Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

"Find" function not working

Nov 13, 2007 12:45AM PST

The last few days, when I tried to find something on my hard drive or one of its folders, I found that though the little "wheel" turned around, that's all it did (on and on, and it never finished or found anything). That is true, whether I just enter a term in the search window or press Command-F.

Does it sound as though something is broken? I have to do a reinstall of Tiger? (Yikes, I hope not! I'd have to update to 10.4.10 from what's on my installation disks, which won't allow me to do anything but reinstall everything.) I did check the computer with Disk Utility and ran Disk Warrior before trying again.

By the way, I can search in any other software: Office, Firefox and so on, and I get results, just fine. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

jenny

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Find
Nov 15, 2007 1:30AM PST

Try using Spotlight, top right hand corner of the Menu Bar, and see if that will find things for you.

It is very fast, or should be, and much more flexible than the regular Command + F method.

P

- Collapse -
having the same problem
Dec 2, 2007 10:01AM PST

Hi, I've been having the same problem the past few days. And spotlight doesn't work either. Have you found a solution yet?

- Collapse -
(NT) My guess is upgrade to 4.11 or Leopard.
Dec 2, 2007 11:47AM PST
- Collapse -
No "Find" or Spotlight searching - just the spinning wheel
Jan 1, 2008 3:31AM PST

I'm running tiger 10.4.11 on a flatscreen G4 imac with 768mB of ram and have now find or spotlight search capability after upgrading from panther.

Can't get my HP PhotoSmart 7960 to work now either - but that i hope is a separate issue!

- Collapse -
Try repairing Permissions
Jan 1, 2008 6:38AM PST

and let us know what happens

P

- Collapse -
Fix permissions and see what else happens
Jan 1, 2008 7:49AM PST

I never put 4.11 on mine, but I've seen one G4 iMac that does have it and it runs. These iMacs aren't too quick under Leopard or Tiger but they should work nevertheless.
The printer may or may not be caused by the same problem as the Spotlight issue. I'm betting it's just the printer connection. Check permissions, check the printer connection, and see if that does something.

-BMF

- Collapse -
"Find" , spotlight and printer issues resolved on G$ running
Jan 2, 2008 12:11AM PST

I tried a multitude of suggested fixes(both here on CNET and on MacFixit) but none seemed to work. I then did an archive) and install(someone on MacFixit suggested this) using my 10.4.6 OS X disc. Voila! I now had Find and Spotlight working and my HP printer worked again. I then did a series of software updates to get me back to 10.4.11, up-to-date Java, security, etc. (it's what I have running on the G5 in my recording studio and I wanted both machines on the same OS). Everything is now working as it should.

Thanks for the suggestions - it helped me get on the right track to fixing my problems!

- Collapse -
Archive and Install
Jan 2, 2008 1:40AM PST

would be the next step after having gone through all the others.

The A & I is a little drastic for a first suggestion.

This is why we asked you to tell us what happened after our suggestions.

glad you have the problem sort out now

P

- Collapse -
Do you repair permissions frequently ?
Dec 3, 2007 6:17AM PST

Does that activity work, or does it bring up the same problems over and over ?