fffc9203940 -[QLPreviewSchemeHandler_http _calculatePreviewURL:previewData:previewProperties:previewType:] + 331

5 com.apple.QuickLookUIFramework 0x00007fffc917d535 _QLPreviewItemGeneratorCopyPreviewUsingSchemeHandlerForURL + 158

6 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc9483568 _QLPreviewReplyCreatedWithURL + 861

7 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc9489e0e _XPreviewReplyCreatedWithURL + 219

8 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc948a27e QLPreviewReply_server + 80

9 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fffd9014e0c mach_msg_server_once + 476

10 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc9480d7f _QLPreviewWaitForPreviewTypeIfNecessary + 2631

11 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc94801bc QLPreviewGetDisplayBundleID + 180

12 com.apple.QuickLookUIFramework 0x00007fffc9214a6f __65-[QLPreviewDocument startLoadingWithForcedDisplayBundleID:hints:]_block_invoke + 99

13 com.apple.QuickLookFramework 0x00007fffc94adfe4 QLTryCatchAndCrash(void () block_pointer) + 20

14 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fffd8ec1524 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 12

15 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fffd8eb88fc _dispatch_client_callout + 8

16 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fffd8ec7196 _dispatch_queue_override_invoke + 743

17 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fffd8eba6b5 _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 476

18 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fffd8eba48c _dispatch_worker_thread3 + 99

19 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffd91075a2 _pthread_wqthread + 1299

20 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x00007fffd910707d start_wqthread + 13

What this more or less tells me is that the Quicklook previewer is crashing when attempting to give you a preview of any weblink (in my case any *.webloc file).

What I had to do to fully fix this after trying all the normal things including rebuilding the spotlight index, trying safe mode, trying a new user, running disk check, checking the actual contents of the *.webloc files for corruption or malformed links, was to reinstall Sierra 10.12.6 by shutting down my system and holding COMMAND +R to "internet recovery" the OS on my machine.

Once the OS was reinstalled, full functionality was restored and I can now use spotlight as normal and include all items in the results with no further issues.

Once the OS was reinstalled, full functionality was restored and I can now use spotlight as normal and include all items in the results with no further issues.

Are you absolutely sure?

As reported by others and myself, the problem only manifests itself after Spotlight has completed indexing the drive. Have you tested this again after indexing was completed?

I believe this is solely an issue with Safari 12 update because turning off the "Bookmarks & History" option makes this problem go away.

Yes! This finally worked. None of the other solutions worked for my situation, ie forcing re-index on CLI, adding-removing drive to ignore-list, etc.

Thank you so much! This has been driving me crazy as I use spotlight frequently. Not sure why Apple haven't issued an update to Safari yet. The problem for me now is remembering to turn back on the "Bookmarks & History" option when Apple do fix the bug ; - )

Yes I have and even as of tonight the functionality of Spotlight is still working correctly with no further crashes.

This solved it for me. Looks like there may be an issue with Safari Version 12.0 (12606.2.11)