[Enigmatik]

Hey guys. Right for some reason my spotlight has stopped working. I know most of you will probably say its a crap tool anyway and should be replaced by some fan-dangled searching tool, but its part of Mac OS and I like it to quickly find apps and stuff like that. Anything I have tried, will work for one reboot, then when i reboot again, it falls on its arse.

So, what I have tried to get it working?

I tried adding the system drive to Privary list, then removing it, rebooting, which forced Mac OS to re-index.

I tried deleting the com.apple.spotlight file in /Users/My User Name/Library/Preferences, again forcing Spotlight to re-index the drive.

I have tried booting into single user mode and using the fsck -fy command.

I have tried using disk utility to fix permissions.

I have used YSAU to clear the cache and all that stuff.

I have used MacPilot to delete the Spotlight store thing and cause it re-index.

None of the above have solved my solution. I have googled and searched everything I can think of - all the above solutions were suggested on various forums - and now im at a loss as to what is causing it. Trashing MacOS is not really an option as a) there must be a fix and b) reports of people having the same issue who trashed everything report it did not solve their problem.

Ideas people?!

[ism]

Try this:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...50424201429961

Check through the comments for some of the command line options (sudo mdutil -E /). I had to do this recently on a cloned drive. It turned out spotlight was turned off, I had to turn it back on and then force the index to be rebuilt

[Enigmatik]

Im trying the command now but to be fair it just seems like another method of re-indexing the drive, which I have done several times now and it doesnt work.

Thank you for the input though!

[Enigmatik]

By the way what is weird. If I open a finder window and type something into the search bar in the top right of the window, that files files no problem. Its just spotlight that is being a pain in the ass.

[Enigmatik]

Ok Ive just downloaded and installed the combo 10.4.6 Intel Update file and installed that. Rebooted, Spotlight worked fine. Rebooted again, Spotlight doesn't work!

I don't get it!!!!

[Enigmatik]

Right more info :-

After digging round some more, I have found a solution that makes Spotlight work - but it shouldn't need to be done. But perhaps someone could figure out what is causing it from the solution I found off another forum.

When I boot up and spotlight isn't working, I open Activity Monitor, find a process called "SystemUIServer". I force quit this process, and it causes the menu bar to re-load. After that, Spotlight works fine.

Does that help anyone?