Spotlight Not Indexing Volume

[Harry_The_Bustard 67]

I had a 2TB external volume, connected via Thunderbolt, which was almost full - there being a handful of MB remaining - around eight I think. Somehow the previously-existing (and searchable) index on there was wiped out - the (hidden) folder ".Spotlight-V100" existing but the sub-folder Store-V2 containing nothing - that, I believe, containing the indexes. Quite how this came about I don't know but I'd be surprised if it were simply as I rammed it. (I've also filled my boot volume in recent days whilst rendering a video file - not good as it does all sorts of weird things like resets one's wallpaper and Notifications settings - though not every time as I know from hitting this more than once.) I followed the official advice on fixing this issue but to no avail. After adding the volume to "Privacy" as described in there I manually deleted the parent folder - i.e. ".Spotlight-V100" - and on removing it from "Privacy" the folder re-appeared, with its sub-folders but, again, Store-V2 was empty. Only after making a bit more space available (1 GB) was the index rebuilt - i.e. Store-V2 was populated - and so Spotlight searches worked again. I know space is required for the index though it didn't take up more than was originally free on the drive - i.e. when down to a handful of MB - so maybe it needed more, as workspace, to generate the index. I've suggested Apple improve their help page to cover this requirement.

 

OS X 10.11.1.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Harry_The_Bustard

[johnfoster 47]

Mac OS has always bonked when drives get completely full. you should think that KNOWING this that it would keep aside some space for the file system. hide away free hundred meg just because you never know.