[jstrauss]

Hey all,

The Spotlight icon keeps flashing and my desktop keeps flashing every couple seconds, like it's changing the refresh rate. I've already tried re-indexing with the CLI command [I]sudo mdutil -E /[I], but it keeps flashing and no other icons on that menu bar will load (Airport, Bluetooth, Battery Indicator, Clock, etc.). Is there anything I can do to get this to stop happening? My last resort is re-imaging the machine, but I don't want to go that route.

Thanks for your help in advance!

[CatOne]

Strange about the desktop flashing. I have *never* seen that while Spotlight is indexing, so perhaps Spotlight isn't the problem.

If you want to isolate, you can easily turn Spotlight COMPLETELY off.

Just edit /etc/hostconfig

And change the spotlight line to:

SPOTLIGHT=-NO-

And reboot. See if the issue goes away. Once you've isolated, just revert that to

SPOTLIGHT=-YES-

And reboot again. The index will be rebuilt.

You need to edit that file with root access, due to permissions. Since you are familiar with mdutil I figure you can handle this ;-)

[jstrauss]

CatOne,

Thank you for your reply. Your suggestion didn't solve the issue, but I learned how to turn Spotlight off from it! What's interesting is that the Spotlight icon doesn't flash as Administrator, but as any other unprivileged user it flashes (and the desktop, as before). Basically, Administrator works fine, any unprivileged user has this Spotlight issue.

Any more suggestions you may have? I'm going to be reimaging the machine tomorrow, but the more knowledge I can soak up about the Mac the better.

Thanks again!