Still "Indexing Volumes" in Spotlight

[Mork]

I have had my iMac for months now. However, recently, it's started displaying the blinking dot inside Spotlight.

When I hover over it, all it says (!!!) is "Indexing Volumes".

No useful information about "what volume", why it's taking so long (7 hours so far), etc..

If I click the hour glass, spotlight works as always.

Does anyone have any ideas what's going on here or what I might try to "fix" this problem.

Currently, I'm doing the (Windows) reboot method to clear this "Indexing Volumes", but it comes back.

Should I let the machine run overnight?

Anyone experienced this issue?

Thanks in advance.

-- M

 

[psxguru]

Yeah just let it run, it all depends how much stuff you've got on your drives (internal and external). Don't forget it indexes contents of some files as well as the filenames, if you have a lot of pdfs for example it will scan the content.

 

[Mork]

Yeah just let it run, it all depends how much stuff you've got on your drives (internal and external). Don't forget it indexes contents of some files as well as the filenames, if you have a lot of pdfs for example it will scan the content.

Thanks!

So, it could run overnight or even longer?

- M

 

[psxguru]

It all depends how many and what kind of files you have on there.

If you know for certain you have certain folders where you have lots of files, you can go into system preferences | spotlight | privacy and exclude those folders from being indexed to speed things up, then include them later on.

Maybe check your log files for possible errors cropping up (use the console app in the utilities folder)?

 

[Mork]

It all depends how many and what kind of files you have on there.

If you know for certain you have certain folders where you have lots of files, you can go into system preferences | spotlight | privacy and exclude those folders from being indexed to speed things up, then include them later on.

Maybe check your log files for possible errors cropping up (use the console app in the utilities folder)?

Nothing jumps out in the log files (there's so much crap in those logs).

However, if I reboot the iMac, then the "problem" (?) goes away for a while.

Not sure if that means anything, but I was thinking there was something I was doing (like starting VM Fusion, for example) that got the mac upset. I've since added the Virtual Machines folder to Spotlight's privacy tab, but that didn't fix anything...

Thanks.

-- M

 

[Mork]

Nothing jumps out in the log files (there's so much crap in those logs).

However, if I reboot the iMac, then the "problem" (?) goes away for a while.

Not sure if that means anything, but I was thinking there was something I was doing (like starting VM Fusion, for example) that got the mac upset. I've since added the Virtual Machines folder to Spotlight's privacy tab, but that didn't fix anything...

Thanks.

-- M

I think I may have found the problem....

If you insert a USB memory stick into the iMac it starts to Index it. Say that USB stick has a few GB of data. Then, you Eject the USB stick, but the Mac keeps indexing. It basically won't stop.

I think this is either a bug or other problem.

The Spotlight screen is now totally hung after I ejected the memory stick from the machine.

I've now added that Memory stick to the spotlight privacy tab as a test. Hopefully, this was the problem.

-- M