Search not working

[wnavarrobr]

So I usually open apps and documents using alfred however it isn't working anymore, and spotlight as wello spotlight. As an example, I saved a file as music.xlsx on my desktop when I type "music" it only finds the definition and on my notes (on spotlight, alfred doesn't return anything, suggesting google search) . If I use the search on a finder window it doensn't retrieve any result.

Already tried rebuilding spotlight indexing through system preferences and terminal, It seemed to worked for a while but not more than a couple days. Today I tried reinstalling Mojave, it finished indexing and still doesn't find files.

 

When I tried "Rebuilding Mac OS data" and "Deleting .Spotlight-v100 " on alfred settings I received the message "+ rm: /.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted" on Terminal.

 

Any suggestions?

 

[deanishe]

On 2/10/2019 at 4:39 PM, wnavarrobr said:

I received the message "+ rm: /.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted"

 

That almost certainly means you're not an administrator and you need to run the command as an administrator, i.e. sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100 in Terminal.

 

It's possible that this is also the reason you can't find anything: perhaps you also don't have the rights to read the index, either.

[wnavarrobr]

On 2/11/2019 at 1:47 PM, deanishe said:

 

That almost certainly means you're not an administrator and you need to run the command as an administrator, i.e. sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100 in Terminal.

 

It's possible that this is also the reason you can't find anything: perhaps you also don't have the rights to read the index, either.

 

Weird 'cause I'm the only user and i'm set as administrator.

But I don't know how could I retrieve access to read the index.

[deanishe]

15 hours ago, wnavarrobr said:

Weird 'cause I'm the only user and i'm set as administrator.

 

A macOS administrator, but not the UNIX root user, who the directory belongs to.

You can do Mac-y stuff as just an administrator (you're using system services, not accessing the files directly), but you generally can't rm -rf a directory that belongs to root without sudo.

 

15 hours ago, wnavarrobr said:

But I don't know how could I retrieve access to read the index.

 

You don't need to read the index directly, only use system services that do. All the same, the indices occasionally get corrupted in various ways, and sometimes you need the sudo rm -rf ... nuclear option.

Edited February 17, 2019 by deanishe