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JohnCoffee · Jun 8, 2005, 04:25 PM

Copied a folder with 100 Word *.doc files of our NT server network to my Powerbook G4 10.4.1 desktop (into a folder that had been created just before).
I immediately tried to find a certain content on a file I knew that was there. Spotlight didn't show it. So I opened the fiel in word and immediately , spotlight showed the file, but instead of the orginal file a Word temporary doc file (that apparently was a working copy word created on the fly). After closing the file - spotlights window was empty again. So I opened that file again and saved it in word - still spotlight didn't find it after saving.
Now I copied the whole folder - still no signs of finding said file.
Then I did a reindex of my whole HD by adding the HD drive it to spotlights private locations and removing it 5min later (this starts the reindexing again)

Still (after about 1 hr of full re-indexing), the content I want to find isn't shown in Spotlight.

Again - this is a word file named QUO1754.doc and similar - spotlight doesn't work there.

So someone tells me that this is a great search engine. At least the old Finder CMD find worked simple and fast enough for me...why this has been removed is unknown to me...

Thinine · Jun 8, 2005, 05:56 PM

Check and make sure you have all the necessary permissions for the files. If Word isn't opening them correctly, you probably don't have write access to the files. So check that first before you make yourself look any more ridiculous.

SMacTech · Jun 8, 2005, 06:21 PM

The temp word doc was probably local to your drive.

Spotlight doesn't index network volumes.

I can just imagine the traffic generated by 100 Macs on a network indexing the contents of a server.

Even a small LAN can have many GBs worth of changes, additions and deletions to a server. Expecting Spotlight to index that is just a bit too much.

And on my Mac I can still Find files in the Finder without spotlight.

mAxximo · Jun 8, 2005, 06:25 PM

Originally Posted by Thinine

Check and make sure you have all the necessary permissions for the files. If Word isn't opening them correctly, you probably don't have write access to the files. So check that first before you make yourself look any more ridiculous.

The only one looking ridiculous here is you. Like many others before, he has a very valid complaint wrt the Spotlight bugs and the lack of a simple search by name function in the Finder.

mAxximo · Jun 8, 2005, 06:28 PM

Originally Posted by SMacTech

The temp word doc was probably local to your drive.

Spotlight doesn't index network volumes.

He was clear about him copying the folder to his drive and re-indexing his disk to no avail.

And on my Mac I can still Find files in the Finder without spotlight

The “Finder” won't find anything that Spotlight had not indexed before.

Thinine · Jun 8, 2005, 06:32 PM

If you don't have the right permissions on the file, there's nothing Spotlight can do. The fact that Word opened a temp file instead of the real one should have been his first clue that something was wrong.

Another possible fix is to run mdimport on the folder of files from the Terminal manually. I'm betting some errors popup telling you that it doesn't have permission to access the file.

SkaGoat · Jun 8, 2005, 07:05 PM

Actually Word will create a temp file, incase of a crash, it edits the temp file, then when u save, it writes to the actual file. So there is something wrong with Spotlight... not Word.

Thinine · Jun 8, 2005, 07:11 PM

But if it says he's opening the temp file, when it should be opening the actual file, it would indicate a permissions problem with the file.

TheSpaz · Jun 8, 2005, 08:07 PM

Is he using the spotlight MENU or is he using cmd-F in the Finder. I've had problems using the menu and what is also weird to me is that you have to type the exact beginning of a word for it to search. If you were searching for "Racecar.jpg" and you type "acecar" it will NOT find the file. Spotlight is really strange. And there is NO preferences for the way spotlight behaves (only what to NOT search with it).

I wish there was an option to just "Find by Name" instead of looking through an index of files.

TETENAL · Jun 8, 2005, 08:18 PM

In Terminal do the following:

mdls <drag file here>

where <drag file here> means you drag the file that is not indexed into the Terminal window instead of typing any text.

What is the output?

SkaGoat · Jun 8, 2005, 10:34 PM

He didn't say he was, he said it would only find the temp file.

JohnCoffee · Jun 9, 2005, 12:01 AM

Thanks for your comments, especially to mAxximo, TETENAL...

Maybe I should write more clear - sorry when I didn't write clear enough:

I was looking for the name "Robert" and I knew that this name was in the file QUO1754.doc. This files resided my local harddrive of my powerbook (actually in a folder that had been copied from my network onto my desktop a couple of minutes before. The folder finally had 180MB with about 100 *.doc files in it QUO1754.doc was one all these word files)

So search of "Robert" with spotlight didn't show any results. I wondered why. So I opened QUO1754.doc
in Word - it opened fine. Since the spotlight window was still open, I immediately saw a file - but it was temp file since the name was cryptic long with digits etc. When closing the file in word without saving, spotlight window turned blank again.
So I opened QUO1754.doc again and saved it after a small change. Same result - spotlight was empty again.
Then I even duplicated the whole folder with the finder into my home directory, still no search results shown.

I'll try "mdls" in terminal. maybe this help.

Thanks

Thinine · Jun 9, 2005, 01:30 AM

Try mdimport on the files and it should tell you why it can't index them.

ShotgunEd · Jun 9, 2005, 04:47 AM

Originally Posted by Thinine

The fact that Word opened a temp file instead of the real one should have been his first clue that something was wrong.

Im my experience, when you open word a file, Word will create one or more temp files associated with that file. That is what spotlight was finding.

chris v · Jun 9, 2005, 07:42 AM

It is buggy. Different problem encountered just now-- I have a smart folder of all files less than two weeks old. It contained 1600 items when I clicked on it this morning. At the top of the list were 10 icons with an incorrect date, and I wanted to modify the date on them, and accidentally hit shift+command+i trying to get the multiple item info box, but instead got taken to the iDisk folder. when I hit the "back" button in the Finder toolbar to go back to the smart folder, the finder beachballed and has been hung, despite a force relaunch, for about 3 minutes now, with the folder displaying zero items, and the little searching... thingy spinning. On a Dual 2.0. Guess I'll re-start after posting this.