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iOS 16 Spotlight Search Lag / Slow Bug

R

ravenofdoom

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 14, 2008
53
80
This has been posted in a number of places within Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/veccj0

https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/xg6vhr

https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/wd1x8x


I’ve disabled all spotlight search options, factory reset from iTunes backup, etc. nothing solves this issue possibly except from a complete wipe and install without data (a 12 hour reinstall process and losing all app data). I alluded to this in another post about iOS 16 continually asking for appleID password (another bug).

Wondering if you all have been getting this similar 5+ second lag in spotlight search after installing ios16. The issue doesn’t happen in the App Library but only in Spotlight. It also has been identified in prior iOS 16 beta releases and has intermittently been resolved by some users but not by others. Many are reporting it still in ios16 public release.
 
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Same here. (I'm the author of the middle link you posted above)

So annoying. iPhoneXS 512GB (I know, old phone but I never had this happen before, and I read that people with iPhone 13 Pro Max's are also experiencing this, so...)

I'm scared to try 16.1 beta. Wish I could roll back to 15.6, which tbh worked great.
 
Yeah, I’m on an iPhone 12 Pro exhibiting the problem. My wife’s iPhone 13 Pro had no issues, but there are others with 13’s , 12, etc. citing the issue, so there seems to be no association with any specified hardware mode. I suspect it’s some specific app or apps that have not been updated and have some code in the parameters for spotlight search indexing that is throwing the OS for a consistent loop — either breaking or slowing down the indexed results. The fact that apple engineers haven’t been able to figure out what specific code is causing this since the first iOS 16 public beta in July is troubling, given the volume of users citing this problem.
 
ravenofdoom said:
I suspect it’s some specific app or apps that have not been updated and have some code in the parameters for spotlight search indexing that is throwing the OS for a consistent loop — either breaking or slowing down the indexed results.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing but I wasn't keen on deleting each of my 150+ apps one by one to find out who the culprit was.

I was wondering if there was a way to connect the phone to Xcode Profiler or something to enable some debug logging, I figured something might be shown there. Anyone know if that's possible??

edit: nvm, I google'd and apparently this is possible: https://deciphertools.com/blog/iphone-debug-log-console-apple-configurator/ will give this a try ASAP
 
Significant development. Get this — I reset all settings (not data / apps) and went to spotlight … lightning fast.

I then proceeded to go into Siri/Search settings and for almost every app (like 140/150 apps) uncheck “show content in search” (because I hate the advertising of most apps in spotlight)… and then spotlight became turtle slow again!

I then went back and re-enabled every one of those 150 apps to re-check “show content in search” … and spotlight went back to lightning fast.

I had always had most apps unchecked to “show content in search” before I reset all settings, so that made me think to tomorrow restore from the backup I made before I reset all settings … and then try re-enabling “show content in search” for every app.

Will report back tomorrow on the results.

I can’t explain why having apps Disabled to show content in search would slow down spotlight — this is completely counter intuitive. But I’m willing to bet for those of you who reset settings, the reason it restored spotlight speed is simply because doing that has the effect of toggling on this setting for every app.
 
ravenofdoom said:
Significant development... go into Siri/Search settings and for almost every app ...uncheck “show content in search” … and then spotlight became turtle slow again!
Click to expand...

That's really strange. I just tried it myself for a few apps, toggling off only the "Show Content in Search" slider, and my spotlight did not slow down. So maybe there's still more to this- a specific app or group of apps maybe. Ugh this is a maddening bug.
 
Interesting. I literally shut off every search option for every app (yes it took awhile). Rebooted and enabled search for a single Apple app (wallet) and it still took 10+ seconds for it to pull up and only if I searched on the whole word. Partials would not return a result. So, I’m not sure the above will work for everyone.
 
ravenofdoom said:
Significant development. Get this — I reset all settings (not data / apps) and went to spotlight … lightning fast.

I then proceeded to go into Siri/Search settings and for almost every app (like 140/150 apps) uncheck “show content in search” (because I hate the advertising of most apps in spotlight)… and then spotlight became turtle slow again!

