[andreas_g4]

It is constantly working on my hard drive and eating cpu. It started right after I cloned the internal hd to an external via ccc. CPU usage ist now at 70 - 100 %.

Mac mini 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, 10.4.2, USB 2.0 200 GB HD.

[ManOfSteal]

Spotlight is indexing?

[chris v]

Originally Posted by ManOfSteal

Spotlight is indexing?

Yes.

[SMacTech]

Add your external cloned drive to your SpotLight Privacy locations so it will not be indexed, unless you want it to be.

[Kvasir]

Originally Posted by SMacTech

Add your external cloned drive to your SpotLight Privacy locations so it will not be indexed, unless you want it to be.

The problem I've had with that idea is that every time I log out (ie. each night) and the drive(s) are unmounted, then re-mounted when I log back in, is the privacy settings are reset/ignored, and spotlight starts up again (indexing an external drive I do no want indexed).

[ShotgunEd]

Set spotlight to ignore the external drive and it should stop indexing.

[andreas_g4]

The Spotlight menu was the first place I looked, and it was not indexing. At least it doesn't show it as usual. I assumed it was Spotlight, too. But since it didn't show up... Strange. Thx anyways.

[Fonzie]

Check your HD for errors with the OS X install dvd. I bet something is wrong with your HD. I'm not sure though.

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

Set spotlight to ignore the external drive and it should stop indexing.

You know Kvasir is correct, I added an external drive to SpotLight's privacy tab and it seems to get ignored. Then opening the privacy tab at some time later reveals the external drive is no longer there. It wasn't like this before 10.4.2, at least for me.

This happens with folders on external drives too, not just the entire drive.

[ShotgunEd]

Possibly 10.4.2 has a bug with external drives and the privacy tab, maybe when the drive is unmounted, it is removed from the privacy tab.

I don't have an external drive hooked up to my iBook with tiger installed on it so i can't check, i do have a 2nd partition however, I'll add it to the privacy tab when i get home and then unmount it, and see if it is still in the privacy tab.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

Possibly 10.4.2 has a bug with external drives and the privacy tab, maybe when the drive is unmounted, it is removed from the privacy tab.

I think this is the expected behavior. I believe that the privacy information is stored on the volume itself so that if you take the volume to another computer that computer knows about the private folders and doesn't index them.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Kvasir

The problem I've had with that idea is that every time I log out (ie. each night) and the drive(s) are unmounted, then re-mounted when I log back in, is the privacy settings are reset/ignored, and spotlight starts up again (indexing an external drive I do no want indexed).

Try this

sudo mdutil -i off "/Volumes/Backup Drive"

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html

-t

[SMacTech]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I think this is the expected behavior. I believe that the privacy information is stored on the volume itself so that if you take the volume to another computer that computer knows about the private folders and doesn't index them.

I never have taken my drives offline for the problem to occur. I have had 14 days of uptime, unless the problem occurs when the Mac goes to sleep.

[ShotgunEd]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I think this is the expected behavior. I believe that the privacy information is stored on the volume itself so that if you take the volume to another computer that computer knows about the private folders and doesn't index them.

Ok I added my second partition (called Swap) to the privacy tab, closed the prefs, re-opened the prefpane to check it was added correctly, and quit again. I then unmounted the disk by dragging to the eject icon in the dock. I re-opened spotlight prefs to see the disk had gone from the privacy pane. I mounted the disk using Disk Utility and this caused it to re-appear on the desktop AND the privacy pane.

So the bug i had reckoned existed doesn't, and the problem in the OP is not down to unmounting a disk.

[Kvasir]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Try this

sudo mdutil -i off "/Volumes/Backup Drive"

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html

-t

I tried this, but it made no difference. Looking at the notes in the link, it seems some of my .Spotlight-V100 files are not being written correctly, at least when I read them from terminal, the .plist files don't look like they contain the info they should (for whatever reason - heavy electrons?).

I think the next thing I'll try is simply "rm'ing" the .Spotlight-V100 directories off my boot drive, and both partitions on my external drive (Hitachi 250GB in a Pyro Firewire 800 enclosure). Reboot, with the external drive unplugged and let Spotlight re-index the boot drive. Then plug in the external, add it's two partitions to the privacy list and see what that does (Spotlight built it's original databases back when I first upgraded to Tiger, so we'll see what rebuilding all that under 10.4.2 does).

[Chuckit]

Odd. What info should they contain that they don't?

[Kvasir]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Odd. What info should they contain that they don't?

Sorry, I've been talking about my work setup (DP 2.5GHz G5) and I'm at home now, so can't post anything meaningfull until tomorrow.

Basically, I have a boot 250GB drive (in the G5), and an external 250GB drive in the enclosure, both with two partitions (and both HFS+ with journaling - ie. defaults).

Three of my volumes did not have some of the files mentioned in the link. And my boot volume had no _IndexPolicy.plist file. On the external drive, the files that were there were blank - nothing in the .plist strings. And the boot volume _exclusions.plist was also blank - no entries. and there wasn't even a _rules.plist file, even though I have entries in the privacy sys. prefs. Also, the store.db file seemed incredible small, given the content of the boot drive (about 90GB of data - and at least 65GB of that to be indexed, based on privacy settings, yet store.db was only about 1.5GB). The same files on my powerbook (mine, not work) do have string entries that reflect my settings in Spotlight Sys. Prefs, so I'm going by that comparison.

I'll try the re-indexing build tomorrow morning - originally I just did an upgrade from 10.3.9 to 10.4.0, so maybe something went fluey with that first spotlight run??

[ShotgunEd]

Yeah, i'm very apprehensive of upgrade installs. I always recommend backuping and erasing and installing. I've had far fewer problems when i have done it this way.

[Kvasir]

Well, blowing away the previous .Spotlight-V100 directories and letting Spotlight start fresh from scratch seems to have done the trick. All of the volumes in the Privacy list now both have _exclusions.plist files (only one of the three did before). Also the db files on my boot volume are much larger.

Unmounting and remounting now preserves the Privacy settings, so I guess Spotlight just had trouble the first time it ran after installing Tiger.

P.S. I just upgraded both my powerbook and work machine, and this was the only significant issue (other than some XCode issues - it clearly is better to uninstall the Panther Developer's tools and do a clean install of XCode2). Of course, both had been cloned prior to that - I always jump with a reserve chute

[chris v]

I had similar experiences with upgrading, now that I think back. In general, it also seems that Spotlight has trouble with partitions still. I had to un-index, then re-index everything on my G5 a couple times. (two drives, two partitions each)