Spotlight indexes, but will not launch anything.

[jaypee68]

I'm running ML 10.8.3 on my 24" aluminum iMac (2008) and have run into a problem with Spotlight that I cannot figure out.

Spotlight will index just fine, and gives me results in all categories when I do a search just like it's supposed to. Whenever I try to launch any of the search results, nothing happens, absolutely nothing.

As an example...

I click the Spotlight icon in the menubar, type in "Automator" as my query, get my results in categories like Top Hit, Applications, Documents, Folders, Messages, etc...

When I click on any of these items, nothing happens. Apps won't launch, documents won't open, "Show All In Finder" does nothing, Folders won't open.

I've deleted and re indexed the Spotlight index several times but that doesn't help. I've also repaired permissions, done daily weekly and monthly maintenance, cleaned caches, rebuilt launch services, etc...

I've done all that I can think of but still have this issue.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a solution to get Spotlight to work like it used to?

 

[jaypee68]

Anyone?

 

[jaypee68]

Nobody but me has this problem?

 

[mrapplegate]

I'm not sure it will help, but have you deleted com.apple.spotlight.plist in
~/Library/Preferences

 

[w0lf]

Have you tried creating a new user/guest and seeing if it works on another account?

 

[jaypee68]

Have you tried creating a new user/guest and seeing if it works on another account?

No but I will definitely try it. Thx for the tip.

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I'm not sure it will help, but have you deleted com.apple.spotlight.plist in
~/Library/Preferences

No, but I will try this as well. Thx for the tip.

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I'm not sure it will help, but have you deleted com.apple.spotlight.plist in
~/Library/Preferences

Unfortunately, this did not work. :-/

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Have you tried creating a new user/guest and seeing if it works on another account?

This worked. I created a new basic user account, and Spotlight works flawlessly. For instance I can type Automator into spotlight, it finds it, and lets me launch it, it even worked on a folder as well.

So I wonder why it will work on one account and not the other? What can I delete/reset to get Spotlight to function properly under my normal account?

 

[w0lf]

So I wonder why it will work on one account and not the other? What can I delete/reset to get Spotlight to function properly under my normal account?

It's hard to say, you could just migrate all your stuff to a new account.

The fact that it was fixed with a new account would imply that it is something in your ~/ folder on your normal account messing things up. Problem is I have no idea what that might be.