I then went back and re-enabled every one of those 150 apps to re-check “show content in search” … and spotlight went back to lightning fast.

I had always had most apps unchecked to “show content in search” before I reset all settings, so that made me think to tomorrow restore from the backup I made before I reset all settings … and then try re-enabling “show content in search” for every app.

Will report back tomorrow on the results.

I can’t explain why having apps Disabled to show content in search would slow down spotlight — this is completely counter intuitive. But I’m willing to bet for those of you who reset settings, the reason it restored spotlight speed is simply because doing that has the effect of toggling on this setting for every app.
Click to expand...
I was thinking this may be near the heart of the problem as I too had (for the most part) content search disabled for most apps because if I want to search content in an app, I’ll go to that app 😬 it is definitely counter intuitive to think having these disabled would cause the slowdown since it increases the query dataset 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Well, after spending way too much time on this, I just did a settings reset and all is working as expected now. It’s a pain but at least I don’t have to fuss with it anymore.
 
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Do I assume it isn't fixed on ios16.1 DB1?

What do you lose if you Reset All Settings? Is it also all your Apple Pay cards? What else? I'm finding inconsistent information on it.
 
Mainly general settings like display brightness, etc. The biggest pain outside of Apple Pay cards is the loss of Bluetooth connections and Wi-Fi passwords where the latter will also remove from all devices if you’re using Apple keychain. Also signs you out of iCloud and iMessages.
 
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ScubaCinci said:
Mainly general settings like display brightness, etc. The biggest pain outside of Apple Pay cards is the loss of Bluetooth connections and Wi-Fi passwords where the latter will also remove from all devices if you’re using Apple keychain. Also signs you out of iCloud and iMessages.
Click to expand...
Do you have to set up the Apple Watch again?
 
ravenofdoom said:
Significant development. Get this — I reset all settings (not data / apps) and went to spotlight … lightning fast.

I then proceeded to go into Siri/Search settings and for almost every app (like 140/150 apps) uncheck “show content in search” (because I hate the advertising of most apps in spotlight)… and then spotlight became turtle slow again!

I then went back and re-enabled every one of those 150 apps to re-check “show content in search” … and spotlight went back to lightning fast.

I had always had most apps unchecked to “show content in search” before I reset all settings, so that made me think to tomorrow restore from the backup I made before I reset all settings … and then try re-enabling “show content in search” for every app.

Will report back tomorrow on the results.

I can’t explain why having apps Disabled to show content in search would slow down spotlight — this is completely counter intuitive. But I’m willing to bet for those of you who reset settings, the reason it restored spotlight speed is simply because doing that has the effect of toggling on this setting for every app.
Click to expand...
I am not sure why or how but I unchecked one of my apps "show content in search" and rechecked it soon after. It made my spotlight search go from slow to fast. Maybe it forced the apps to reindex?
 
lummyjg said:
I am not sure why or how but I unchecked one of my apps "show content in search" and rechecked it soon after. It made my spotlight search go from slow to fast. Maybe it forced the apps to reindex?
Click to expand...

lummyjg, thank you very much. I just tried the same thing and it worked for me. I'd previously tried resetting my home screen, and ended up spending way too much time reorganizing all my apps again.
 
Been having this issue for a good while.

but resetting all settings would not be an option for me.

Anyone know if there’s a fix for this in the 16.1 beta?
 
Just did the reset all settings on my iPad and it instantly sped up everything.

Now it feels brand new. Wow!

I have to do it now for my iPhone even though it’s a major hassle
 
Man, I cannot thank you guys enough for this fix.

I was about to replace my iPad, thinking it was ram or SoC being too slow.
 
Oddly enough, the SE 2 I have hanging around as a kid device has no spotlight slowness at all. But my personal 13 mini is horribly slow on each search. Both devices on lates 16 point release.
 
I’m still having the issue. 16.1. I am NOT going to reset my settings nor am I going to turn on a feature I don’t want on. Apple needs to fix this.
 
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