Spotlight in Snow Leopard won't stop indexing [Archive]

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tec2030

Oct 27, 2009, 09:13 PM

I've had Snow Leopard since the day it came out. And I installed it that same day. Since then Spotlight is constantly indexing and will not stop. I noticed about a week after installation when I went to use stoplight and it wouldn't let me because it was indexing. Now fast forward to today I still haven't fixed this problem because I never really needed to use it. So no I have the need, and I need to fix this problem. Can anyone help?

BTW I'm using a 13" aluminum Mac Book bought around June '09 the model right before the current 13" aluminum Mac Book Pro's

celticpride678

Oct 27, 2009, 09:17 PM

Enable Hidden Files and Folders (Run this command in Terminal.app: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES). Then, go to Macintosh HD (or similar) and find the folder that is called ".Spotlight-V10'". Trash this file, restart and see if that fixes the issue.

Removing this folder completely erases the Spotlight index and Spotlight will obviously re-index once to re-create the index.

tec2030

Oct 28, 2009, 11:40 AM

I put that command line into Terminal but what is the exact pathway to the Spotlight file? How can I even find without spotlight itself lol. Sorry, I'm new to mac, the last one I owned was about 17 years ago :P

celticpride678

Oct 29, 2009, 07:09 PM

davepar

Oct 29, 2009, 09:07 PM

Assuming you know something about the terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) you can try:

disable spotlight indexing on /

sudo mdutil -i off /

erase spotlight index on /

sudo mdutil -E /

show status of spotlight indexing

sudo mdutil -s -a

enable spotlight indexing of /

sudo mdutil -i on /

There's a bit of a quirk with spotlight in 10.6 compared to previous versions that may be affecting you. See:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=106703
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6126_102-0.html?threadID=366184