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Spotlight Trouble

mrgreen4242

mrgreen4242

macrumors 601
Original poster
I started having this problem (I think) when I updated to 10.4.9. My issue is that the "main spotlight" interface doesn't work - that is, when I press cmd-space and type in a search I get nothing - not even a "no results" message.

Spotlight works, however, if I access it from a finder window. So, the index is there and the search IS working, but not from all the search locations. I've tried rebuilding permissions, but to no avail. Any tips?

Thanks!
 
I've had this problem before: You press apple+space and the icon highlights blue, but nothing pops-down? I'm not sure if that's what you have. Either way, did you restart? That's what fixed my spotlight problem.
 
Try rebuilding your spotlight index.

open up system prefs->spotlight
add your entire hard drive to the privacy list and then remove it
That will force spotlight to reindex your files.

You could also try deleting the spotlight .plist file and see if that helps.
 
psychofreak said:
What about pressing the icon in the top left?
Click to expand...
I assume you mean the top right? The top left is the Apple menu, top right is the spotlight icon, which is the same as command-space. 🙂
psycoswimmer said:
I've had this problem before: You press apple+space and the icon highlights blue, but nothing pops-down? I'm not sure if that's what you have. Either way, did you restart? That's what fixed my spotlight problem.
Click to expand...
I THINK so, but I'll try that gain... so un-used to rebooting this thing. 😛
swiftaw said:
Try rebuilding your spotlight index.

open up system prefs->spotlight
add your entire hard drive to the privacy list and then remove it
That will force spotlight to reindex your files.

You could also try deleting the spotlight .plist file and see if that helps.
Click to expand...

That was my last ditch plan... the index seems OK, since it searches via the finder interface OK, but who knows. I just didn't want to have to wait for it. 😛 I'll do that if a reboot doesn't take care of it.

Well, here goes! Thanks for your help...
 
I am having the same the spotlight problem, it just highlights blue when i press cmd+space, its really annoying because i use it all of the time..

What was the ACTUAL solution? delete the plist file? disk repair? i am curious i dont wanna do something to mess up my macbook...

Thanks everyone, this is frustrating but we all go through it eventually right...


Star
 
Sorry I didn't get back to the thread faster... rebooted and it made things worse! 😛 Spotlight stopped working at all after that. So, I then added it to the Privacy list and took it out, but that didn't do anything. Then I went to bed and work kept me off my computer for a week or two (or however long it's been). Got back to it today, and figured I'd try the add/remove private list one more time before I got medieval on OSX...

Left it on the list for a few minutes this time; closed the Preferences dialog and started a transfer in TiVoDecodeManager then went back and took it out of the list. Seems to be working now, I'll now in 2 or 3 hours. I think that the index got corupt, but maybe Finder keeps its own cache of the index or something so it wasn't until the reboot that the Finder search stopped working.

Thanks to everyone for their help! If I don't post back here in 2 or 3 hours saying it still doesn't work then the add/remove to the privacy list (and leaving it there for a couple minutes in between) worked for me.
 
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