Spotlight Indexing of iPhoto Library Not Working

[Kelmon]

Hi Guys,

For a while now I've been feeling as though my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro wasn't all that it could be. Often the chief indicator of this would be Spotlight searches that were dog-slow. Last weekend I ran a Spotlight search from the root directory of my start up disk and after 30-mins it still had yet to return a result; killing the search resulted in Finder restarting which I also took to be a "bad sign". Given all this I decided to completely reinstall my system and, wow, did that make a difference. One of the best things about this reinstall has been that Spotlight has finally become fast but I am noting a problem...

My Spotlight problem is that while it appears to have indexed my drive and continues to index when new files are added, it does not seem to have indexed my iPhoto library at all. Part of the reason why I bothered to note that I have reinstalled is that my iPhoto Library used to be shared across multiple user accounts on my laptop and therefore had been located in the /Users/Shared and made accessible via Account Control List (ACL) permissions. However, now that my wife has her own PowerBook this form of sharing was no longer necessary so while reinstalling data I moved the iPhoto Library back into my own Pictures folders for my account and performed Repair Disk Permissions.

While iPhoto seems quite happy with my library of photos Spotlight doesn't seem to be the slightest bit interested in them. So far I have tried resetting the Spotlight Index (both via the Spotlight preferences and Terminal) so that my drive is re-indexed and importing my pictures into a new iPhoto library. None of these solutions have so far worked and I'm getting a little frustrated.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can force Spotlight to re-index my iPhoto library? Also, could this issue be caused by a permissions problem and, if so, does anyone know what the correct permissions are?

 

[mad jew]

Try adding and removing just your Pictures folder to/from the Privacy pane of Spotlight's Preferences. Also, what sort of reinstall did you do? Is Spotlight the only thing playing up?

 

[Kelmon]

One of my initial attempts at getting Spotlight to index my iPhoto Library was to add my entire hard drive to the Privacy section of the Spotlight Preferences. Unfortunately, this didn't work so I then tried resetting the Spotlight index itself via Onyx, again without success.

The reinstall was precisely that. Backed up my document and media folders but nothing else and reinstalled OS X after formatting the disk (including zeroing the disk). Document folders were copied into my new account when OS X was reinstalled and Spotlight has indexed them completely without trouble. In fact, I have had no issues at all since the reinstall beyond Logitech's duff mouse drivers and the Spotlight issue with iPhoto. This is a considerable shame since Spotlight now runs like a greased weasel...

So in summary I have so far tried the following:

1. Repaired disk permissions
2. Added start-up disk to the Privacy Spotlight Preferences
3. Reset the Spotlight index
4. Created a new iPhoto Library and imported my pictures (along with their comments and meta-data) from my old library

The last action took ages and still didn't result in a success. I have no idea why Spotlight is treating my iPhoto Library like some sort of leper. Due to the use of ACL for setting the permissions for sharing to multiple user accounts I do wonder whether its a permissions issue that can be checked.

 

[mad jew]

I can't find the thread but there was a similar problem last week whereby someone reindexed their whole drive, and it didn't work. Reindexing their Pictures folder did work though... I have no idea why because the full system reindex should have done the trick.

 

[Kelmon]

Sorry for the delay in replying but I obviously messed up my subscription to this thread and didn't see your reply, mad jew. Anyway, while the re-indexing of my hard drive didn't resolve the problem the suggestion of re-indexing only the Pictures directory did indeed do the trick. Very strange how lesser indexing does the job...

Now I just wish that Spotlight would show the titles of photos from my iPhoto Library rather than the actual file name in the search results. I can only hope that Leopard or iLife 07 sorts this out.

 

[mad jew]

Weird, I'm gonna look into this. It's the third time I've seen a Pictures folder reindex work where a full drive reindex didn't. Thanks for posting back mate.

 

[benoda]

resolution

Sorry for the delay in replying but I obviously messed up my subscription to this thread and didn't see your reply, mad jew. Anyway, while the re-indexing of my hard drive didn't resolve the problem the suggestion of re-indexing only the Pictures directory did indeed do the trick. Very strange how lesser indexing does the job...

Now I just wish that Spotlight would show the titles of photos from my iPhoto Library rather than the actual file name in the search results. I can only hope that Leopard or iLife 07 sorts this out.

Did you ever resolve this issue? I just upgraded to Leopard and have my iphoto library in the /users/shared directory yet spotlight won't index it!