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MacBook Spotlight taking forever to index

AppleFanatic10

AppleFanatic10

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 2, 2010
2,809
297
Hawthorne, CA
Hi,

I booted up my macbook and it's taking forever to index, its hasn't taken this long before, what could be the problem? Thanks.
UFJlX.png
 
Last edited:
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
thegreati said:
I am sorry that is so upsetting to you. I hope you can find a way to move on.
Click to expand...
It's not upsetting, but if you want to contribute something helpful, it's a good idea to actually read the threads that you post in.
 
P

pmau

macrumors 68000
Nov 9, 2010
1,569
854
It might be

that you have installed third-party spotlight plugins, i.e. from Microsoft Office.

All plugins are trying to index files they might know about.

If one of these plugins is badly written, they crash and the indexing will start again and loop.

There are a few command line tools you could use to check wether this is the case:

a) List available plugins on your system

mdimport -L

b) Show the status of the indexing process:

mdutil -s -a -v

c) force clean rebuild of the index (after you posted the output of above commands)

mdutil -a -E

d) Check /var/log/system.log

you might look into that file to check for message of spotlight, or mds the importing daemon.
 
N

NorthDakota91

macrumors member
Sep 3, 2011
86
0
Italy
I think that 80 minutes to rebuild a Spotlight index on a normally used machine is quite normal (mine took about 2 hours after a full Time Machine restore) so I don't see the problem

As GGJstudios said, the indexing is surely finished by now, unless the OP post something else about it
 
N

nkk1987

macrumors newbie
Apr 26, 2011
8
1
Israel
what about if it takes months?

Hi,

It's been a while since anyone been responding to this thread, but I'm desperate and can't find anywhere else any solution..

My spotlight says it will take about 12 months to index. I'm sure that it's not normal.

Anyone has any idea?

Thanks,
Nir
 
M

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
nkk1987 said:
My spotlight says it will take about 12 months to index. I'm sure that it's not normal.
Click to expand...

First off take a screen shot and post, we always need funny materials.

Severe connection with the NSA's database?

But seriously (if this is a serious post) run a diskutil diagnostic see if it helps.
 
N

nkk1987

macrumors newbie
Apr 26, 2011
8
1
Israel
Mrbobb said:
First off take a screen shot and post, we always need funny materials.
Click to expand...

got ya :) it's attached.

Why did you think that it's not a serious post?

and what should i do with the diskutil diagnostic tool? i'm kinda new for mac systems..

thanks
 

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nkk1987

macrumors newbie
Apr 26, 2011
8
1
Israel
are you serious? i do have a problem and it seems like no one takes it seriously. what's wrong?

anyway, it's 500G
 
F

fosterius

macrumors newbie
Apr 29, 2008
4
0
I'm having the same problem

I tried to reset the index by adding the hard drive to the privacy list and then removing it. It's been running all night (no sleep, just screen saver). Computer is an iMac with a 1TB HD running OS X 10.7.5.
 

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fosterius

macrumors newbie
Apr 29, 2008
4
0
mrsir2009 said:
Is it impacting performance?
Click to expand...

Nope. I'm not convinced it's doing anything. mdworker is showing in the activity monitor but not creating any sort of demand for resources that I can notice.
 

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P

Philippe Carino

macrumors newbie
Mar 17, 2013
3
0
I'm also having the same symptoms

fosterius said:
I tried to reset the index by adding the hard drive to the privacy list and then removing it. It's been running all night (no sleep, just screen saver). Computer is an iMac with a 1TB HD running OS X 10.7.5.
Click to expand...
------
Hi there.

I think I have similar symptoms: each time I turn on my MBP, Spotlight starts running and after several minutes (half an hour) says it will need several days / weeks to complete the indexing.
I bought this MBP 2 years ago and always worked fine before installing 10.7.5.
--
My Mac OSX version is 10.7.5.
My MBP: Processor 2.53 Ghz Interl Core i5 / Memory = 8Go - 1067mHZ - DDR3.
--
I have found many forums about a bug in version 10.7.5. with the same symptoms.

Unfortunately, no solution has been found so far.

I was hoping that installing Lion Mountain would solve this issue but after reading other forums it gives me evidence it does not.

Does somebody have a solution to fix this issue?

Thanks in advance for your kind help.

Cheers,

Philippe
---
 
seveej

seveej

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2009
827
51
Helsinki, Finland
Philippe Carino said:
I have found many forums about a bug in version 10.7.5. with the same symptoms.

Unfortunately, no solution has been found so far.

---
Click to expand...

Yeah,

It's a well documented quirck/bug in 10.7.5 that spotlight may take ages to finish. I had it too (my ETA was 22 years at its worst).
It's seemingly sporadic (does not affect all users) so apple has yet to post a real fix (I guess even they don't know how come).

Anyway, the fix which has helped many users (myself included) is quite simple: open system preferences->spotlight
Add your disk(s) onto spotlight's privacy list (the list of places it does not index)
Close system preferences.
Open spotlight preferences and take your disk(s) off the privacy list
Close preferences.
Once this is done, spotlight should create a new index in "normal" time and spotlight should be back in order.

Hope this helps,

RGDS,
 
P

Philippe Carino

macrumors newbie
Mar 17, 2013
3
0
seveej said:
Yeah,

It's a well documented quirck/bug in 10.7.5 that spotlight may take ages to finish. I had it too (my ETA was 22 years at its worst).
It's seemingly sporadic (does not affect all users) so apple has yet to post a real fix (I guess even they don't know how come).

Anyway, the fix which has helped many users (myself included) is quite simple: open system preferences->spotlight
Add your disk(s) onto spotlight's privacy list (the list of places it does not index)
Close system preferences.
Open spotlight preferences and take your disk(s) off the privacy list
Close preferences.
Once this is done, spotlight should create a new index in "normal" time and spotlight should be back in order.

Hope this helps,

RGDS,
Click to expand...
Thanks for your kindness.

I have just done it.

Kindly find hereafter what Spotlight has been displaying since I have done it:

--
1- Spotlight displays 6 days left at 12:50pm (Pacific time)
2- Spotlight displays 7 days left at 12:52pm (Pacific time)
3- Spotlight displays 8 days left at 12:57pm (Pacific time)
4- Spotlight displays 10 days left at 13:05pm (Pacific time)
--

I think this one will take quite a long time.

I will let it finish and keep you posted when it is completed.

Thanks in advance for your kind patience.

Cheers,

Philippe
 
W

w3rdn3rd

macrumors newbie
Feb 5, 2014
1
0
So 10 hours indexing time is normal?

I should just wait it out? Leave my Mac on all night?
 

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