So I hadnt gone into documents for a few days but then I needed some dnd books in documents, I scroll over the documents icon on the dock but its empty. I go into finder but its also empty. However if I search a filename I know to be in the documents folder I can see and open in in either spotlight or alfred. But if I try and open its enclosing folder, a subfolder in documents, it loads for a second then kicks me out of it and back into my documents which is still empty. OS 10.6.8 MacBook Pro. Does anyone know how I would start to troubleshoot this?
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Documents Folder Empty, but not
- Thread starter BeardRaptus
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Try re-indexing your drive: If that fails to index, enter the following command in Terminal:
sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/your drive name"
I tried both of them and got nowhere. What is the exact terminal command for the second suggestion? I tried it but i would like to be sure I tried your idea properly. It does say "unexpected indexing state"
I posted the exact command. Just replace "your drive name" with the name of the drive you want to reindex. In Finder, click "Go" > "Go to folder" and enter /Volumes to see a list of the currently mounted volumes.
Example: If your drive name is "Macintosh HD", the command would be:
sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
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When you find the files in spotlight, select the option at the top of the spotlight menu "Show All in Finder"
This will open a finder window showing your spotlight search results. Highlighting each file will show you it's location in the Path Bar at the bottom of the window. Is the location actually your Documents folder?
This will open a finder window showing your spotlight search results. Highlighting each file will show you it's location in the Path Bar at the bottom of the window. Is the location actually your Documents folder?
Just enter the command below in Terminal and that will reindex Spotlight, although I doubt that is your problem.
Code:
sudo mdutil -E /Click the desktop to bring focus to Finder then hit shift-command-g and a box will pop up. Paste the line below into the box and hit enter. That will bring up a Finder window with your documents folder. Do you see the files then?
Code:
~/DocumentsNope, brings up the folder but it looks empty still. The folder size is 0kb but the files are still there
Are you sure that you didn't move the files to another folder. Show all your spotlight results in finder then look at the path bar to see where the files are actually located.
my path for a given file looks like this accountname/documents/pdf 3_5 books/cityscape. Opening cityscape works, but opening pdf 3.5 kicks me back to documents. Where: /Users/accountname/Documents/pdf 3_5 books
When you say "empty but still there", do you mean when the ~/Documents folder comes up from that command there is nothing at all in the folder? But you can still see the files in Alfred/Spotlight?
If so, it sounds like you have moved the files to another folder. Bring up a document in Spotlight then hit command-i. This will bring up an info window and at the top it will show what folder the file is stored in. What does that show you?
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When you say this, are you clicking pdf 3_5 on the right side of Finder... or are you using a shortcut you previously dragged into the left sidebar of Finder?
If you look at the Documents folder is Terminal does it show your stuff.
In terminal, type cd ~/Documents/
Then type LS
Do you see your files?
In terminal, type cd ~/Documents/
Then type LS
Do you see your files?
Hmmm... that's a puzzler.
Do you have your Snow Leopard installer DVD? Do a C key boot to the disk then run Disk Utility and do a repair disk and see if that finds any errors. (Go ahead and repair permissions while you are there, although I don't think that is this issue).
navigating to documents in terminal then listing contents shows no results. I will try the repair function when I get home.
That won't work. Terminal paths with a space require an escape character such as the backslash after Macintosh in the command below.
Code:
sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Or just reindex all attached volumes with this command.
Code:
sudo mdutil -E /
Not if you enclose the path in quotes as GGJStudios did.
sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
Hmm...
Run the command below in Terminal. This will put a files.txt document on your desktop showing all files in your Documents folder with them sorted beneath each subfolder. Look that over and compare to what you are seeing in Spotlight/Alfred for a few examples to see if you notice a common theme with the missing files.
Code:
ls -RF ~/Documents > ~/Desktop/files.txtIt seems you don't have a Documents folder at all beneath your home folder. Enter the command below in Terminal to show all folders in your user account and see if Documents is shown there at all? This should show Desktop, Documents, Downloads etc.
Code:
ls ~Can you think of anything you may have done recently that removed the Documents folder?
Documents is listed by that command. I havent changed much recently, I did a bunch of work on my mac a few weeks ago but after it all folders worked fine. I did clone my mac, format the drive then clone back. Thats only only thing i have done to affect the folder.
Are you sure you ran the below command correctly from my previous post? Be sure to copy/paste it into Terminal from here. Since the ls ~ command shows Documents is present, the below command will list the contents of Documents and all subfolders inside.
