Spotlight failure, depends on file location

I can't figure out how to solve this one. Spotlight can't find a certain document in my Documents folder, but when I move it to the Desktop, it finds it. What I've found is that files and folders I had on my old Mac are largely the ones I can't find (things I migrated over when I got my MacBook Pro in June 2009). Older documents I can't find, but new documents I put in the same folder I AM able to find.

Now, I've tried all the basic tricks already: rebuilt the Spotlight index, cleaned caches, repaired permissions, reset PRAM, rebuilt directory with DiskWarrior, rebuilt com.apple.spotlight.plist, etc. No folders are excluded from my search, and every search kind is enabled. I THINK the problem has something to do with permissions. Many of my old folders from my old Mac say "You have custom access" instead of "You can read and write" in the Get Info window under Sharing and Permissions. I've found forums which deal with changing these conditions, but not to solve my specific problem, namely fixing Spotlight. I don't want to mess around in Terminal if I don't know exactly what I'm doing. I'm running 10.6.2. Thanks in advance.

mysterytramp said:

How many folders are we talking about? Because if it's not too many, the easy thing might be to just create new folders, move the files into the new ones and trash the old ones.

mt

EDIT: Try duplicating one folder and seeing if Spotlight finds the documents inside. If it works, just duplicate your Documents folder, and delete the old one. (Assuming you have enough free space on your hard drive; might take a while, but it could solve the problem.)

Click to expand...

I can't believe that worked! Thanks, mysterytramp - now I realize you're not selling any alibis! I only tried it with one small folder, but I'll now see if it works for the entire Documents folder.

Mysterytramp- Well, it sort of worked. I was unable to duplicate the entire Documents folder, or even SOME nested folders to get Spotlight to find my files - I had to dig down pretty deep. I can't figure out what the pattern is. Does anyone know what the underlying problem is so I can fix it in one fell swoop rather than folder by folder? Thanks.

ViViDboarder said:

I'd try to do the permissions. You just need to chown everything to your user. Find a good tutorial on that. It may have a bigger impact than you think.

Click to expand...

OK, I think I was able to successfully use the folder copying trick with a chmod command in Terminal. By using chmod to get rid of ACLs, I got rid of the "you have custom access" and got back "you can read and write" for various folders. After doing this, I was able to copy the folder (and replace the original) and find the file. By copying the folder I was able to get ownership of all the files (as some of the files were not owned by me). Thanks, everyone, but I'd still like to know how something this annoying happens.