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i can't seem to be able to search for files on my mounted NAS drives

mrgreeneyes

mrgreeneyes

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
844
54
Gatineau,Canada
i have a synology NAS, and i have several folders that i have mounted on my desktop as AFP,
and if i click on one of the mounted fodlers and in the finder window do a search for a file it can't find anything.

share.cleanshot.com

CleanShot 2022-09-01 at 11.28.15

Screenshot uploaded to CleanShot Cloud
share.cleanshot.com share.cleanshot.com

i made sure to have any indexing done on my NAS.

any ideas?
 
Same. It's not in Spotlight’s index, so it just doesn‘t bother to show anything. Really annoying. I end up using Terminal, which is hardly a user-friendly method!
Bash: 
find /Volumes/media -name "spider-man"
 
PS You’ll get a neater screenshot with the built-in tools. Either:
  • Make the Finder window visible, open Preview and go to File > Take Screenshot > From Window, then click on the Finder window.
  • Make the Finder window visible, open Screenshot and choose the option to take a screenshot of a window, then click on the Finder window.
  • Press Cmd-Shift-4, then Spacebar, and click on the Finder window.
 
Works for me although I am likely using SMB. Is there a reason you are using AFP rather than SMB since it has been deprecated?

Screen Shot 2022-09-01 at 3.28.17 PM.png


What version of DSM are you running?

Screen Shot 2022-09-01 at 3.33.20 PM.png
 
jamietshaw said:
PS You’ll get a neater screenshot with the built-in tools. Either:
  • Make the Finder window visible, open Preview and go to File > Take Screenshot > From Window, then click on the Finder window.
  • Make the Finder window visible, open Screenshot and choose the option to take a screenshot of a window, then click on the Finder window.
  • Press Cmd-Shift-4, then Spacebar, and click on the Finder window.
Click to expand...
i prefer using my method but thanks for the tip.
 
Spotlight can search the NAS, but it is extremely slow as there is no index for it to work with. If you're in the directory with the file you're looking for, it will come up fairly quickly. If, however, you start at another level or the root of you share, be prepared to wait a while for search results.

If you are on DSM 7, you can enable Universal Search and it will index the drive and it will work with Spotlight in Finder to locate files on the NAS very quickly. Here is a video that shows you how to set up Universal Search.

 
BanditoB said:
Spotlight can search the NAS, but it is extremely slow as there is no index for it to work with. If you're in the directory with the file you're looking for, it will come up fairly quickly. If, however, you start at another level or the root of you share, be prepared to wait a while for search results.

If you are on DSM 7, you can enable Universal Search and it will index the drive and it will work with Spotlight in Finder to locate files on the NAS very quickly. Here is a video that shows you how to set up Universal Search.

Click to expand...
i have universal search set up, and it still doesnt find anything when i am searching for something.
 
mrgreeneyes said:
i have universal search set up, and it still doesnt find anything when i am searching for something.
Click to expand...
In my experience, Spotlight will often miss things. EasyFind will show anything you search for, and if set up correctly, it will show the path to the target file(s) at the bottom of the search window. Clicking on the enclosing folder will give you immediate access to search target. This app can be set up in many ways, to include even hidden files. Highly recommended.
EasyFindExample.jpg
 
davidlv said:
In my experience, Spotlight will often miss things. EasyFind will show anything you search for, and if set up correctly, it will show the path to the target file(s) at the bottom of the search window. Clicking on the enclosing folder will give you immediate access to search target. This app can be set up in many ways, to include even hidden files. Highly recommended.View attachment 2050097
Click to expand...
how do you have it show the path at the bottom? i dont see an option to have that shown.
 
Hi, sorry I can't help you with suggestions how to fix it but there must be something in your setup that is causing this to occur. I have a NAS connected via SMB (its WD, not synology) and I can search for files on it via finder in the same manner as any other location.
 
mrgreeneyes said:
if i uncheck AFP, then some of my shared folders don't appear if i try to mount them as SMB
Click to expand...

The next thing to try would be to un-share the folder and re-share with AFP disabled. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to unshare a folder without deleting it.

Copying a small existing shared folder to a different folder and sharing it was my next thought. Unfortunately the same thing happens - sharing a folder creates a new folder.

Evidently you can't separate sharing from creating/deleting the folder.

The only option to test things seems to be to create a new shared folder without AFP then copy the content into the new folder to see if the new folder works with only SMB enabled.
 
I am in a similar boat. My searches are extremely slow if I mount the drive with smb, but very fast with AFP. Spotlight search does not work at all when I use SMB. This is on a brand new M2 MacBook pro. I have had AFP turned off on my synology nas as long as I can remember. I only turned it on because I saw this thread.
 
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