Code:
ls -RF ~/Documents > ~/Desktop/files.txt
Copy and paste the following command line into a Terminal window:
Code:
ls -leaO ~ ; idWhen i use
Code:
ls -RF ~/Documents > ~/Desktop/files.txt
i get out
ls: .lo#ali:ed: No such file or directory
ls -leaO ~ ; id
returns
total 2000
drwxr-xr-x+ 49 kevinstow-parker staff - 1666 Jun 18 02:04 .
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin - 170 Jul 3 2010 ..
-rw------- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 3 Jul 3 2010 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rw-r--r--@ 1 kevinstow-parker staff hidden 24580 Jul 10 20:05 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 4433 Apr 23 2012 .Rapp.history
drwx------ 25 kevinstow-parker staff - 850 Jul 4 01:51 .Trash
-rw------- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 191 Jan 22 17:30 .Xauthority
drwxr-xr-x 4 kevinstow-parker staff - 136 Mar 31 2011 .adobe
-rw------- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 9921 Jul 10 11:25 .bash_history
drwxr-xr-x 5 kevinstow-parker staff - 170 Jul 21 2011 .config
drwx------ 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Jul 6 2010 .cups
drwx------ 18 kevinstow-parker staff - 612 Jul 10 16:34 .dropbox
drwxr-xr-x 22 kevinstow-parker staff - 748 May 10 2011 .dvdcss
drwxr-xr-x@ 267 kevinstow-parker staff - 9078 Aug 5 2012 .explorer.cache
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Aug 5 2012 .explorer.local
drwxr-xr-x 36 kevinstow-parker staff - 1224 Jan 22 17:18 .fontconfig
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 782243 Jun 4 23:29 .fonts.cache-1
drwxr-xr-x 5 kevinstow-parker staff - 170 Jul 25 2010 .freecol
drwx------ 7 kevinstow-parker staff - 238 Jan 28 2011 .hamachi
drwxr-xr-x 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Jul 21 2011 .local
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 267 May 28 2012 .mailcap
drwxr-xr-x 13 kevinstow-parker staff - 442 Dec 1 2012 .maptool
drwxr-xr-x 4 kevinstow-parker staff - 136 Jan 19 2012 .matlab
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 378 Jun 4 23:31 .mime.types
drwxr-xr-x 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Jan 21 2011 .mono
drwxr-xr-x 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Jun 8 2011 .mplayer
drwxrwxrwx 3 kevinstow-parker staff - 102 Jan 17 2011 .nchsoftware
drwxr-xr-x 2 kevinstow-parker staff - 68 Sep 5 2010 .numptyphysics
drwxr-xr-x 9 kevinstow-parker staff - 306 Sep 15 2010 .privgold100
-rw-r--r-- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 785 Jan 27 2011 .recently-used
-rw------- 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 745 Oct 13 2010 .recently-used.xbel
drwx------ 8 kevinstow-parker staff - 272 Apr 13 2011 .tor
drwxr-xr-x 15 kevinstow-parker staff - 510 Jun 6 19:14 .vegastrike-0.5.0
drwxr-xr-x 2 kevinstow-parker staff - 68 Feb 27 2011 .wapi
-r--r--r--@ 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 32 Feb 12 2011 .ypp_42
drwxr-xr-x 7 kevinstow-parker staff - 238 May 28 2012 Applications
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 kevinstow-parker staff - 204 Jul 9 10:44 Applications (Parallels)
drwx------+ 36 kevinstow-parker staff - 1224 Jul 10 20:48 Desktop
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 22 kevinstow-parker staff - 748 Jul 6 10:46 Documents
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 43 kevinstow-parker staff - 1462 Jul 8 11:51 Downloads
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 55 kevinstow-parker staff - 1870 Jul 1 13:53 Library
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 4 kevinstow-parker staff - 136 Jun 3 21:19 Movies
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 46 kevinstow-parker staff - 1564 Jun 24 03:11 Music
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwx------+ 36 kevinstow-parker staff - 1224 Jul 4 01:51 Pictures
0: group:everyone deny delete
-rw-r--r--@ 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 71056 Apr 12 2011 Procedure For Determining Convergence.pdf
drwxr-xr-x+ 6 kevinstow-parker staff - 204 Jun 3 21:20 Public
0: group:everyone deny delete
drwxr-xr-x+ 6 kevinstow-parker staff - 204 Jun 3 21:20 Sites
0: group:everyone deny delete
-rw-r--r--@ 1 kevinstow-parker staff - 93564 Apr 12 2011 Tests of Convergence.pdf
drwxr-xr-x@ 2 kevinstow-parker staff - 68 Jun 18 02:04 iMacros
uid=501(kevinstow-parker) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),204(_developer),100(_lpoperator),98(_lpadmin),81(_appserveradm),80(admin),79(_appserverusr),61(localaccounts),12(everyone),401(com.apple.access_screensharing),402(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1)
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