Yesterday Spotlight stopped returning results and sudo mdutil -s /returned Spotlight search is disabled. I tried all the different solutions found via search, but I could not re-enable Spotlight. I finally rebooted the computer, and that seems to fix the issue – Spotlight was indexing and running until I went to sleep. However, overnight, Spotlight is once again disabled. I confirmed this by running sudo mdutil -s / again. I do not know why this is happening.
I’m running macOS Sequoia 15.1
Here are all the different solutions I tried:
sudo mdutil -i on
sudo mdutil -a -i on
sudo mdutil -E
The following commands in tandem:
sudo mdutil -X /System/Volumes/Data
sudo mdutil -X /System/Volumes/Preboot
sudo mdutil -X /Volumes/Macintosh \HD
sudo mdutil -a -Esvp -i on /Volumes
Each one of these returned Spotlight server is disabled
I ran locate .metadata_never_index and it returned
/Library/Apple/System/Library/InstallerSandboxes/.metadata_never_index
/Library/InstallerSandboxes/.metadata_never_index
I also tried running /Library/Apple/System/Library/InstallerSandboxes/.metadata_never_index /Library/InstallerSandboxes/.metadata_never_index but it did not work because of SIP.
Finally, when I go to System Settings and attempt to add a folder in Search Privacy, I get Privacy List Error. The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error.
I’m at a loss at what else to try.
