Spotlight won't result any of my Folders or Documents, Did FireVault Cause This?

[HappyDude20]

I've just turned on FireVault today so fear it might be the cause but, i'm not sure.

Well, I use Spotlight religiously on a daily, hourly, maybe minute basis. I have a ton of organized folders under my Documents and when I search for any of those folders in spotlight no results are yielded. Not even if the whole folder is typed out, or even just partial. I tried typing in many different folder names I have but nothing.

Then I tried typing in spotlight the names of Pages files, Excel Files, Word, etc...you name it. But nothing.

I still get results sometimes but odd ones. I've included a photo to explain what I mean...

...But, if FireVault causing this? If so it would suck to have to choose between ease of use and security on my Mac.

..If not, then what is?

Oh, and yes I checked the Spotlight Sys Pref. Pane. I've got Documents and Folders checked to appear.

 

[angelwatt]

I have FileVault enabled and Spotlight works OK for me. I only have it show applications personally though. It's possible Spotlight needs to re-index the files after FileVault. Here's an Apple discussion thread on how to reset the Spotlight index.

Essentially, from Terminal,

sudo mdutil -E /

and give your password when it ask for it.

If that doesn't work you can try deleting the Spotlight preference file (~/Library/Prefferences/com.apple.spotlight.plist). Then try the above command again.

 

[HappyDude20]

I have FileVault enabled and Spotlight works OK for me. I only have it show applications personally though. It's possible Spotlight needs to re-index the files after FileVault. Here's an Apple discussion thread on how to reset the Spotlight index.

Essentially, from Terminal,

sudo mdutil -E /

and give your password when it ask for it.

If that doesn't work you can try deleting the Spotlight preference file (~/Library/Prefferences/com.apple.spotlight.plist). Then try the above command again.

Thanks for the tip, a few hours too late though.

I decrypted my HD when I turned off FireVault last night.

All my spotlight searches were recognizable right away. Turns out FireVault did cause this, and i'm sure the problem would've been fixed if I re-indexed...oh well. I'm sure if I turn on FireVault again i'll come back to this advice.

Thanks still!

 

[Mal]

BTW, for future reference, it's FileVault, and it didn't directly cause it, but it probably brought to light another issue with Spotlight. That said, FileVault is not only overkill for almost anyone who's not storing confidential business or government information on their machine, and has been known to cause conflicts with some programs fairly regularly, so I wouldn't recommend using it unless there's a specific need.

jW