An odd problem that has recurred on two of the installations of Snow Leopard I've had on my 27" iMac is that for some odd reason, using Spotlight will cause a slow system death.
I'll search using either the Spotlight menu or a Finder window. At first it all appears nice and dandy, searching along and finding files. But after a few seconds, the search will stop (even though the spinning activity indicator will say otherwise) and while I can still move my cursor and interact with interface elements, programs start refusing to launch and it won't even allow me to restart. Eventually, all open programs are beachballed and I can't do anything until I force restart the computer.
Doing a fresh install seems to fix this, but it eventually always creeps back. Oddly enough, this disease seems to not have touched my external backup drive's bootable Snow Leopard install - Spotlight works flawlessly on it, finishing each search nice and cleanly.
Has anyone else experienced this? If so, were you able to find a fix?
I'll search using either the Spotlight menu or a Finder window. At first it all appears nice and dandy, searching along and finding files. But after a few seconds, the search will stop (even though the spinning activity indicator will say otherwise) and while I can still move my cursor and interact with interface elements, programs start refusing to launch and it won't even allow me to restart. Eventually, all open programs are beachballed and I can't do anything until I force restart the computer.
Doing a fresh install seems to fix this, but it eventually always creeps back. Oddly enough, this disease seems to not have touched my external backup drive's bootable Snow Leopard install - Spotlight works flawlessly on it, finishing each search nice and cleanly.
Has anyone else experienced this? If so, were you able to find a fix?
Last edited: